junior allen wrote:


My big summer reading project was the complete Musketeer saga.

- The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas (Oxford World Classics)

Reading it this time through reminded me how good the two movies from the Seventies (Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers) really are. Heston's great and doesn't chew the scenery too much. Oliver Reed's at his best, though he's really a little too tough for Athos, who's kind of a prima donna in the book. Best movie role for Racquel Welch. Faye Dunaway when she was still pretty hot. And Michael York manages not to stink, though he's too faggoty to be a real good D'Artagnan.

-- Twenty Years After, Dumas

I hadn't read any of the others. This was fantastic, probably the best sustained book in the series. Twenty years later they all team back up to try and save the King of England from losing his head. Probably the first instance of the "I think he's dead no wait he's not" bit, which countless adventure writers after him ran into the ground.

-- The Vicomte de Bragelonne

The next three have to be read together to make any sense. This one is good, though kind of aimless. Still has D'Artagnan in fine form, running about and changing English history, and a great sequence where Porthos in a hurry manages to run to death four or five horses. That's because he's so massive, see, being about 5'8'' or 9'' and weighing around 200 pounds. The typical Frenchman of that day was, it seems, 5'3'' or so, and maybe 130. A pathetic little twerp. Sort of like now!

-- Louise de la Valliere

Really slow, Dumas at his worst. He didn't write love stories very well at all, and without a sense of action his pacing went all to hell.

-- The Man in the Iron Mask

This however, was very very fine, though depressing as all hell. Did anyone see the movie? Without giving anything away, it's kind of hard to imagine the adaptations of this book are very faithful to the source material. Contains some absolutely terrific stretches of writing, however -- Aramis's early encounter with the MITIM being only one.