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Summary: Read This Book!!
Review: If you read one adventure novel in your life, this should be it. The Three Musketeers has been adapted to stage and screen many times, but no adaptation has ever done the book justice. This is one of a handful of books that I have finished reading only to immediately begin it again. Don't let its age turn you off! Even though it's a 'classic', it's not a dull or difficult read; the prose is quick and snappy, with great one-liners and turns of phrase that put even the best of action movies to shame. The characters are so rich and vivid that they will soon seem like old friends, and I can promise that this is a book you want to own, so that you can read it over and over again.
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Summary: ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I EVER FREAKING READ
Review: Alexandre Dumas is one of the best writers who ever lived, and this book is one of the best books ever written. It is exciting, fast-paced, and chock-full of intrigue, love, treachery, and the like.
Describing the plot in detail is pointless. All you need to know is that it's a story of three musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and one naive young man who wants to be a musketeer: D'artagnan, and their adventures in 17th century Europe. It's swashbuckling good fun, and impossible to put down. I highly recommend the unabridged version, though the abridged is wonderful too. It doesn't matter who or where you are: If you can read, read this book. You'll never regret it. Enjoy!
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Summary: Great adventure story
Review: This book is a staple in adventure reading. Following the adventures of the three musketeers and D'Artagnan was a delight and it was hard to put down. The action of duels, the intrigue of politics, and the search for true love make the book's appeal universal. Great book to get motivate young children to read for fun.
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Summary: great story, [bad] editor
Review: While it is needless to say The Three Musketeers is a great story, with sward fights and all, when I read Oxford World Classics edition, I would read the explanitory notes,as I read the story. it would often comment on diffrent mistakes Dumes makes, While I found many typos and other errors in the explanitory notes as well, I found this fairly annoying when I read the book, small mistakes that don't at all take away from Dumes's writing.
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Summary: A timeless, classic story that has it all.....
Review: In 'Musketeers' Alexandre Dumas set the stage for future works as he introduced readers to the exploits and adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, a.k.a. The Three Musketeers. Subsequent books follow, telling further adventures 'Twenty Years Later' and 'Ten Years After' that. But in Musketeers, readers meet the young D'Artagnan and his trio of swashbuckling companions for the first time.Trying to classify the story into one genre is an exercise in futility, as it encompasses so many. But to me, it is most of all a comedy. Many, many times I found myself chuckling while reading the foibles of French manners in the 17th century, as chronicled in the 19th century by Dumas. The Musketeers are warriors, spies, womanizers, drunkards; but above all they are gentlemen. Two men about to duel discuss a salve one offers the other to heal a prior wound; A lackey who is ordered not to speak is reprimanded for bringing news that will spare the Musketeers from harm and trying to deliver it to them; a duel is avoided as there is not sufficient time to fight it properly; and an innkeeper is maligned for not having better wines in his cellar while one of the Musketeers holes up there for days after not paying his bill. While the action is well plotted, and the storyline twists and turns are plausible and palpable, the most intriguing, captivating, and charming aspect of this story for me was its humor. In a world full of formulaic, contrived 'adventure tales' it was a treat to step back in time several hundred years and find a real adventure story. Classics survive for a reason, while other stories are relegated to the bargain bins. While Dumas was not exactly thought of as 'high quality' literature, and his intelligence has been the subject of discourse and debate, he had a clever way with words, characters, and stories. His plot here is not at all overblown, and while his characters may be larger than life, their life isn't. Even as his 'over the top' anti-heroes cross blades again and again with the Cardinal Richelieu's forces, bed women time and again, fight off attack after attack, and escape certain death more than once, the world they live in never seems like a work of fiction. In contrast to Count of Monte Cristo, this book is only 'lighter' in the manner in which the story is unfolded. While that book had a much darker theme, this story is every bit as engrossing. I am happy to have saved this book to savor in adulthood, and highly recommend reading the adventures of the Musketeers to anyone with a love for classics.
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Summary: Excellent! Dumas is the 19th Century's Best
Review: Action, drama, political intrigue and a history lesson wrapped in 600+ pages of powerful storytelling. A must read for all ages.
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Summary: Note of Caution
Review: The Three Musketeers is one of the great adventure classics of all time. Be warned, however, that the Puffin Classics paperback is an abridged edition. You will get more wonderful detail in an unabridged edition.
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Summary: An Action-filled Classic
Review: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is filled with action in the form of conflict & sword-fights. Set during the reign of Louis XIII & Cardinal Richelieu in France, D'Artagnan seeks enrollment into the Musketeers. But the plot thickens as he courts a woman. There is even more conflict as Milady, a beautiful but demon-like woman, is hunted down by D'Artagnan & company. D'Artagnan also faces several sword-fights against the Cardinal's Guards, and conflicts with the Cardinal himself. There is action on almost every page, and I recommend The Three Musketeers to those looking for an action-filled classic!
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Summary: These Guys Are Passing For Heroes?
Review: I'm normally all for a good yarn full of swashbucklers and adventure, but this one just didn't sit well with me. I found the protagonists to be less than sympathetic and far from admirable. D'Artagnan and company were nothing but a pack of self-centered brutes with egos the size of Jupiter. They bullied and slaughtered anyone who got in their way [or even annoyed them a little], they were extremely snobbish, and they spent the whole novel sponging off of anyone they could. I realize that the culture was different back then, but I just couldn't make myself care what happened to these guys. But, if you'd like to read an exciting adventure story with a worthy hero, I strongly recommmend "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy.
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Summary: Nothing like the original
Review: I've seen several renditions of the story through the years, and finally read the original story. I've also been a long-time fan of author Steven Brust, who I have seen credit Dumas as an inspiration. I'm glad I finally took the time to read the classic. It was worth it just for the dialog - clever, witty and always funny. The story is only mediocre, however, and the wheels really seem to fly off at the end of the book, but overall a really fun story.
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