Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
[...] 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.
|
Yes there were times through the first half where I found myself smiling as I was reading, all due to his manner of expression. But in some respects this made it feel all the more discordant to me. I wanted to enjoy myself (I came to this book expecting to enjoy myself), but was sent off balance by the "Don Quixote at eighteen" description and never regained it. It was as if the author could not make up his mind whether this was a farce or a serious story. And I'm not just talking about how the last part was darker, but by the dissonance right through. I wondered if the problem was that he
almost had the ability to pull off a comedy, but not quite. Had it been a well executed comedy there is a lot we might have laughed off as being in the style of a The Three Stooges (although I've never really been a fan of slapstick). But, as it was, the smile on my face had a hesitant, nervous, quality to it, always wondering if the next sentence was another one that was going to make me cringe.