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The whole point of The Three Musketeers is that they are men out of their time, in an end-of-epoch story, surely. Nobody drinks and carouses like they do, nobo
by exasperaited 10mo ago
The whole point of The Three Musketeers is that they are men out of their time, in an end-of-epoch story, surely.
Nobody drinks and carouses like they do, nobody has their sense of chivalry, artistry and old-fashioned justice. The world has lost its colour, its joy and its sense of fairness, and they are loyal to an institution which is itself corrupted and whose time is clearly ending. And so they are lost: they have no cause and they are slowly destroying themselves.
This is why they are portrayed as musketeers who think muskets (representing callous modernity) are clumsy and uncouth. It underscores that the three don't even feel they really fit with the rest of the musketeers. They know muskets have their place. It's just not with them. So there's no reason to explain them away logically. It's a literary device.
The second point is that D'Artagnan is there to remind them of who they were and could be again. D'Artagnan is the hero of the story because he has not been corrupted by life experience.
The third layer is he's also a proxy for the reader who wishes they were there. He is there to get life lessons on the reader's behalf: that stories don't tell the whole truth, that people begin to confuse themselves with their own personal mythologies, that fame isn't reality, that there are risks in meeting your heroes, that adults will let you down, that no institution is better than its people, etc.
This trope has been parodied in various ways since, not least I think in the form of "person who confuses actors for the people they play and convinces them they know as much about the job as the characters they play". Which has itself been parodied in Three Amigos! and also in Galaxy Quest.
And the trope of guns being impersonal compared to swords and knives turns up everywhere.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- gethly 10mo agoYou made me want to buy the books now, despite seeing all the movies many times before :)
- exasperaited 10mo agoSome of my recollection is reinforced by the movies, I must confess, because I remember them more than the book, which I think I read a bit too young. I should read it again now I am an old bloke. The films make more of the musketeers' slow ruin, I think, than the book does. But Porthos is vain and a bit dim, Athos drinks like a fish, etc. If I remember the book right, the films also tend to make a bit less of D'Artagnan's naïvete and tidy up his personal morality, and Athos is usually a loud, drunken, loyal powerhouse in the films rather than an alcoholic. The fundamentals of the films are usually right: the musketeers are aimless and in need of direction, aware they serve a pretty weak monarch, mostly powerless to deal with the corruption around him. Everyone has their own motivations. Weirdly, the delightful eighties Dogtanian and The Three Muskehounds series is pretty close to the book — it's toned down rather than bowdlerised. D'Artagnan really is a feisty puppy, basically. And now I have that song stuck in my head. I think what I should actually do is read the book again while rewatching Dogtanian, because that sounds fun and I read the book largely because of it!
- WillAdams 10mo agoNo need to buy, though arguably, the better translations are still in copyright, see Goodreads and Steven Brust's recommendation of a translation.
- panzagl 10mo agoLawrence Ellsworth's translations are good (he's a sword and sorcery writer), but good luck trying to disambiguate them on Amazon. Look for red cursive titles.
- ErroneousBosh 10mo ago> Nobody drinks and carouses like they do, nobody has their sense of chivalry, artistry and old-fashioned justice. The world has lost its colour, its joy and its sense of fairness, and they are loyal to an institution which is itself corrupted and whose time is clearly ending. And so they are lost: they have no cause and they are slowly destroying themselves. If you wrote it set in the present day, they'd be a bunch of 50-somethings pining for the 90s, bucket hats, blasting Pablo Honey and Modern Life Is Rubbish from the Sharp "Full Auto Reverse" in the Astra, and bemoaning how you can't get decent E and no-one gets in fights any more. They probably own very expensive guitars, too, that they can't really play. The Kia e-Niro will run out of battery at the most inconvenient time leaving our trio stranded on their way to retrieve the stolen diamond to pay off the local councillor Ritchley, who is really fronting for a shadowy property developer who he is very much in love with but has no chance with. They all dream of one day leaving Swindon. Athos, Porthos and Aramis are Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Dylan Moran, Ritchley is Bill Nighy, and Milady is Tamsin Greig. Quite a lot of people absolutely hate it, but somehow still have a pirate copy squirrelled away.
- krige 10mo agoI can't believe I didn't catch the reference until Swindon.
- rawling 10mo agoWhat's the reference?
- WorldMaker 10mo agoSwindon seems to be the real world village that Hot Fuzz's fictional village setting "Sanford" is patterned after?
- exasperaited 10mo agoSwindon is not a village, it’s a fairly large town. About 180,000 people live there. It is a very old town that has a slightly undeserved reputation for being grey and boring and too far from anywhere fun. Sandford is inspired by Wells and Wimbourne, though neither of those are villages either. Wells is tiny, but actually a city.
- chuckadams 10mo ago> And the trope of guns being impersonal compared to swords and knives turns up everywhere. "This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more civilized age."