I read The Count of Monte Cristo about 10 years ago, and I remember really liking it. I also remember it taking me nearly 3 weeks to read, but I’ve always thought it was because it was 1500 pages long. However, The Three Musketeers, which is roughly 1/3 of the the length took me about as long to get through, so maybe it’s the way Dumas writes and not the length of the book?
Because Dumas is a long-winded writer. In one of the Breaking Dawn reviews, someone pointed out that Stephenie Meyer writes lousy sentences but tells good stories. The same could be said for Dumas. The story — convoluted and complex and labyrinthine as it is — is a lot of fun. The actual page-to-page reading…. not so much.
We begin with d’Artagnan (that’s ar-tanyan; I had problems until someone pronounced it for me), a young hot-headed Gascon (I’m sure there’s some significance here, but not knowing 17th century French history, it was lost on me) headed to Paris to become a musketeer. He’s denied his request, but because he’s courageous, willing to get into duels, and a good swordsman he 1) makes friends with three musketeers — Athos, Aramis, and Porthos — and gets a place in the king’s guards. From there things get complicated. D’Artagnan falls in love with his landlord’s wife, gets involved with the queen’s affair (of sorts) with the Duke of Buckingham, chases a mysterious stranger who offended him, gets involved with the pretty evil Lady de Winter, is involved in a “war” (of sorts) with England, doesn’t quite save the day, and ends up getting promoted. In all this, his three friends come along, mostly, for the ride, though Athos plays a more significant role than either of the other two. Trust me, it makes slightly more sense reading it than typing the plot out.
Was it worth it? I’m not sure. On one hand, it’s a classic adventure story that has inspired movies and other novels for a couple hundred years. There must be something there. On the other hand, it’s incredibly dull for long periods of time interspersed with quick — and interesting and fun — bursts of action and plot. I suppose what Dumas really needed was a good, solid editor, someone to say: “Hey, Alexandre, do you really need four sentances to say what could be said in one? Or, do you really need to include Latin poems? Really? And the point of the whole Porthos-Madame Coquenard chapters are?”
Either that, or I just need to find a good, solid abridged version. At who knows: ten years down the line, I may be telling people that I absolutely LOVED The Three Musketeers, even though it took me three weeks to read.
The Book Nut 
I really enjoyed this book, even though I generally agree with your assessment of the pace. I think I really appreciated the effort after I read some literary criticism that pointed out Dumas’s subversion of the romance in the book. You might want to check out the < HREF="http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/3musk/summary.html" REL="nofollow">Spark Notes<> on it.
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You know I have a very similar relationship with Cervante’s <>Don Quixote<>. I’ve read it twice now and while I think it’s a marvelous tale, the actual reading of the book continues to be a lot of drudgery and daydreaming.
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Jessica — thanks for the link! I read this for my in-person book group, and that’s going to be incredibly helpful with the discussion. Bookchronicle — I have yet to get all the way through Don Quixote… I admire you for slogging through. š
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Thank you for your review. This is a book I’ve considered reading, but as I don’t even have a copy (at least, I don’t think I do), I clearly wasn’t dedicated to the idea. I won’t feel bad about leaving this at the bottom of the tbr list.
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Maybe someday I’ll try this. My husband loves the IDEA of the Three Musketeers (based on all movie versions and the stories his dad told him as a child) but neither of us have ever read it š
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I loved it! And guess what’s waiting on my shelf to read some day? The sequel called “Twenty Years After”. And it’s big. But I know I’ll love it too because I love Dumas’ style, long-winded or not.
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Latin poems? Is there a translation. I don’t know the Three Musketeers story well, do you know where it originated? Was Dumas the first author of this story, or is it older than that? (sorry so many questions!)
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Jeane — okay, I lied. The poems were in French. I skimmed that section (it was about Aramis and his wanting to be a priest), so I just assumed the italicized foreign language was Latin. My bad. It’s an original Dumas story, written in 1843-44, but it’s set in the 1620s. As far as I know, there really were musketeers guarding Louis XIII, but I may be wrong there, too.
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I love love the Count of Monte Cristo and thought The Three Muskateers was enjoyable. I liked Man in the Iron Mask more though. But I totally agree that he could have used a good editor once in a while. Actually that goes for a lot of classic literature. I mean, I loved Jane Eyre but sometimes I just wanted it to get to the point. Great review!
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I don’t expect you to *trust* me on this one. Not enough to reread it anyway. But the problem is the translation. The Richard Pevear translation is the best (2006). The very very best. It made this book be unputdownable for me. I read it in April I think as part of the Herding Cats challenge. Apparently, the problem goes way way back to the first English translation. They didn’t translate it well, and they censored it.
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Becky beat me to it. I was going to say that the Richard Pevear translation is the only way to go with this book. It’s fabulous.
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You’ve gotten me curious enough, Becky and Suzi, that I put a hold on it at the library. I probably won’t read the whole thing again, but I’ll at least give it a look-see. (And pass on the recommendation to my book group!)
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