[issybird]

And yet, perversely, I liked the book for the portrayal of Lady de Winter, with her cunning and her refusal to accept the limitations of her position, both in particular and as a woman. She extricated herself from that convent, even from the hangman, and lived a large and powerful life. She was awesome. Events caught up with her, but so they did with Buckingham, as a real-life example. She still did very well by her time, when lives were short and brutish.

Yeah, I know we're supposed to find her evil, but I doubt the modern reader does. I'm reminded of how, in freshman English, I expressed sympathy for Clytemnestra only to be told by the professor that I had "an aberrant response." I suspect the canon allows a more nuanced understanding of those women who were sacrificed to the great male "I am" now.

I also found the prose witty and enjoyable in itself. I suspect a modern translation helped with that. Frequently I had the sense that Dumas was subverting his own story, as when d'Artagnan sold his horse and the beating of Planchet, for two examples already cited. I found that far funnier than the over-the-top antics, which were quite tedious and frequently offensive.