Classic Remarks Redux: #10

Take a look at my intro post to find out more about the Classic Remarks Redux series. As always, thanks to the ladies at Pages Unbound for the prompts and inspiration.

Oct. 7, 2016: Which of Dumas’s Musketeer’s is your favorite and why?

Quite frankly, The Three Musketeer’s is a slog. Buried under hundreds of pages of unnecessary exposition is a great adventure story. But then there is a WHOLE CHAPTER on their servants. This is a classic I actually recommend reading the abridged version of.

This swashbuckling epic of chivalry, honor, and derring-do, set in France during the 1620s, is richly populated with romantic heroes, unattainable heroines, kings, queens, cavaliers, and criminals in a whirl of adventure, espionage, conspiracy, murder, vengeance, love, scandal, and suspense. Dumas transforms minor historical figures into larger- than-life characters: the Comte d’Artagnan, an impetuous young man in pursuit of glory; the beguilingly evil seductress “Milady”; the powerful and devious Cardinal Richelieu; the weak King Louis XIII and his unhappy queen—and, of course, the three musketeers themselves, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, whose motto “all for one, one for all” has come to epitomize devoted friendship. With a plot that delivers stolen diamonds, masked balls, purloined letters, and, of course, great bouts of swordplay, The Three Musketeers is eternally entertaining.

However, I love all the TV and movie adaptations. I’ve been especially loving the BBC adaptation from 2014, which I have been watching through Amazon Prime.

My favorite of the Musketeers portrayed in that show is Aramis played by Santiago Cabrera. Normally I wouldn’t pick the womanizer as my favorite character but Cabrera play the character as a tragic hero in such a way I can’t help but like him. He’s charming, but just underneath that exterior you get the idea that he is fractured and hurting. If it weren’t for the loyalty of his friends he’d go off the rails and into a very dark hole.