Book 53: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas

For this year I've changed the way I'm making these posts.  Instead of having one at the beginning of the week and then editing in a review after finishing the book, I'm going to simply make one post each Saturday when I should have completed that week's reading.  Onward!

This book has a rather complicated history.  When first written it was serialized over a period of about 3 years.  When put into book form it comprised 269 chapters.  For obvious reasons it has since been split up into multiple volumes.  Even this, however, has been complicated.  It is possible to find The Vicomte de Bragelonne split into 3, 4 or even 5 books.  The version that I'm reading is split into 4 books with individual titles:  Part 1 is Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, Part 2 is Dix Ans plus Tard (Ten Years After), Part 3 is Louise de la Valliere and part 4 is L'Homme au Masque de Fer (The Man in the Iron Mask).  The narrative for Le Vicomte de Bragelonne covers events around the year 1660 about ten years after the events in Vingt Ans Apres (Twenty Years After) and around 30 years after The Three Musketeers.

The main characters from the original novel are still here.  D'Artagnan is still a lieutenant in the royal musketeers while his friends have retired to private life.  Athos is a nobleman, the Comte de la Fere, and lives on his own estate with his son Raoul de Bragelonne (the title's Vicomte).  Aramis has become a priest and been promoted to Abbé or Abbot d'Herblay.  Porthos married a wealthy woman who later died and left him her fortune.  The story, while named for Raoul, does not principally involve him, though it does show a turning point that may be the launching point for his later career.

I found the plot engaging throughout as was the case for the first two books of this series.  It follows D'Artagnan on his adventures fighting enemies and helping allies in both England and France.  He joins up with Athos for the first half of the book with Aramis and Porthos showing up in the second.  One thing that I find very interesting about the series is that, while friends, the former Musketeers are often at odds with each other.  In the previous book, two of the Musketeers were on one side of a civil war with the other two on the opposing side.  In this book, D'Artagnan is on a mission for his King, while two of his friends are quietly propping up one his the King's ministers, his chief rival.  It makes for a lot of complicated plot twisting as they would never harm one another, but would gladly sabotage each others plans.

I'm still reading these in French in order to take the rust off my language skills, but the story should translate very well.  These are books of high adventure and gentlemanly deeds and should appeal to anyone who likes intrigue, swordplay, daring plots and backstabbing ministers.  Overall, I'd give this book about a 7 out of 10.  It was entertaining and interesting but lacking in any real substance.  Still it's a lot of good fun and I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Book 42: Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Book 42 brings me back to world literature which, in this case, is book two of the d'Artagnan Romances.  This one takes place, as the title indicates, twenty years after the events in the Three Musketeers.  The first book was simplistic but good so I'm expecting something similar from this one.  I've decided that, if possible, I should read my books in their original language so, after a quick trip to a nearby library, I found this one in French.

This edition is 885 pages which means 127 pages per day.  That's a lot!


REVIEW:

Surprisingly, I enjoyed this book more than The Three Musketeers.  The first novel is far more popular and well-known, but this one had a lot more complexity.  It begins 20 years after the events in The Three Musketeers:  D'Artagnan is still a lieutenant in the musketeers, Porthos has become very wealthy with three large estates, Athos is a count and has his own land and Aramis has become a priest.  The first part of the book involves D'Artagnan seeking out his old friends to aid him on a mission.  It turns out, however, that he is only able to recruit Porthos as the other two hold opposing politics and refuse to help him.  It's this split between the four old friends that adds a lot of the complexity.

While D'Artagnan and Porthos pursue their own goals, Athos and Aramis pursue parallel but opposite goals.  They have decided that they will never directly oppose each other even though they are on opposite sides.  Watching the four friends come together to accomplish the same goal and helping each other while still, technically, enemies was quite enjoyable.  It required a complex crafting of the plot on the part of Dumas.

Overall, I enjoyed the complex plot, the reunion of the four friends and the constant action, both political and military.  I'm actually looking forward to the next installation of the d'Artagnan romances which, I believe is supposed to follow the next generation of characters, Athos' son Raoul.

8 out of 10

Book 18: Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

Well, I'm finally finished with the first four Song of Fire and Ice books.  I'll continue with the series whenever I pick up the fifth book but, until then, I'm moving on to other things.  First in line, another classic novel, a collection of five novels, actually.

Gargantua and Pantagruel was written in the mid-1500s and tells the stories of two giants: Pantagruel and his father Gargantua.  It's often cited as one of the best in world literature though, honestly, I'd never heard of it before I started this project.

So, here goes!  841 pages, which is less than my last 4 books and it has bigger type, woohoo!  120 pages a day or so should get me through the book in one week.

HUGE REVIEW:  It’s difficult to describe Gargantua and Pantagruel.  It’s like a combination of The Odyssey, Gulliver’s Travels and Don Quixote all mixed into one.  It’s an extremely crude book book by any standard, filled with drinking, sex, violence and… well… scatological humor.

Between the poop jokes, however, Rabelais actually has a lot to say.  The book is, essentially, very bawdy satire.  As such, it has biting commentary and even outright contempt for politics (with gluttonous, incompetent kings), religious orders (with monks that won’t defend themselves until their vineyard is under attack), the current state of education (with pedantic academics spouting overly-complicated nonsense words) and lawyers (with one judge who decides cases by throwing the dice). 

Rabelais doesn’t just criticize these institutions however.  He also adds his own ideas as to how they should behave.  As a product of the Renaissance, Rabelais believes that one should live fully and follow your instincts.  He preaches pleasure for the body as well as intellectual curiosity and study for the mind.  He was sincerely religious but skeptical of the excessive discipline and asceticism of the monasticism of his time.  It's really quite philosophical.

I would have attempted the French version of this book, but since it’s 500 years old, I didn’t have the confidence in my Old French as in my Modern French.  I can see though that, even through translation, Rabelais has a rare mastery of language.  He writes equally well from the perspective of the crude peasant as from that of the learned intellectual.  I’m sure the puns and plays on language in the book are that much better in the original.  The only real problem that I had was that my edition didn’t translate the many phrases of non-French: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Italian, Basque, etc.  My knowledge of some of these languages helped quite a bit, but I was thrown by phrases such as:  “Omnis bella bellabilis, in bellerio bellando, bellans bellativo bellare bellantes.  Parisius habet bellas.”  All I got was the ending, “In Paris there are bells.”

There are several chapters in the books that are essentially lists or catalogues  of various items, from insults to methods of fortune telling to lists of books in a library.  These can be quite tedious to get through, though they typically have quite a few wry comments interspersed throughout them and one of them, the list of books, produced my favorite title, “Of the Gentle Art of Farting in Company.”

All in all, Gargantua and Pantagruel is great social satire disguised as the adventures of two very crude giants and their associates.  Laugh out loud funny in parts, thought provoking in others.  9 of 10.

Book 9: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

This one was recommended by a friend of mine at work who just finished it.  She said it was a great, classic adventure story and, having enjoyed Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, it sounded pretty good.  It's also part of a trilogy, which I didn't know, including this novel, Twenty Years Later and The Man in the Iron Mask.  Throw in The Count of Monte Cristo and that's 3 more books to add to my reading list.  Bonus!

673 pages this time, so that makes about 97 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This one kicked my butt.  My sister dared me to read it in French.  Unable to turn down a challenge like that, I tracked down a copy and did it.  It took me a few extra days but I managed it.  I'm not entirely sure if it was just my rusty French or if it was the book itself, but I found it to be rather shallow.  There was little to no character development and very little nuance in the plot or characters.  It wasn't a bad story and it was rather entertaining in parts but it felt a little cliché fairly often.  It may be because this book set the mold and others copied it (too often) but it was hard to ignore.  It got so bad at one point that I laughed out loud.  Chapter 65 begins thus: "C'etait une nuit orageuse et sombre."  Literally, "It was a dark and stormy night."  Wow.

So, that's it, a good bit of fun and decent story but a bit shallow and cliché.  Dare I start a rating system?  6 out of 10.