Book review: The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)

Title: The Three Musketeers
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Word count: 555 pages (Wordsworth classics version)
Rating: 4/5 stars

170 years is not too late to do a book review, right? Right.

So last night I finished reading The Three Musketeers. I`m sure most of us are familiar with the story – young d`Artagnan goes to Paris, meets three musketeers with funny names, ends up befriending them and has loads of adventures. The details are different depending on which version you read/watch, but the broad version is something like this, usually.

That part at least is the same in the book. What we don’t often see in the movies and tv show adaptations, is everything else that makes this book so amazing.

For me personally, at least, what made this book so great is the sheer amount of detail. Do any of you ever get upset when in movies people just go “let`s battle this out” or “let`s meet up” and walk away, without discussing the time, place, etc? Being a very precise person who needs specific instructions myself, this always really bugs me. Luckily, it also bugs Dumas, apparently, as every plan in the book is laid out very specifically. You get to know what time people meet, where they meet, how long everything takes. You get told everything right down to the tiniest details, which I absolutely loved. It made the story so much more real for me.

The story was also less about the three musketeers themselves, and much more about how everyone looks up to d`Artagnan, which I thought was very amusing. It was also largely about Lady de Winter, which struck me as interesting – how many adaptations do you know where she plays the major part? Where everyone else – the king, queen Anne, the cardinal even, the duke of Buckingham, everyone`s roles get diminished or they even disappear mostly so Lady de Winter`s role can get explained with so much attention to detail? Because that happened in the book. And I loved it. She`s pure evil and cunning and wraps everyone around her finger and I thought she was absolutely amazing.

So why do I rate 4 instead of 5 stars?

Mostly because I`m not used to side characters getting this much attention while the “heroes” are put to the side for large amounts of time. And also because I did love this book, I absolutely love it, but not in a “this is good it blew me away” kind of way. It was just good, and now I can happily move on to the next book, having read another classic now.

Should everyone else also read this book? Definitely yes.

Of course, the big question is: what am I going to read now? I`m not sure yet. But considering the mountain of books next to my bed that I haven`t read yet, I`m sure I`ll find something.