#98: The Three Musketeers

I was wrong.  This was my first time reading The Three Musketeers.  I recognized my mistake right away.  For instance, if you haven't read the book, but have only seen crappy reconstructions in various forms, did you know that d'Artagnan, the main character, is not even a member of "The Three Musketeers"?!   What crack was Alexandre Dumas smoking when he came up with his title?  Talk about misleading!  But you want to know what isn't misleading?  The fact that this book has been applauded for over a century and is #98 on the list of the best novels of all time.  I can see why.

(Check out The Book Club Book's new quiz, Which Musketeer Are You? )

What I Loved...
was the villain.  No, not Cardinal Richelieu.  He's a sad puppy dog compared to the real star of this book, the evil Milady Clarik de Winter.  Beautiful, seductive, brilliant, and with a soul as black as onyx, her vengeance was her downfall.  Like everyone else, I was as drawn to her as I was repulsed.  Watch her stalk her prey:
  
Then Milady collected all her energies, murmuring in the depths of her soul the name of Felton--the only beam of light that penetrated to her in the hell into which she had fallen; and like a serpent which folds and unfolds its rings to ascertain its strength, she enveloped Felton beforehand in the thousand meshes of her inventive imagination.
 
I was disappointed when she met her end with the Musketeers' revenge.  C'mon, don't lie!  You wanted the coyote to catch the roadrunner just as much as I did!

Aside from enjoying Milady's escapades, I also loved the lackeys, particularly d'Artagnan's lackey, Planchet.  Poor, 17th century lackeys.  The most they could ever hope for in life was to be the lowly servant of a great man, and in the (four) Musketeers, they could not have hoped for better.  But still, wouldn't it suck to stand on the sidelines, forever faithful, and never receive a bit of notoriety for the part you play in your master's successes?  And I'm not sure their treatment deserves so much devotedness.

D'Artagnan did reflect, and resolved to thrash Planchet provisionally; which he did with the conscientiousness that d'Artagnan carried into everything. After having well beaten him, he forbade him to leave his service without his permission.

Geez, let's tone it down a little.  This apparently took place before the Lackey's Union reformed the industry and ensured safe working conditions for lackeys everywhere.

What I Hated...
was Porthos.  Seriously, Dumas, you could have kept the title, "The Three Musketeers".  All you had to do was ditch Porthos from the story forever.  Let us ask ourselves, did he ever do anything to advance the plot of this story, was he necessary, cunning, useful in any way???  No, no, no, and no.  Ditch him.  Milady knows, just ask her:

"...tell him that among these four men two only are to be feared--d'Artagnan and Athos; tell him that the third, Aramis, is the lover of Madame de Chevreuse--he may be left alone, we know his secret, and it may be useful; as to the fourth, Porthos, he is a fool, a simpleton, a blustering booby, not worth troubling himself about." 

Well said, Milady.  I knew I liked you!  By the way, if you take the Which Musketeer Are You? quiz, and you get Porthos, I am truly sorry.  It isn't that you're a bad person  It's just...maybe "musketeering" isn't the best profession for you.

And then, being that I don't hate myself or my gender, I had a problem with the sexism.  Sure, The Three Musketeers made its appearance in the mid-1800's.  It was a different world, as they tell me.  That doesn't mean my blood doesn't run a little hot when I read things like this:

It is with valets as with wives, they must be placed at once upon the footing in which you wish them to remain. 

Hmm, I don't have to wonder as to why so many married women had lovers.  It wasn't a crime to bully your wife back then.  Laissez-faire?  I say, lasso their ass up and put them in jail!

What's Next?
I'm now reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I'm not much excited.  This will be the third time I've read this book, the first being when I was eight-years-old, and the last being just two years ago.  Ugh!  I detest to read a book more than once!  Isn't it enough that I've already broken that rule, but now, I'm going so far as to read it for a third time?  Well, I will do it, and do you know why?  Because I made a commitment, and I would not want to disappoint you, Dear Reader.  Undoubtedly, I will speed-read through this one.  There isn't much risk of missing anything.  I'll be surprised if I don't have the book memorized by the time I'm done!

#99: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sherlock Holmes!  Who doesn't love him?  His first chronicled mystery appeared in 1887 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thereafter featured his famous creation in 55 short stories and four novels, the third novel being The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Even today, Holmes' infamy lives on in Hollywood (though I still think Robert Downey, Jr. is an odd choice to the play the lead).  But what makes this famous detective so intriguing, so apart from the rest?  Well, The Hound of the Baskervilles will do little to enlighten you.  With so many publications behind him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have felt that repetition of Holmes' past successes, habits, and personality were unnecessary.  In fact, I could not find one single, clear description of the detective in the entire book!  You are merely left with the impression, mainly from Watson, that Sherlock Holmes is a great man, worthy of respect in every way.

And oh, it was such a fun, chilling mystery!  The mystery of Holmes' character, however, must stay unresolved...for now.

What I Loved...
was the scenery.  Forget the hell hound, with descriptions like this, who wouldn't suspect that sinister, supernatural forces were afoot?

From the end of it a small wand planted here and there showed where the path zigzagged from tuft to tuft of rushes among those greenscummed pits and foul quagmires which barred the way to the stranger. Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thighdeep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. 

 And then, when we do finally meet the infamous hound, what a fiendish creature!

 A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.

And we can't forget my dear, Watson.  At least in this Sherlock Holmes' mystery--in which Holmes' presence was felt more than seen--Watson is my favorite!  Even Sherlock Holmes holds him in the highest esteem:

‘If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.’

What I Hated...
was the fact that Holmes and Watson had little evidence that the diabolical Mr. Stapleton met his demise in a quagmire, yet they accept this theory without hesitation.  This is the first and only Holmes' mystery I have read, but I would be disappointed to find that Mr. Stapleton does not make another appearance to enact his revenge somewhere down the road.  If he does, then all is forgiven.  If not, I'm disappointed, Holmes.  I'm afraid we have a mass murderer on the loose.  What was it that Stapleton said?  

‘That is the great Grimpen Mire,’ said he. ‘A false step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the boghole, but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive.'

 Yes, that's right.  He's an expert at finding his way through the mire...You let the villain escape, Holmes!!

What's Next?
Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers.  Isn't it sad when you've read so many books that you aren't certain if you have already read something?  I have a fairly decent knowledge of the plot, but this could be because I actually have read the book, or because I have seen these characters parodied in everything from cartoons to sitcoms.  Oh well, I will be sure to give you the verdict in about four days!

#100: Gone with the Wind

Well, I made it.  I just spent eight days in Civil War-torn Georgia with Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.  I'm tired, I'm downtrodden, and I'm heartbroken.  I'm so upset that I almost don't want to talk about it and just cast this post aside with a flip of my hair and a promise to think of everything tomorrow.  But I'm no "Scarlett".


What I Loved... 
was the incredibly rich, historical detail.  If you have only seen the movie, you haven't come close to revealing the true historical significance of Gone With the Wind.  It was published in 1936, and author Margaret Mitchell wasn't even born until almost 40 years after the setting for this book, so one wonders:  How did she get her information?  Well, it's rumored that she spent seven years writing the book and a further eight months just on research.  She was also raised in Georgia amid a hoard of Civil War veterans.  I'm guessing she picked up a thing or two.  

Being aYankee myself, it's easy for me to take the Civil War's impact for granted.  Our history textbooks say we freed the slaves and a war was fought, which appears momentous enough.  It seems a charming one-liner to justify a good cause.  But ugh, wars are so much uglier when you start looking at them more closely!  Worse, the lines of wrong and right, instead of getting clearer, just tend to become blurrier when examined under a microscope.  Yes!  The South needed to give up its slaves!  But did the North really have to crush them, ground them into the red dirt that they loved so much?  If the North was 100% pure in its motivations for war, why did the blacks still face so much discrimination in the northern territories?  Maybe Rhett Butler was right when he said,

“It isn’t the darkies, Scarlett. They’re just the excuse. There’ll always be wars because men love wars. Women don’t, but men do--yea, passing the love of women.” 

But maybe Scarlett was right:

When she looked at Tara she could understand, in part, why wars were fought. Rhett was wrong when he said men fought wars for money. No, they fought for swelling acres, softly furrowed by the plow, for pastures green with stubby cropped grass, for lazy yellow rivers and white houses that were cool amid magnolias. These were the only things worth fighting for, the red earth which was theirs and would be their sons’, the red earth which would bear cotton for their sons and their sons’ sons.

What I Hated...
was the obvious, prevailing racism in the book.  Like when Scarlett's old friend, Tony Fontaine says:


“But the worst thing was the way he kept the darkies stirred up. If anybody had told me I’d ever live to see the day when I’d hate darkies! Damn their black souls, they believe anything those scoundrels tell them and forget every living thing we’ve done for them. Now the Yankees are talking about letting the darkies vote. And they won’t let us vote. Why, there’s hardly a handful of Democrats in the whole County who aren’t barred from voting, now that they’ve ruled out every man who fought in the Confederate Army. And if they give the negroes the vote, it’s the end of us. Damn it, it’s our state! It doesn’t belong to the Yankees! By God, Scarlett, it isn’t to be borne! And it won’t be borne! We’ll do something about it if it means another war. Soon we’ll be having nigger judges, nigger legislators--black apes out of the jungle--”

It makes my skin crawl.  But then I remember, Margaret Mitchell isn't telling me that I should be racist, she is merely giving us a reflection of the South during the Civil War and wrong as it may be, that's how it was and to gloss it over is to be ignorant. 

In addition to racism, another thing that bothered me was Scarlett's complete disinterest in others (with the exception of Ashley) and more importantly, her lack of feeling toward her children.  Like when her "favorite" child dies, Scarlett says that she wishes it was her other daughter!  What kind of mother wishes that?  The memory of her unloved children will haunt me.


And then, of course, there was Rhett's complete disrespect and meanness.  Yes, I felt the customary sadness at the end when he vows to leave and says he doesn't love her anymore, but through the majority of the book, I was appalled at how he treated her!  It serves him right that he got his heart broken, if you ask me.  And why did the book end like it did?  Because Scarlett always gets what she wants and of course, we know that they will reconcile, with time, and live a boring, happy life from that moment forward.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself. :)

What's Next?
Sir Aruthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I couldn't be more relieved.  After spending eight days breaking my heart with Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, I really need a Sherlock Holmes mystery, with an ensured happy ending, to brighten my mood.  Mysteries always end well, don't they?  Don't they??

The 2011 Book Challenge

I've never taken much interest in New Year's Resolutions.  None of the popular ones ever appealed to me.  Um, refrain from chocolate for a year?  I don't think so.  I want 2011 to be a GOOD year, thank you very much!  Perhaps because of all the torture-inducing resolutions out there, I felt inspired to embark on a goal for 2011 that would be fun!  That I would actually enjoy!  Sadly, the end result of eating a pound of chocolate every day would not give me the desired effect on my life for which I am seeking, so I racked my brain.  Suddenly, in a moment of insanity that has still carried me forth until this moment, it came to me!  I've decided to tackle a challenge that will have my children screaming, my mister protesting, and will cause my favorite TV shows to fall into serious neglect.  For 2011 & 2012, I will read 100 books.  In other words, 50 books in 2011, 50 in 2012.

Not just any books, mind you.  Scouring my recipe book every night for dinner ideas isn't what I'm talking about here.  I will be reading the very best books of all time.  At least, ahem, according to literature expert and former Wesleyan University dean, Daniel S. Burt.  He also wrote a nifty little book called, The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time.  Check out his list here.

My goal is to start at the bottom and leave the very, very best for last.  As you can see, the first on my list is Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, and that's running at about 850 pages, according to my copy.  Now, my calculations tell me that I'm going to have to read approximately 50 pages a day in order to reach my reading goal by 2013.  Pretty crazy for a woman with two kids and a day job?  I know, I know.  I'm sure there will be many a night when my house is the last in the neighborhood with a light still shining into the wee hours of the morning, and I will be reading on, trying to ignore the fact that my whole family hates me.

This ain't gonna be easy.  But I'm surely looking forward to this year (and next)!  And anyway, what serious reader can claim to not have read every single book on this list?

So, don't call me, don't email me, and don't ask me to go out for dinner (just kidding).  If all goes well, you will hear from me again in about 8 days when I'm finally finished with this monster of a book, Gone With the Wind.  Wish me luck!