A Certain Slant of Light

It's been a dispiriting week so I'm behind in The Three Musketeers, but I can at least report that the characters have been suffering a week even more dispiriting than mine. D'Artagnan is dispirited because Milady is trying to kill him! Milady is dispirited because her stupid assassins just keep failing! The musketeers themselves are downcast because, as a result of their efforts to help d'Artagnan, they too are now in Milady's crosshairs.

We have not seen Anne d'Autriche or Constance Bonacieux for quite a few chapters, but Queen Anne is still married to Louis XIII and Constance is hidden away in a convent to save her from Milady's vengeance so I think we can take it as read that they are suffering too. They are my favorites and I hope we will get more chapters about them (and by that I mean that I hope we get another scene where Constance flings herself to her knees to swear allegiance to Queen Anne, I HAVE SIMPLE NEEDS), but sadly I think it will be some time before they show up again. WOE.

Also, I've got to say. For the most part I am really into Athos's "strong and silent noble lord who is fleeing from his opulent yet dark past, yet cannot fully conceal his innate superiority, and also has suffered so much that he's just totally zen about death because after everything else that happens to him that's small potatoes" -

But goddamn is he an asshole to his lackey. Let the poor man speak, Athos! And for God's sake don't drag him into a picnic in an abandoned bastion in the middle of a battlefield! (The musketeers are picnicking in this unlikely place so they can discuss their future plans without eavesdroppers.) I guess probably it's beneath a musketeer's dignity to carry his own picnic basket - but dude, try it just this once.

The queen let out a piercing cry on seeing herself caught, for in her agitation she did not at first recognize the young woman who had been given her by La Porte.

"Oh, don't be afraid of anything, Madame!" said the young woman, pressing her hands together and weeping at the queen's distress herself. "I am Your Majesty's, body and soul, and far as I am from her, inferior as my position is, I believe I have found a way to save Your Majesty from grief."

"You? Oh, heavens! You?" cried the queen. "But come, look me in the face. I'm betrayed on all sides; can I trust you?"

"Oh, Madame!" cried the young woman, falling to her knees, "upon my soul, I am ready to die for Your Majesty!"

THANK YOU, DUMAS. THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER WANTED. The loyalty! In the midst of betrayal! Falling to one's knees and pledging to die for your liege lord! And with girls, which is all that I want in life and something that I hardly ever get.

I may end up taking this back once we meet the Countess de Winter (...I can't quite see yet how to work a Rebecca crossover, but REST ASSURED it is on my mind), but so far in both The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo I have really appreciated how much Dumas simply treats women as people. They get to drama llama just as much as his men, and he hasn't done any finger-wagging at either Anne of Austria or Constance Bonacieux (the young woman in the above quotation) who have both gotten entangled in extramarital affairs - but they're both married to total jerks anyway so Dumas is like, eh, so it goes.

( Spoilers through Chapter 23 )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel blew my tiny mind, which seems to be the inevitable result of reading any Daphne du Maurier book, although admittedly the only other book in my sample set is Rebecca.

My Cousin Rachel is in some ways quite like Rebecca: it centers on the woman in the title, who is beautiful and mysterious and threatening in a vague way that might just be a result of the narrator’s paranoid obsession with her - or might be very real.

But this time the woman is alive, and the narrator is a man - and actually gets a name! He’s Philip Ashley, a young man who was raised by his reclusive and misogynistic cousin Ambrose, and therefore knows very, very little about women. He is shocked Ambrose - far away in Italy for his health - marries their distant cousin, Rachel. He is even more appalled when Rachel arrives at the estate after Ambrose’s death - especially given that he has reason to believe that Rachel may have engineered that death...

I don’t want to spoil the book so I won’t go into more detail, but I highly, highly recommend it if you liked Rebecca - or simply gothic novels (of the non-supernatural variety: no giant helmets falling out of the sky here).

What I’m Reading Now

I have begun The Three Musketeers! Which I plan to post about on Thursdays, like I did with The Count of Monte Cristo, so it doesn’t take over the whole Wednesday Reading Meme every week.

A quick sneak preview: I shouldn’t be surprised that this book is all about loyalty kink, but THIS BOOK IS ALL ABOUT LOYALTY KINK. Also Athos is my favorite so far because he is INJURED and STOIC and then he gets injured AGAIN and at one point he faints.

In other reading news, Julie attempted to lend me Abarat. “I really loved the first two books,” she mused. “I never did read the third one…”

At which a maniacal gleam came into my eye. “LET’S READ THE TRILOGY ALOUD TOGETHER,” I said.

Success! We are a few chapters in. Our heroine, Candy Quackenbush (you gotta love these names) has just met a man who has antlers, from which hang little heads, sort of like Christmas tree ornaments, except unlike Christmas tree ornaments these heads like to argue.

What I Plan to Read Next

I really ought to start The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog if I want to finish my October reading challenge (“a book nominated for an award in 2017”) in, well, October. I have developed a sort of mental block on this book because I strongly suspect that it is going to have a Very Important Lesson about the importance of diversity & inclusiveness & not judging people based on race or religion, which is a lesson I agree with, but also one that I have read 5,000 times and I feel like that is enough.

It is entirely possible that I am wrong and the execution will not be as sledgehammer-y as I fear. I should just start reading & see.