Mid-Book Impressions: The Three Musketeers and Eugene Onegin

If you look at the sidebar on my blog, you'll notice that I'm reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. If you read Cyrillic, you'll also have figured out that I'm reading Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. Sorry I didn't get an actual book cover for it, but I liked the drawing. Pushkin was good at drawing too, who knew?
Ahem. I've noticed several similarities between these books, and I'm less than halfway through Musketeers and nearly done with Eugene Onegin.

First off, they both feature dueling. Musketeers treats dueling as casually as you treat brushing your teeth, and Onegin treats dueling as something tragic that ruins lives. Huh. I wonder if those people you just skewered had families and lovers, d'Artagnan.
Pushkin goes out of his way to show how horrible the early death of the man killed in the duel was, whereas in Musketeers, the bodies pile up with hardly a batted eye. But again, I'm less then halfway through it. I'm either in for three hundred more pages of this, or an epic Dantes-esque redemption arc. Why do I doubt the latter.

Second, the leading men are both deeply flawed. Eugene is jaded and ends up making many mistakes that ruin his happiness. d'Artagnan is impulsive and a little too quick on the draw, also he is actively trying to get a married woman to be his mistress. Eugene's flaws are what drives the story to tragedy, d'Artagnan's are portrayed in kind of a 'boys will be boys' way. Needless to say, I don't like it.

Third, the author's names are both Alexander. Nothing deep to say here, I just thought it was really funny how I just so happened to pick these two at the same time. Coincidence, won't you?

The thing that surprised me about Onegin is that it's written in verse, and I usually hate books in verse. I couldn't even finish The Ballad of White Horse by Chesterton, because I was so lost and irritated with the style. However, I'm plowing through Onegin, and enjoying it very much. I'm also considering learning Russian so I can read this and my other favorite Russian novels in their original language. I already speak French, so I should probably brush up on that so I can reach fluency. But still, reading this in the original language would be a treat, because due to the format- poetry, it's really hard to convey the author's feelings. So Someday. Someday I'd like to read Pushkin's actual words.

As for Musketeers.... eurgh. I'll finish it, and give a final consensus, but it's not looking good.
Tell me, am I going way too hard on what is essentially supposed to be a fun adventure story? Maybe I shouldn't take it so seriously. I dunno. I think my expectations were unfairly high due to the sheer epicness that was The Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe I should reread that in the original French, that'd be fun.

The Count of Monte Cristo [1844] Video Review!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, TOUT LE MONDE!!!
Ahem. On December 30th, I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, and the following day I somehow managed to film the video and post it! Usually there's at least a week's delay between filming and posting, but this time I did it quickly and efficiently. :D

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy [1905]

They seek him here, they seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere!
Is he in heaven, is he in hell?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel!

Sometimes, You've just got to read a fun book. I think that's how I could classify this book. Don't get me wrong, it's not frivolous or shallow. But it's not particularly concerned with the how's or why's, and just gets right down to business. TSP is kind of a simplistic book, in that the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys. I usually don't like that kind of thing, especially when the villain is constantly rubbing his hands together and laughing evilly. But I didn't mind it too much here, because it fit just fine with the overall tone of the book.
I also thought that for the 'cleverest woman in Europe', Marguerite was a little dense. But in all fairness, if I was married to this poof, I wouldn't suspect a thing either.
And now, for the fangirly gushing.
First off, this books is very fast paced and holds your attention. At least, it held mine. Your mileage may vary!
The book is short, and it shouldn't take that long to read. Unless you're reading it on your laptop's kindle app, and that hurts your eyeses, precious.
Sir Percy is (you could see this coming, yeah? ;) a really cool character, and I always found myself cracking up when he was talking in his slurred fop voice. Ahem. He's a very admirable character (though I wonder what gave him the idea to go off saving people from the guillotine!), and just the kind of hero that is getting hard to find. He's gallant, has a great sense of humor, and doesn't expect anything in return for what he does.  Oh, and he dresses well. ;)
Now, I know I kind of dissed Marguerite up there, but she's actually fine. You know, aside from the whole cleverest woman in Europe thing. I admire her determination, and she's very romantic at heart, but not in a silly or sappy way.
I love the finale of this book. It's very exciting, and I like the little twists thrown in!

The Verdict: A-
I hear that there are a lot of sequels to this book (and that they're actually pretty good), so I might just see if I can acquire one of them and give it a read, because this book left me quite hungry for more of their adventures! :D

Oh, and here are The Scarlet Pimpernel chibis.

 

Hope you like them! And um, any resemblance between Sir Andrew and Timothy from my silly comics is completely coincidental. There are only so many hair dos I can think of. XD