[gmw]

I haven't finished yet. I think I'm about two thirds of the way through (heading off to the siege at La Rochelle).

With d’Artagnan described as "picture to yourself Don Quixote at eighteen" right there in the opening scene, I began to wonder just how far out my expectations were for this story. And I'm still not sure.

So far the ride has been very patchy: parts where I found I was smiling in wry amusement; parts where I winced at what seemed farce; parts where I was struggling to keep my eyes open. At this point my main reaction would be: it's long! It seems impossible that it should have taken 420 pages to get where I am?

I am reading the Richard Pevear translation. Pevear's introduction is also long, and (I thought) similarly patchy. I wish I was reading this in paper rather than ebook form, it would make the notes easier to access. In his introduction Pevear makes this observation:

We think of The Three Musketeers as a novel of action and adventure, of duels, skirmishes, galloping horses, and yet it is nine-tenths dialogue.

But I've read enough now to see that that is misleading: a large amount of the action appears in the form of the characters telling us what they are planning to do or have already done. The result is that parts of the story come over as rather clumsily told - at least by more modern standards.

And I find it strange that the story has this reputation for action - as I noted above, it seems to have taken far too many pages to get to where I am.

I expect it is a modern standards thing again, but I have a lot of trouble finding anything very attractive or appealing about the three musketeers (characters). And d’Artagnan ... well, it seemed to me that his main saving grace (excuse) is being young and over enthusiastic.

One of the more interesting aspects to the story, for me, was the strange contrast between how poorly the women were treated and how strong some of the female characters were portrayed. Of course many of the women were shown as farcically weak, but so were many of the men.


I like that Dumas wove the story into real historical events, but I fear that a lot of this book passes me by because I do not know enough about the context, despite the many informative notes in this edition. I can't help but wonder what readers of the time made of the central characters, it must have been very different to what I see. If I could more readily identify those parts intended to be taken seriously from those that are intended as jokes, it might make it all hang together better.