What a Wild Ride
As when I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, I’m feeling that satisfaction of having yet another of the Great Stories under my belt. Now other stories that play off of the D’Artagnan Romances, either by allusion, imitation or parody will make more sense. I have moved a step deeper into the web of literary influences and cross-pollinations that help make up the cultural treasure of the West. On a less profound note, I’ve had a cracking good time. Wallace Stevens famously demanded that the first thing a poem should give us is pleasure. This Dumas gives us with no unstinting hand. There is melodrama and humor here, pathos and irony, deep insights into human nature and fine descriptions of nature. The canvas is vast enough—the characters complex enough and they change over time radically enough—to create the illusion that in listening we are somehow living real life. The mere length of the story, covering five books, 90+ hours of listening time and over 35 years of actual historical time, would be enough to do that. But it is the tale, with all its complexities and cull-de-sacs, intrigues and infidelities, that sucks us in, creating a complete alternate universe within which we can breathe and move about. Like Monte Cristo, the incredible extravagance and even more incredible coincidences all somehow ring true. Perhaps because the more fantastic plot twists and great gestures of heroism or self-denial are leavened with the kind of inconvenient details we recognize from our own experience. For example, after the initial hail-fellow-well-met brotherhood of the first volume, our “four inseparables” find themselves on different sides of several divides, including the Fronde. Yes, there is probably a good deal of willing suspension of disbelief on my part; I am particularly good at that when in sympathy with an author’s aims. Even so, it’s an approach I recommend. It is well worth the effort. The above comments pertain to the whole series, from Three Musketeers onward. Of Man in the Iron Mask in particular, all I can say is that Dumas would have approved of Chekov’s dictum: if you have a gun over the mantle in act one, you’d better fire it by act three. Everything that is so carefully set up in The Vicomte de Bragelonne and Louise de Valliere comes to a head in Man in the Iron Mask. I will not say a word of what happens, what plots are laid, who falls and who ascends. That would be ruining the pleasure. Just go back to Three Musketeers and start at the beginning, with a callow youth from Gascony on a yellow jade, armed with his father’s sword and a letter of introduction to the Captain of the Musketeers, who jounces into Paris and picks three separate quarrels with three friends names Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Of Simon Vance’s performance I can only say it is perfect. In fact I prefer his work to that of Frederick Davidson who handles volume two, Twenty Years After. Vance keeps every character, even the women, distinct and individual. His timing and rhythm are superb. As in everything I’ve heard from him, Vance gives the impression that he’s doing such a fine job because he wrote the words he’s reading. My only complaint is in the production; at times Vance’s level drops out and he seems to be reading in a completely different room with a distinctly hollow ambiance—as if in the initial reading a line of text was missed and they rushed into another studio to lay down the missing words and drop them into the original recording. Still, it only happens occasionally and only for a sentence or two. Finally, thanks to Downpour for making Ten Years After (the three novels Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de Valliere and Man in the Iron Mask) available as a weekend spotlight deal. The whole set ended up costing me less than one volume at full price.