I’ve loved the Musketeers ever since I first saw the 1973 movie but haven’t gotten around to reading the actual novel until now. I even managed to read The Man in the Iron Mask first, which should have tipped me off more about what to expect. But seeing how that book is described as a darker turn, I was still surprised about how the main characters act in the book.
Namely, they’re a bunch of douchebags.
They get into duels (which is illegal) and then have to fight the guards (who are trying to arrest them for doing something illegal) and maim and kill people without any sort of consequences. At one point Athos gets goaded into telling a dude his true name before a duel, only to tell him that now he has to die and go about killing him. Porthos is leeching off a married woman, Athos became a Musketeer after doing the French equivalent of an honor-killing and they all mistreat their servants. Athos beats his if he speaks to him and they all recommend that Dartagan does the same. They financially take advantage of anyone they can, cause havoc everywhere they go and kill a lot of people super casually.
That being said, I do love them for it.
My friend and I used to describe them in the movie as “Varsity Stars who can get away with everything” but I had chalked a lot of that up to being characters in a Richard Lester movie, not the original novel. It was fun to read about them holding wine cellars hostage, putting in no effort to avoid violence and not realizing that rent was something they had to pay until their landlord informed them. They’re not great people, but they’re great to read.
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Perhaps the book was written for the expected reader at the time, using contemporary stereotypical attitudes and morals.
This kind of behaviour was definitely not normal or even legal in 1844 France when it was written, or, as OP notes, in the actual time period it’s set, either - it’d be like taking a modern action movie to be a guide to behaviour.
I just finished Van Gogh: The Life by Naifeh and Smith and had the same response. Yes, he had major mental problems, but wow, he was REALLY hard on everyone around him.
I disliked their immoral attitudes I quit halfway through the book.
The candy is also awful
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I love three musketeers bars. The flavor is simple and uniform, and the texture is incredible. There’s none of the bullshit you get in other candy bars where there’s several competing flavors/textures, or the distribution(ie of caramel or nuts) isn’t uniform. Barring air pockets(nobody’s perfect) every bite is the same. Feels bad to see them at current price point, though. I understand that candy bars are now standard priced $1.50-$2, but a three musketeers clearly has less going on than a snickers or a milky way.
Have you tried them frozen? Used to get the mini-mini versions and freeze them. The full size bars are too big to manage frozen. Been ages since I’ve had one. I went off sugar some time ago.
I’ve never had them frozen. I don’t think I would like that, because I like the contrast of sensations they way they are. I did used to freeze milky way minis when I was a kid(they were the only thing my mom would buy), because then I would be able to eat the bottom half first and then the top, to enjoy it without mixing the textures.
You made me laugh out loud.
I read this after The Count of Monte Cristo. I was, shall we say, underwhelmed.
Yeah I always thought it was kinda weird people recommended it as a follow up just because it was also Dumas. monte cristo is a complicated, long term revenge plot that unfolds over the entire book. Three musketeers is just these bros doing random shit and getting in fights
Some books are meant to be read at certain age, thus the magic.
The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7194.The_Club_Dumas
He does it well, despite the rating
D’artagnon being the biggest douche of all! Raping countess DeWinter through lying, whining that his daddy only got him a dork ass yellow horse instead of a Bentley. He has immature frat kid written all over him.
No spoilers, but…the second and third books in the series (what gets published as “The Man in the Iron Mask” is something like the last quarter of the third book) play on this a lot.
The second book is called “Twenty Years After” and we see our middle-aged heroes figure out what each of them have grown into in the intervening years, what’s changed and what hasn’t. It’s an enormously underrated book.
That’s something that struck me as well when I read it. “Wow, D’artagnan’s…pretty sure he’d be prosecuted for rape nowadays. Don’t see that in the Mickey Mouse version.”
Like, Dumas’ prose is still wonderful, but I definitely have to put a lot of product of its time filter on when reading.
What surprised me most when reading the books, is how much d’Artagnan is after money. But yes, the musketeers were an unit of privileged and flamboyant men. In a way they remind me of how the hussars were said to be (same thing, womanizing assholes getting into fights, but glamorous).
I think its just the stereotype of any soldier on leave, regardless of their unit. My cousin is in the Marines and he always tells me how wild they get when they’re finally let out on leave.
Indeed! I think the main difference is that the musketeers are all nobility. I forgot if they are also nobility of sword? Meaning that their ancestors earned their privileges through feats in battle (I am not certain at all). I remember another story where a character is not high in the hierarchy, but he is said to have earned the right to ride a horse in a church.
Yeah. That’s the point. Having said that I always wanted to be Porthos when I grew up. It doesn’t seem to have worked.
Yes.
They are awesome.
A product of their time. Modern sensibilities impose a distortion
Dumas was writing in 1844, a long time after the setting and post-Revolution, and intending to criticise (as well as to write some swashbuckling adventure).
I like a quote from “the Barber of Seville” where early on Figaro says
-Of course I know the doctor! He is giving me a room, for free! And I promise to pay him 10 gold a year, also for free.There was a Brit TV series, 5-10 years ago, very swashbuckling, you might like that too. Good casting and lots of action