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 31: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

This one is going to be a challenge.  I decided last time around that, if I speak the language in which the book is written, I should read the book in that language.  I did this with The Three Musketeers in French, but Russian is a more difficult language, so I've been shying away from it.

I'm determined this time, though, and I'm going to try to read the Russian version of the book.  One plus side of this is that, in trying to procure a Russian version, I found that my library has an original, 1st edition copy of the book.  It's not in great condition, but there's something cool about knowing that, when Pasternak first published Doctor Zhivago, this is one of the copies that rolled off the presses.

566 pages in this one which would be about 81 pages per day, but I'll be lucky to get half of that number... I'm going to need to make up time once I finish this one.

Review:  Wow!  This one took me a lot longer than anticipated.  Instead of one week it took a total of three weeks to plod my way through it.  At first, I started with the book and a dictionary and was looking up 3-5 words per page, it was taking a long time.  Near the end, I was able to go many pages without having to resort to the dictionary but my reading speed was still pretty low.  Pasternak's writing, it turns out, is quite poetic and therefore very dense.  I am glad that I made the effort, however.  I feel that the practice really improved my Russian reading skills and it was good to read the book in it's original language.

Being unfamiliar with the material, either the book or the films, I was under a wrong impression of this book.  I thought that it was going to be a very romanticized love story between Dr. Zhivago and his love, Lara, set against the Russian Revolution of 1917.  In this way, I thought that it would be much closer in tone and content as something like Anna Karenina.  It turns out, however, that this is not the case.  The story follows Dr. Yuri Zhivago from his youth through his adulthood and his trials during the revolution.  He grows up, marries, is conscripted, released, reunites with his family, is shanghai'd again, escapes, etc. During this time, he is also in love with Lara Guishar, who moves in and out of his life multiple times.  At first, their relationship evolves as events push them around and eventually they depend on each other for support more than any fierce passion.  In this way, the book reminds me more of War and Peace or Gone with the Wind than Anna Karenina.  It's a love story, but one in which the main characters are almost lost amongst the huge, dramatic events unfolding around them.

I liked the book quite a bit, even though it was hard work getting through it.  The writing was beautiful, especially in Russian, and the characters were very likable.  The story was engaging and never really slowed down and you are engaged with Yuri's fate every step of the way.  I would highly recommend anyone to read this book.  Doing it in Russian was merely a challenge for myself and certainly not necessary.

8 out of 10

Book 22: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I should have started this one on Monday, but I'm a little behind.  This time around I'm reading some World Literature, which is what I'm calling literature in any language but English.  I learned Russian specifically to read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Pushkin in the original and I'm glad I did.  I always felt that something was missing in Russian literature in translation and I find that the works are far richer in their native language.

Clocking in at 735 pages, I should be able to finish in a week at 105 pages per day.

REVIEW: The Brothers Karamazov was a very interesting novel.  I usually feel a bit of dread going into Russian Literature and Dostoevsky in particular because it can get rather depressing.  Dostoevsky is very fond of delving into the depths of desperation, madness and tragedy.  This novel had a bit of that but was well rounded in other ways that had me pleasantly surprised.

It begins as a standard 19^th century family drama.  The story revolves around the Karamazov patriarch, his sons, their servants and their love interests.  The father is a bit of a scoundrel but wealthy.  The eldest son is also a scoundrel, but is more of a playboy.  The middle son is an atheist and a Socialist, practical and serious.  The youngest son is a pious, truthful novice monk and is the main point of view character.

As the novel changes gears the role of the youngest son, Alexei, becomes more important as Dostoevsky explores the role of religion in about 100 pages of pretty dense philosophy.  It’s here that the book bogged down a bit for me.  He has a lot of good things to say, but it’s pretty dense and scholarly.

The novel picks up again, however, as the eldest son, Dmitri, begins to take over as the main character.  Dostoevsky loves to write about manic characters behaving irrationally and this is Dmitri to a tee.  Not to spoil things but the book changes into a bit of a crime/mystery novel at this point as the reader tries to figure out the details of one fateful night.

Then the book changes gears again at the end of the novel and becomes a courtroom drama.  The last 200 pages or so deal with a trial and evidence given on both sides.  What was most interesting about this to me was that the author was able to effectively show how the available evidence was able to be interpreted, realistically, it two very different ways, neither of which was entirely the true series of events.

Overall, this was a very rich reading experience.  I’m not a big fan of Crime and Punishment because it was very far into the psyche of a madman but this book really showed Dostoevsky’s range as an author.  It was very engaging for most of it’s 750-ish page length and I have to put it pretty high on my list of best novels.  It did bog down in a couple of places and I don’t really like some of the characteristic traits that Dostoevsky characters tend to have (overly anxious women, manic, passionate men) but it was a very good read.  9 out of 10.