Three Musketeers Thursday: Chapter 10
Oct. 26th, 2017 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerLet The Three Musketeers commence! I am actually super enjoying it, partly because my expectations were set helpfully low by all the people who warned me it was awful and/or not as good as The Count of Monte Cristo, and also partly because it is just super well geared to my tastes. THE LOYALTY KINK OH MY GOD.
For instance, for instance. Athos' first appearance is the time that he walks into M. de Treville's office bleeding from a shoulder wound, pale from blood loss, and then keels over in a dead faint - but M. de Treville called him! And when a musketeer is called, he obeys!
And of course the musketeers are all ludicrously loyal to each other, which is also glorious, although it hasn't hit me where I live in quite the same way as Athos' fainting to prove his loyalty. Although I did love the way D'Artagnan befriends the three musketeers: he challenges each one to a duel, one after the other (without realizing they are bffs, of course) - only for the first duel to be interrupted by the Cardinal's spoilsport guards, on account of dueling is technically forbidden. D'Artagnan fights at the musketeers' side, and zing! They're all besties.
Still, I only just finished chapter 10, so there is time. One of them will surely get stabbed at least a little bit in defense of the others.
The version of The Three Musketeers that I'm most familiar with is the 1993 movie with Tim Curry, which I watched until the VHS wore out. I haven't seen it for a while, so my memories are somewhat hazy, but I do remember that the movie sets up the musketeers as the Good Guys much more clearly than the book does. In the book they're all dashing about Paris getting into fights with the cardinal's guards like a bunch of Capulets and Montagues, and one strongly suspects that the good people of Paris would wish a plague on both their houses if they could; whereas the movie kicks off just after the musketeers have been disbanded by the evil Cardinal Richelieu so they can't get in the way of his plan to insidiously destroy the king.
I was also super startled to discover that Constance - D'Artagnan's love interest in the movie - is married in the book. Which will not necessarily keep her from being his love interest! Dumas is French, after all. But if she is - it's funny that a French novel 150 years old was still too scandalous for a faithful American adaptation.
Other things. At the beginning of the book, D'Artagnan's just a hotheaded asshole - cf those three duels, one of which occurs because he ran into Athos's wounded shoulder and couldn't bring himself to apologize, honestly D'Artagnan, were you raised in a born? (He was raised in Gascony. This is, Dumas informs us, what all Gascons are like.)
But he quickly develops a skill for intrigue, and honestly I kind of enjoyed the fact that we got to skip straight over the tiresome part of his character development to things like "then D'Artagnan provided himself an alibi by visiting M. de Treville and setting his clock back half an hour to establish that he had been there when he was totally out saving Constance from the cardinal's ruffians!" Yes, D'Artagnan! I approve!
For instance, for instance. Athos' first appearance is the time that he walks into M. de Treville's office bleeding from a shoulder wound, pale from blood loss, and then keels over in a dead faint - but M. de Treville called him! And when a musketeer is called, he obeys!
And of course the musketeers are all ludicrously loyal to each other, which is also glorious, although it hasn't hit me where I live in quite the same way as Athos' fainting to prove his loyalty. Although I did love the way D'Artagnan befriends the three musketeers: he challenges each one to a duel, one after the other (without realizing they are bffs, of course) - only for the first duel to be interrupted by the Cardinal's spoilsport guards, on account of dueling is technically forbidden. D'Artagnan fights at the musketeers' side, and zing! They're all besties.
Still, I only just finished chapter 10, so there is time. One of them will surely get stabbed at least a little bit in defense of the others.
The version of The Three Musketeers that I'm most familiar with is the 1993 movie with Tim Curry, which I watched until the VHS wore out. I haven't seen it for a while, so my memories are somewhat hazy, but I do remember that the movie sets up the musketeers as the Good Guys much more clearly than the book does. In the book they're all dashing about Paris getting into fights with the cardinal's guards like a bunch of Capulets and Montagues, and one strongly suspects that the good people of Paris would wish a plague on both their houses if they could; whereas the movie kicks off just after the musketeers have been disbanded by the evil Cardinal Richelieu so they can't get in the way of his plan to insidiously destroy the king.
I was also super startled to discover that Constance - D'Artagnan's love interest in the movie - is married in the book. Which will not necessarily keep her from being his love interest! Dumas is French, after all. But if she is - it's funny that a French novel 150 years old was still too scandalous for a faithful American adaptation.
Other things. At the beginning of the book, D'Artagnan's just a hotheaded asshole - cf those three duels, one of which occurs because he ran into Athos's wounded shoulder and couldn't bring himself to apologize, honestly D'Artagnan, were you raised in a born? (He was raised in Gascony. This is, Dumas informs us, what all Gascons are like.)
But he quickly develops a skill for intrigue, and honestly I kind of enjoyed the fact that we got to skip straight over the tiresome part of his character development to things like "then D'Artagnan provided himself an alibi by visiting M. de Treville and setting his clock back half an hour to establish that he had been there when he was totally out saving Constance from the cardinal's ruffians!" Yes, D'Artagnan! I approve!
no subject
Date: 2017-10-27 12:03 pm (UTC)Oh, yes, and not just Paris! Everywhere they go. Look forward to more of it! :-D (I was joking about the 1993 the other day - I haven't even seen it. But one of the things I do like about the Richard Lester films is that they totally get this and there's a constant commentary of aggrieved stallholders etc. running throughout, which is that aspect of it exactly.)
Although I did love the way D'Artagnan befriends the three musketeers: he challenges each one to a duel, one after the other (without realizing they are bffs, of course) - only for the first duel to be interrupted by the Cardinal's spoilsport guards, on account of dueling is technically forbidden. D'Artagnan fights at the musketeers' side, and zing! They're all besties.
It is probably one of the best fictional get togethers. *nods*
ETA: I am actually super enjoying it, partly because my expectations were set helpfully low by all the people who warned me it was awful and/or not as good as The Count of Monte Cristo,
Yay, mission accomplished! It is not quite the ride the Count is, but then I read and adored Three Musketeers aeons ago, and nothing prepared me, nor competes with thart particular revenge train.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-27 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-28 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-06 04:13 am (UTC)Heeee! This is totally my taste in fictional friends too!
But if she is - it's funny that a French novel 150 years old was still too scandalous for a faithful American adaptation.
It is pretty hilarious when you frame it like that!
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Date: 2017-11-06 02:59 pm (UTC)Admittedly her husband is pretty much a nonentity anyway. It can't have been too hard for the filmmakers to get rid of him.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-06 08:41 pm (UTC)