Good book. I want to start reading the next book but don't have it (it's not free for my Kindle). I do have a problem with d'Artagnan falling in love with a married woman, though. ( )

"Women weep for the dead, men avenge them."

The Three Musketeers. When I first grabbed this book, it was on kindle, so although I could see the page count, it didn't really get to me. The story starts off great. It's interesting and yet silly. I loved all the little quips and the silly moments. (they all sold their horses but kept the saddles!) I chuckled at all the dueling and flirting, the primping and vanity and sped through pages with the adventure of chasing after the one they seek.

But about mid-way, I started loosing interest. The quips weren't as funny, the interesting philosophy was getting old and the woman chasing and dueling for honor was getting annoying. Their fiery spirits were dulling and I was ready for it to be done. The last 200 pages were just a sheer push to finish. I didn't have a vested interest anymore so the end was exciting, only because I was almost done (and even that just seemed to drag out.....How can they keep losing someone this often? catch up only to miss them?)

I'm so glad I'm done. I don't know if I'd want to do a kindle book of this length again. Something to be said for having a physical book to know just how much you've read and how much you have left. ( )

Book 285 - Alexandre Dumas - The Three Musketeers

Written 40 years before ‘Treasure Island’, this is another story I knew parts of…from the swashbuckling movies of the 70s and 80s through to the wonderfully inventive animated children’s series ‘Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds’ …it has been a tale invented and reinvented as late as the BBC TV serial of the same name from 10 years ago.

I was expecting a stuffy novel…a story of dull historical value but little uniqueness…I was so wrong…

Wonderful characters…real characters…characters that leapt off the pages…three dimensional characters…that are larger than life…proper rogues of the right sense…philanderers…jumping from bed to bed as quickly as they draw their swords and at the core a villain so conniving and devious that rarely has any writer cone close to the historical nastiness that is Cardinal Richelieu.

It has laugh out moments…it has punch the air moments as well as moments that would make anyone cringe today…sexist…chauvinistic but very much of its time.

Another genuine classic that has me reaching for the remote control. ( )

Grand story full of swashbuckling and derring-do, with memorable villains and flawed heroes. Dumas style is very readable, although he was paid by the line and perhaps it is too wordy for its own good sometimes.

As I read, I was impressed by how some of the actions of d'Artagnan and company are less that commendable. They are not as perfect as many cinematographic adaptations might make us think. They can be larger than life, they are loyal, brave and generous, but also too eager to kill or be killed for trivial matters of honor, they don't treat their servants that well, they can be vain, superficial and less than honest in certain dealings of the heart. In the beginning I thought that it was because of how long ago the book was written that some of the actions of the protagonists struck me as less than heroic. Later, however, I realized that this moral ambiguity was intended, and the book rose in my estimation because of that.

It has, of course, several moments that are forever engraved in the collective imagination of all who love adventure stories, scenes of enormous melodramatic intensity. ( )

This is not my normal type of book to read, but I found a used a copy of it and figured its one I should know something about. And, its good. At times, over the top with annoying characters who really define the word "fops". However, as an adventure story, its fun. However, read as a satire of the French Culture, it shines. From immediately falling in love with a lady, to immediate sword duels on insult of a horse - the best books are those that can be read on multiple levels. ( )