The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

It's just one of  those things.  Why read the book when you can watch the movie?  Make that movies, plural.  Less effort, less time.  And let's be frank, The Three Musketeers is a long book.  So it has been sitting on my bookshelf for the longest time.  I needn't have feared, for once I started reading it I could not put it down.

Even so, having watched the movies and having read the book, there is one question that remains unanswered.  Why is it that the musketeers use swords to the exclusion of muskets?  If the book was called The Three Swordsmen ... nope, that doesn't work.  I guess some things are best left a mystery.

In 1625, an eighteen-year-old called d'Artagnan leaves his father's home in the south of France.  Bound for Paris, he has nothing but fifteen crowns in his purse, a half-dead horse under him and a letter of recommendation pressed to his breast.  This young man wishes to become one of the king's musketeers.  Before too long, d'Artagnan becomes embroiled in duels, feuds, and personal and political intrigues.  Along the way, he meets Athos, Porthos and Aramis - the Three Musketeers - and together they face the dangers of court and highway.  Can they save the reputation of the queen, get their girls, and avert a war between France and Britain while they are at it?

Dumas introduces us to a cavalcade of memorable characters: the hot-headed d'Artagnan; Athos, a drinker and gambler; Porthos, a man addicted to the finer things in life; and Aramis, who is torn between the sensual world and the spiritual life.  Opposing them in various ways are Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII, and political manipulator extraordinaire; the Comte de Rochefort, the Cardinal's right-hand man; and the utterly deadly femme fatale Milady de Winter.

In the finest tradition of adventure stories, there are chases, fights, overheard conversations and incriminating letters.  In lesser hands, these devices can be rendered trite or overblown, but Dumas is able to integrate them seamlessly into a narrative replete with acute observations about the human condition: loyalty, treachery, ambition, survival, and affairs of the heart and of the head.  Overall, then, we get a ripping yarn that smacks of art.  That's gotta be a good thing, doesn't it?