The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

This section has a lot of repetition, in that various characters react to the incident we have already seen of the duel. King Louis plays the part of a cross-examining lawyer brilliantly against poor Malicorne, whose fabrications become more and more extravagant. (I wondered if he was going to come up with a method whereby the wild boar could have caused a gun to go off!)

However, Malicorne has the trump card of a lady's honor, which causes even d'Artagnan to recant his eyewitness testimony. This shows the problem of having an edict that can't always be enforced, in this case forbidding dueling. Everyone has to pretend it didn't happen. We have already seen the reaction of Louis, then we get the reaction of Madame. Here Malicorne is on better footing, allowing Madame to have a different view of which lady was really being honored. Montalais is also successful in adding to her stash of incriminating items. In a sense Malicorne and Montalais are the most "honest" ones at court in that they never fool themselves even while they lie readily to others.

In the last chapter, we see how the various characters react to the discomfort of traveling in the heat. Remember they wore a lot of layers of clothing, including gloves and hats. And even the best carriages had no real suspension and the roads were extremely bumpy.

Do you have any favorite characters at court or do you find them all annoying? Malicorne reminds me a bit of Figaro from The Barber of Seville/The Marriage of Figaro.

I mainly find the characters at court to be annoying. They all seem to be scheming for advantage (even the royalty), but I don't like any of them enough to care who wins.

The court drama is for me the soap opera part - never ending and always going in circles. But finally the King and La Vallière got an understanding and her destiny as mistress of the king seems sealed.
I wonder what happens to de Guiche. Will he survive or will he pass away with the sight of Madame on his mind? She left him in the middle of the night and all of a sudden the whole court is on its way back to Paris without any further mentioning of de Guiche’s fate. It is a little like with that scene in / around Newcastle when we did not hear more about Parry (I think it was him or his brother). Then later he reappeared. Let us see whether de Guiche still has a role to play in this story.
I am also wondering about Raoul and what effects this will have on him and when he will find out.
The story is dragging along somehow. However, I liked the way the entrance of the two ladies into de Guiche’s room was described. It was very imaginable and visual.

Robin, I had not thought about Figaro, but as you mentioned it, there are some similarities. 😊

**I have updated the reading schedule through the end of the saga, which will be around April. I added 2 weeks of break from December 19-Jan 1 for readers to catch up or just enjoy time off**

Thanks, Robin!

I'm also late posting the next installment, will probably have it later tonight.

I finally finished these 6 chapters. It took me forever.
The first 4 almost put me to sleep.
The last 2 were actually pretty good.
It really feels like they were written by different people.

Hedi, I also liked the chapter in which the princess sneaks out to visit De Guiche. It was very cinematic. It reminded me of Queen Margot.
It was definitely a nice change of pace from the court drama.

Speaking of court drama - I still don't understand the king's fascination with LaValiere. I can understand her falling for him - he's a young handsome king and she's just a girl from a small town, easily impressed by everything.

I thought it was amusing how the princess is overheating and wants to be alone in the carriage, but her husband doesn't want to ruin his skin in the sun and refuses to leave.
The king gladly takes his brother's horse, leaves his wife, and shamelessly flirts with LaValiere again in front of everyone.

I still don't have a favorite character. I like Montales.
But I always get Malicorne and Manicamp mixed up.

I think the reason most of us have a hard time caring about the characters is that they are all very superficial. Dumas doesn't give us much character development - all we get is gossip and the telling and re-telling of events. It's worse than a soap opera - it's starting to feel like a scripted dating reality show.

Ana, I am glad to hear that I am not the only one mixing up Malicorne and Manicamp. 😉 I feel with you. I am actually getting quite annoyed by it. As you mentioned the characters are rather superficially described. I think that is the reason for this mixup. The characters do not really stand out and are not really distinguished from each other.

Ana wrote: "I finally finished these 6 chapters. It took me forever.
The first 4 almost put me to sleep.
The last 2 were actually pretty good.
It really feels like they were written by different people.

Hed..."

You might be right that some chapters were written by another person.

And I also got those 2 "M" characters mixed up!

I'm putting this message in the active discussions as the group message sent out doesn't seem to have reached everyone:

The poll is up for our next read, likely to start mid-late January, so head on over to vote at https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/3... if you plan to join us for that read.