The Three Musketeers, part 2

Honestly,

Not really enjoying the book. Sometimes I wonder if I don’t like a book that it’s because of my mood. Many a time, under this suspicion, I have given a book another go and discovered that yes, after all, I did like it. Even loved it.

This is, however, my second go. I tried to read this book in high school and literally chucked it across the room. Yet, here I am, on round two of The Three Musketeers, and I’m forcing myself to finish it for two reasons.

1) there are parts when it’s totally satisfying and if those parts had carried through, I’d have loved it.

2) I really want to reach my goal this year of reading those classics. The goal is based off of the promise I made to myself in college that I would read and discover classics once I had more time. It’s something I’ve done here and there since I graduated, but I’d really like it to be something I do more consistently.

But back to the book,

Did anyone ever see this version of The Three Musketeers?

From what I remember of it, it’s actually not too off–say the first third of the book. Excluding all the boring portions of it. If the book were edited down like this movie, it might have cracked–not my top ten books–but maybe the top twenty. But in actuality, the long book with the hugely boring parts is not selling me. So far, I have to say that D’Artagnan is a vainglorious dick. At least the narrator acknowledges it at times, and at least D’Artagnan has the excuse of being very, very young. The other musketeers are just boring.

Either way, I’ll let you know how I feel at the end. I didn’t like The Night Circus until the end; because I wasn’t loving how the story was told. It was too distant for me. But then, once it resolved, I was like–oh….sweet. It’s high on my list of re-reads because in the end, I loved The Night Circus so much. The process of carrying on, even though I wasn’t sold on the story, and then discovering it was exactly what I wanted was awesome.

Maybe the Three Musketeers will surprise me. I kinda expect it to. But I think my recommendation will go something like this–Read the Abridged version. And that’s just not advice I give.

Ever.

So I’ll let you know.

~Amanda

ps, that’s totally a lie. The audio book of World War Z was amazing. I’d go with the abridged audio book over the unabridged print book. But, I don’t see any reason not to enjoy both. Is anyone else stupidly excited for this movie? Obviously, it’s not following the book at all. I’m ok with that. Maybe because you know it in advance? Either way, looking forward to it.