Remarks on The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, pere

Cover via Amazon

Last night I finished reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and I was pleasantly surprised by the book.  Like most people, I had seen several adaptations of the book in movie form, so I came to the book with preconceptions and plot ideas.  As is typical, the movies rarely followed the overall plot of the book and just picked and chose ideas and then added their own to them.

I did find a great clip from the 1921 silent version starring Douglas Fairbanks … so for fun here it is:

I believe the most well developed character in this book, far surpassing the protagonists, was Milady.  She also happens to be my favorite character.  Milady was written so well in this book that at times you could imagine her with all of your senses.  For me, she was the character I became the most emotionally attached to.  The fact that in a mostly comedic style swashbuckling adventure you can become emotionally involved in a side character proves to me the writing genius that Alexandre Dumas really had.  Of course you can’t help but enjoy Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and D’artagnan, but for some reason I came out of this book intrigued by the way Milady was written more than any other character.  Here is one of Dumas’ brilliant descriptions of Milady:

As a skillful general, seeing the enemy ready to surrender, marches toward him with a cry of victory, she rose, beautiful as an antique priestess, inspired like a Christian virgin, her arms extended, her throat uncovered, her hair disheveled, holding with one hand her robe modestly drawn over her breast, her look illumined by that fire which had already created such disorder in the veins of the young Puritan, and went toward him, crying out with a vehement air, and in her melodious voice, to which on this occasion she communicated a terrible energy:

As you can see there is something so strong in Dumas’ descriptions of Milady that like the character’s in the book I feel entranced by her.  She is a character that will stay with me for years.

Overall, I had so much fun reading this book that when putting it down I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I couldn’t decide on another book to read because this book was so exciting and amusing.  It is definitely worthwhile to read and I will probably read it again one day.

“I, monseigneur, knowing that dueling is prohibited—I seized a bench, and gave one of those brigands such a blow that I believe his shoulder is broken.” — Porthos, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas