The Three Musketeers -- The Bad Guys of their Own Story??
So I just finished reading (with my ears) The Three Musketeers. I thought I was already familiar with the story because I'd seen the 1993 movie thirty years ago plus all the usual cultural references, but it surprised me a bit. I'll be unrestrained with the spoilers here so if you don't want it to be spoilerized quick throw the device you're reading upon out the window!
From my recollection of said 1993 movie and my impression of the plot up until reading the book was that the Three Musketeers had to foil a plot by the evil Cardinal Richelieu who hoped to betray the King of France to England. That turns out to be really not it at all, that's practically the opposite of it in fact, and in short, my thesis here is that I'm really not sure that the Three Musketeers are the good guys nor Richelieu a bad guy.
In the first scene the protagonist, D'Artagnan gets in a fight with a gentleman named Rochefort because he percieved that the latter was laughing at his horse. D'Artagnan is beaten unconscious thereupon and a major major plotpoint for most of the book is his desire for revenge for this. This seems a really weird and uncompelling major plot driver to me! The protagonist wants to avenge himself for a beating he received for starting a fight over his perception that his horse was being mocked!
After listening to about four hours (the whole thing is 28 hours long!) I remarked to one of my friends that it was thus far just essentially a story about gang warfare -- the first four hours is primarily just a series of fights, brawls and duels between the Musketeers and the cardinal's company of guards. I was feeling very "WTF how and why is this considered a classic?" at this point.
As the more involved elements of the plot begin to develop another thing became clear to me, this story of "heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight for justice," to quote the introductory paragraph from wikipedia, does NOT involve the same values of chivalry I'm accustomed to from my Arthurian romances. The protagonists in addition to always getting into fights over trifles and absolutely disdaining to have any semblance of control over their emotions seem to consider debauching other people's wives and/or facilitating affairs to be quite chivalrous. And loyalty? They make a big deal about how they're loyal to the king ... and then immediately and enthusiastically get embroiled in facilitating the queen having an affair (with the chief minister of England!). Not that I'm opposed to a story in which people behave badly, after all I was just extolling my love for the Flashman series, it's just that I'm very confused about what this book seems to set forth as chivalric values.
Anyway so then D'Artagnan has a case of love-at-first-sight with his landlord's wife and immediately commences to pursue her (though I think through the end that remains unconsummated) -- then he meets the other major antagonist, Milady de Winter, whom he ALSO falls madly in love with on first sight, gets thoroughly distracted from his search for the missing landlord's wife, and he then beds Milady by impersonating someone else in the dark. Which, to accomplish he professes love to her maid Kitty and becomes Kitty's lover. And when it comes out how he tricked her into bedding him she is naturally outraged, and her attempts to get revenge are the principal driver of the rest of the book. So the two main antagonists, the two main plot drivers, are his desire for revenge on a guy who laughed at his horse in a pub parking lot, and the desire of a woman to get revenge on him for essentially raping her. Again, I don't want to sound like I need all my protagonists to be shining knights of virtue but can you see here how at this point I'm like ... are these really the good guys??
And the Cardinal meanwhile. Other than his guards getting into fights with the musketeers which seems to be a mutual rivalry, his major motivation seems (A) various things for the good of the country; (B) more specifically pertinent to the plot, he's trying to stop the queen from having an affair. The narrative voice tells us this is because he is jealous she spurned him as a lover, but looking at it objectively it seems like it's not an evil quality that he's trying to stop the queen from having an affair, especially as the affair is with the chief minister of their enemy, England. And his attitute towards the titular musketeers and D'Artagan specifically, is throughout that he really wants them to work for him. He really doesn't appear to foster any malice towards them at all.
In the end the musketeers catch up with Milady, just after she's killed the landlord's wife in an act of revenge on D'Artagan. They hold a trial of her amongst themselves, and convict her of various murders (listen, she has allegedly murdered several people, she's definitely not a saint, but I still maintain that her main role in the book as seeking revenge for having been raped by the protagonist is basically more sympathetic than not). But, and now here I'm going to get legalistically nitpicky but why not -- they happen to have the local executioner with them so it'll be an official execution not a murder; and they explicitly pay him to make it so. But then he throws the money away saying he's not doing it for money (but because she betrayed his brother when she was young), thus making it not an official "impartial" execution by an executioner. And also her accusers all tell her they pardon her just after the sentence is passed, which I'd imagine was intended to illustrate "Christian mercy" or something but the my more lawyerly inclinations cause me to go wait, wait, if each of you that had an accusation that carried the death penalty have all said you pardon her then.. she should go free. You can't both pardon her and carry out the sentence!
Anyway so in conclusion... what I liked about it was that the nuance of that the author seemed to know that most of his antagonists were not being portrayed as purely evil (Richelieu after all both promotes D'Artagan to the musketeers halfway through and in the end gives him a lieutenants commission, and overtly asks him to join him; and it says in the end-exposition that D'Artagan and Rochefort eventually become close friends); and the king who is ostensibly the subject of the loyalty of the musketeers is generally portrayed as a very poor leader and jealous spiteful husband to the queen. The plots were rather well woven, and when I looked up some things on wikipedia I found a lot of the devious plots had basis in fact, which was interesting. As you've probably gathered, what I didn't like was their distinctly un-chivalrous behavior, which somehow just didn't come off endearing the way Flashman's did. It reminds me of this theory I've been developing since reading Gone With the Wind, that if that author-narrator seems aware that they're writing an unlikable/immoral character it can come off well, but if it seems like the author absolutely doesn't realize how unlikeable or immoral their protagonist is it can be very offputting. And Flashman obviously was very consciously immoral so one didn't have that conflict of values with the author. Whereas Gone With the Wind and this book seem blithely unaware of objections one might have to their protagonist's behavior; which leaves the reader angrily feeling like they'd like to have a word with the author, which of course they can't... so they just vent in a blog post instead.
I thought about listening to one of the several sequels next, for my at-work audible listening; but decided instead to go right the other direction, classic arthurian chivalry, and am readhearing Four Arthurian Romances of Chretien de Troyes. (In related news i suspect there may be a connection between my love of the Arthurian sort of romantic values and my willingness to pursue my lady love across absolutely absurd distance and difficulties without hesitation)
Monte Cristo Addendum: I just realized I never wrote about the Count of Monte Cristo (also by Dumas, same author as Three Musketeers). Just in a real small nutshell, I liked it, found it better than Three Musketeers (which I hadn't read yet, but in retrospect). The titular count is a total "Mary Sue" but he actually makes it work.