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I'm going to cheat and review four books together: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Les trois mousquetaires, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Three Musketeers. Of course, that is really just two books, since the latter two are English translations of the first two. I read these in High School, first in English translation, and they quickly became my very favorite novels. (The first time I read The Three Musketeers I had no idea of the correct pronunciation of d'Artagnan, and our hero's name was a major roadblock.) I of course read all the d’Artagnan Romances. They're full of action and adventure.
Later I read them in French, which astonishes me now. I took three years of high-school French. If you have ever read a book in a foreign language (by which I mean a language you first learned in school), you know that it is, at the start, a slow business. Les trois mousquetaires was a major project -- it took months. (I am retroactively impressed that at the age of fifteen I had the perseverance to stick to such a project.) But, if indeed you have read books in foreign languages, you know that this is exactly the kind of book to start with: something exciting and not too subtle, that can hold your attention despite slow progress.
Reading Dumas in French is rewarding. His language is full of life and humor that doesn't usually carry over into translation. For instance, Les trois mousquetaires begins with d'Artagnan père giving our hero d'Artagnan fils a sword and some advice:
"fight about everything; fight all the more because duels are forbidden, and, consequently, there is twice the courage in fighting."
d'Artagnan's mother gives him the recipe for a miraculous balm that will cure any wound that doesn't touch the heart. Dumas writes as d'Artagnan leaves
"On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we have just repeated would necessitate frequent employment."
In the original Fremnch, that made me laugh. The English translation is very literal, and accurately converys the meaning. But still, you can't imagine a native English speaker writing this sentence, if they were not trying to mirror the French. It lacks the bite and laugh of Dumas's French.
So, if you want adventure novels with lots of intrigue and battles, the novelistic equivalent of an action movie, these two novels are ideal. If you want profound, morally ambiguous characters, not so much.
Postscript: Many years later, when we were all grown up, one of my sisters was laid up in bed at home. She was not in the habit of reading books for pleasure, but she asked me for a recommendation. I recommended The Count of Monte Cristo. Recommending books, particularly to someone who is not a reader, is always hazardous. But this recommendation was startlingly successful, perhaps for the same reasons that Dumas was a good choice for my first read in French. In fact, my sister later asked me if there were any other books like The Count of Monte Cristo. I had to give her the bad news that Dumas was sui generis, so, aside from The Three Musketeers she was unlikely to find anything really similar. However, she enjoyed Monte Cristo enough to go on to become a regular reader. Chalk one up for Dumas: a nonreader reclaimed as a reader!
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Sticker Issue on cover, but still a GREAT print!
Before purchasing, I read many reviews revealing a cosmetic barcode sticker issue on the cover of the book, and unfortunately, I was one of those unlucky customers as well.As you can see in my image, it damages the visual quality of the book and I wish the vendor would stop doing this. Apparently, few lucky customers receive the book in a plastic sleeve and the barcode is on the plastic sleeve where as most others (myself included) received the book with the bear cover exposed, and the sticker directly on it thus creating a sticky, oily mark on the book in the shape of the sticker, forever. While that is bothersome, I’m not going to return the book just for that. However, if the sticker had been on the front cover or the binding, I would have returned it.Aside from the sticker problem, this is still a wonderful book with a beautiful cover, and it is the rare unabridged version that is so hard to find in most bookstores.It is priced really well and comes with a little red ribbon to mark your place. That is a small feature, but a luxury, considering how thick this book is.If you are looking for the full 117 chapter unabridged version, I highly recommend this purchase.I have attached some photos to my review of the size, the sticker defect, and of the last table of contents page to show the chapter count.The book (the story itself) obviously gets a 5/5. But the sticker issue makes the purchase from the vendor a 3/5. That visual defect really is disappointing. So my overall is a 4/5.I hope this review helps anyone looking to obtain this wonderful book.
