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adam_mcphee 's review for:
The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas
Read this for the first time when I was thirteen or fourteen, and felt great to read it again now, many years later. So many great parts: d'Artagnan's triple dual, the machinations and intrigues of Cardinal Richeliu and Milday, the picnic in the enemy bastion during the siege of La Rochelle.
Also real Adam West Batman vibes re-reading this and realizing it's not the matter of high seriousness I once took it as, but actually it's quite intentionally funny. And also none of the history matters. In fact, I quite liked how all the intrigue constantly boiled down to a love affair or the like, and never had anything to do with the conflict between Catholics and Huguenots (itself an antiquated conflict at the time of publication). A very lib sentiment, I know, but must've been felt refreshing to have something that felt political but had no absolutely no political content in it, especially considering all the proletarian turmoil in France in the 1840s.
One demerit in that Dumas is a bit longwinded at times, never failing to say two or three times something he could say once. Reminds me a little of Dickens, actually, in that with both of them you get the sense they're dragging things out because the work is being serialized.
Also real Adam West Batman vibes re-reading this and realizing it's not the matter of high seriousness I once took it as, but actually it's quite intentionally funny. And also none of the history matters. In fact, I quite liked how all the intrigue constantly boiled down to a love affair or the like, and never had anything to do with the conflict between Catholics and Huguenots (itself an antiquated conflict at the time of publication). A very lib sentiment, I know, but must've been felt refreshing to have something that felt political but had no absolutely no political content in it, especially considering all the proletarian turmoil in France in the 1840s.
One demerit in that Dumas is a bit longwinded at times, never failing to say two or three times something he could say once. Reminds me a little of Dickens, actually, in that with both of them you get the sense they're dragging things out because the work is being serialized.