The Three Musketeers

I started to write my WWW Wednesday post this morning, and realized that absolutely nothing had changed since last week. UGH. That just ticked me right off.

There’s nothing worse than a book that is taking way too long to come to a conclusion. Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers was just that book this week. I was so ready to start blogging again, and couldn’t get to the end!

This book was utterly ridiculous to me, which was very disappointing. I grew up with the legend of the Musketeers, and I am absolutely loving the BBC series, but I had never read the original story and figured it was about time I did. Now, I wish I hadn’t. I think this book must be were we Americans get our exaggerated stereotypes (see stereotypes…I don’t actually think this is true) of the French–constant adultery, snobbish about food and wine, and “SACREBLEU!” every two seconds.

I was expecting heroic duels and romance, more knighty type showings of chivalry like I find in my British novels from the same time period. But this was just a foolish, horribly written mess. And maybe it’s just Dumas. I don’t think I’ve read much French literature, so I don’t mean to discredit France and French literature as a whole here. I just really hated this book. The Musketeers were not dashing at all, they were kind of lazy, actually. They wanted to lay around eating chocolate breakfasts and beg wine from married women. And heaven forbid if someone gave them Anjou wine instead of Champagne, oh my goodness.

The only really interesting character was Milady de Winter, and she was just an absolute nutcase. She had about 12 different personalities, but because of Dumas’ terrible writing, it’s hard to tell if she’s a psychopath and she’s in control of herself, or if she has absolutely no idea what’s going on and is just trying to stay alive.

I really wanted to follow this up by reading Man in the Iron Mask…but I don’t think I could stand it. I loved that movie, but ugh. I think reading any more Dumas would just ruin it for me. I’ll just rent the movie again.

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Favorite Character to Actor Depiction

British Television, you are a cruel, cruel master.

I will admit, I am a bit of a anglophile. I think I’ve read more on British history, literature, etc than I have American. I don’t know why. There’s just something romantic about that culture.

And the men. Oh the men. They don’t make men like that here. We have pretty boys, hipsters, country boys.

But we don’t have classic British men. Unconventional, cultured, educated. Yes please.

OK, Haley, back on topic.

I think everyone reads pieces of Sir Arthur Conon Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes at some point, if not the actual books themselves. We grow up hearing about the Sherlockian adventures. They are so archetypal in our culture today. And because Doyle wrote the adventures as short stories, teachers and their textbooks can break them apart individually.

Not only that, but the Sherlockian archetype has been morphed into multiple characters in different shows and movies. Of course you have the actual Sherlock shows through the years, but then you also have characters like House and Gil Grissom (from CSI) that follow his same personality traits.

I’ve always been drawn to that mysterious, introverted character. He’s brilliant in his observations, and so exceedingly aware of it.

I started seeing references to the BBC show Sherlock on Pinterest, and became hooked before I even watched my first episode. When I found out it was on Netflix, well, it was over before it began. And now I am 100% a part of the fandom. And once you’re in….oh man. There’s no turning back is there?

 

Benedict Cumberbatch is just as brilliant as the character he plays. The curly-haired manic genius he becomes takes your breath away as he dashes facts all over your screen. You will have a hard time keeping up as he connects the dots, and makes things make absolute perfect sense.

And I would be remiss if I left out his relationship John Watson. Now, we are in hiatus at the moment, and the fandom has quite lost its mind. While I enjoy the ship…I doubt the show itself will actually go too extreme in that direction. However, I do think Sherlock loves Watson deeply and the little pieces of affection, and watching him barely contain control is so interesting. Cumberbatch is so good at just giving enough there. A little tweak or brush. A crinkle of his eyes when he smiles, and Sherlock almost never really smiles. But just enough. You guys know what I’m talking about, especially the shippers, because oh how you screen shot EVERYTHING. I love it!

Like all of you fans, I cannot wait for Season 4. Hopefully they don’t make us wait too long. His hair sure is getting curly. Think he’s growing it out? One can only hope…