On... The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

I start this post with a disclaimer. I did not read it with as much attention as I read Angela Hunt's for two reasons. I enjoy Angela Hunt's books more and they are also half the size of this one.

I've had mixed experiences with Alexandre Dumas. For instance, one of the sequels to The Three Musketeers... The Man in the Iron Mask... absolutely bored me to tears but I persevered to the end. I will not own a book without having read it at least once. On the other hand I also own The Count of Monte Cristo and absolutely adore that book. I almost could not put the book down as soon as I picked it up. The story is so compelling and the plot moves along at a much more reasonable pace than The Man in the Iron Mask.

Thus you can probably understand my dilemma when I started to read The Three Musketeers. Which of the two experiences would this book most identify with. For the sake of my sanity I hoped that the book would be most like the Count of Monte Cristo.

Thankfully it was.

I still prefer The Count of Monte Cristo but the plot of The Three Musketeers moves along at such a rapid pace that I had to back track at least two or three times (only pages of course) to get my head around what just happened. In fact, this rapid pace actually was a benefit and a distraction. Due to the serial nature of the original publication the events of the book seem to cycle in and out of anticipation, climax and denouement many more times than would be recommended for a healthy novel.

In the end I learned a whole lot more about Porthos, Aramis, Athos and d'Artangan than I ever knew before (even having read the sequel where all of these characters appear as well) and developed a sense of appreciation for Dumas' ability to weave information about the characters throughout the seemingly endless cycles in such a way that one could not have the ending without all of the cycles.