Swashbuckling Adventure!!

At some point recently, I realized that my phone has a book function, right before I got myself a new e-reader, and I decided that this was a fantastic opportunity to do some reading that I hadn’t done before or had read so long ago I couldn’t remember most of what had happened. So, I started last month reading classics on my phone and ran right through Treasure Island. It made me so happy. And, to keep the momentum of classic adventure stories going, I decided to move on to Three Musketeers. And that’s when I hit the brakes. I had never read Three Musketeers before. My understanding of the story at this point has been incomplete. Seriously incomplete.












So, as I’ve been working through the inadequacies of my understanding of French swashbuckling literature, I’ve also been trying to read other books, knowing this is going to take time. (I’m not reading it in French, by the way. I don’t really speak any thing more than “food ordering French” …. so, yeah. But, I’m not sure, there may also be some problems with the translation I’m reading).

And, while I’ve read several other books so far, I found a book that bowled me over.

The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Now, that’s a swashbuckling adventure!

It was strange reading these two stories at the same time, because, while they’re marketed as being the same genre (mostly), they couldn’t be more different. The Lies of Locke Lamora follows a group of gentleman thieves, while the Three Musketeers (as you may already know) surrounds the story of four noblemen (imagine that), three of whom are already musketeers in the King’s service, while the fourth is looking to get in. There are, yes, court intrigues and street brawls in both. There are enemies of the state in both, yes. But...




"Can't get paid if you crawl away like a little bitty bug, neither. I got a share in this job. Ten percent of nothing is—let me do the math here. Nothing into nothin'. Carry the nothin'...." Jayne Cobb - Firefly



(via Icefloe-ArtSoul on deviantart)

 

While I need to get over certain preconceived notions about The Three Musketeers, The Lies of Locke Lamora, well, all I really knew going in was that the cover (and some other things I’ve read about the author) was kick-ass. While I’m trying to reconcile images of Kiefer Sutherland as this tragic-yet-stoic leader of the merry band of Musketeers, there’s none of that with Locke. I have his description of an average man of average height with average looks, a man designed to blend in and be forgotten, a man who was practically born to become other people and play confidence games. (A concept I find particularly awesome.)

(Look at Kiefer Sutherland rock that hair!)

 

Locke is a novel set in a fantasy world (based on Medieval Venice) that has a very real way of running. Characters are gritty, flawed. The world is full of anti-heroes. The Three Musketeers, while set in historical France, is a world I can’t even begin to understand. People fall easily in and out of love and while, yes, our heroes are imperfect, they’re almost comical in their imperfections (and yes, I know it was meant to be satire, but...): D'Artagnan falls in and out of love so fast he forgets the woman that went missing all because he was intending an assignation. Pages go by, and it isn’t until another character reminds him that he was supposedly in love that he’s reminded he needs to pursue more ends -- until he falls in love with the person he should really question and ignores those ends to pursue her and then pursue revenge against her. Athos isn’t some tragic stoic hero, he’s a mean drunk. Porthos is... well he’s exactly the same. And Aramis? Well... I’m just going to let that go for now. People are persuaded into behavior that they have previously claimed not to be capable of (Constance), while others … I still don’t see where they really got one up on anyone. Meanwhile, Locke is never anything more than he admits to being -- unless he’s pretending to be someone else. And even then, he is still a stronger character with tighter ties to his brother-Gentleman Bastards (in my eyes) than any of the four Musketeers.

Translation issues aside (or maybe because of the translation), I am also having the worst time staying in the moment in Three Musketeers, meanwhile, the voice in The Lies of Locke Lamora pulls you in and drags you along in a story that tells you both about his past and present, the benefit of which I still haven’t gotten in Three Musketeers.

Of course, part of this might be because I loved the 1993 movie. And while I liked the more recent one, we can't even begin to compare it to either the book or any of the earlier movies.

Mind you, I’m not finished with The Three Musketeers yet, and I do intend to finish by hook or crook, but I burned through the Lies of Locke Lamora and I fully intend to grab the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies,  just as soon as I find it. It’s a strange feeling, since I love (or thought I loved) adventure stories. But, it could be the translation. I know that’s caught me up on a book before. I still haven’t finished Sophie’s World -- entirely based on a translation where I felt I was being talked down to. Three Musketeers just reads erratically (in neither English nor French is ngrm a word, and that’s the least of my problems).

I think I might just pick up Red Seas Under Red Skies, instead. Man. I want to see what’s next for one Priest of the Nameless Thirteenth....


Ahh, Chains!
(via TolmanCotton on deviantart)

And the Midnighters