[EnWorld Book Club] Next Selection: The Club Dumas.

[Alaric_Prympax]

I bought a copy a while back but I haven't read it yet. I'll see if I can find it and read it. I was hoping this would be the choice. Thanks!

 

[The Serge]

This is an excellent, suprisingly complex book.

 

[JoeBlank]

I hate to admit it, but I have never read Three Musketeers. Should I try to read it before starting Club Dumas?

May be able to get Three Musketeers on tape from the library, so I could be listening to it during my daily commute and reading Club Dumas in the evenings.

 

[nikolai]

I hate to admit it, but I have never read Three Musketeers. Should I try to read it before starting Club Dumas?

I don't think there's any requirement to read The Three Musketeers before The Dumas Club. Everything you need to know is spelt out in the book. The Dumas Club can be read on it's own. Most people will also have some of The Three Musketeers from films, even if they haven't read the books. I had read the The Three Musketeers, but so long before I read the The Dumas Club that I remembered nothing except pop-culture references. This didn't do me any harm.

On the other hand; there are some pretty deep links between the two books. I'm aware of some of them, but others no doubt pass me by. People who are very familiar with Dumas, will be able to read the The Dumas Club on a different level to those who aren't.

 

[nikolai]

Just a bump, to keep the thread in people's eyes.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I just finished it over the weekend, and I'm already thinking of ways to take the core of the story and using it my D&D game...

 

[shadoe]

The Dumas Club is a great book that was horribly adapted to movie format in the Ninth Gate.

There are only a few things that reading the Three Musketeers might be helpfull for, but none of it is plot important, and everything that you need will be explaned in the Dumas Club itself.

The only other thing that might be interesting to check out is how well the translation works. My wife and I just finished reading Arturo Perez-Reverte's Queen of the South, she read it in the original spanish, while I only understanding english read it in english, and there were many places where the translation was not the best. Anyway, I may try reading it again before the discussion starts to take part in it.

 

[MarauderX]

Finally made time to finish it up last night. Ending was... different. I had to read the last ~25 pages twice to make sure I wasn't missing something.

What I didn't like:

Spoiler

The voice of the narator treating me like a sissy reader with the irony of the characters being sarcastic about others' fictional characters. Too much forced 3 muskateers onto all of the characters. Enough already.

What I loved:

Spoiler

The narator saving the twists til last, keeping himself in the background as much as possible. The quick pace of events. Corso stayed true to character.

 

[Berandor]

I just rented it from the local library - thanks for picking a somewhat mainstream book that is old enough to have a German edition

 

[nikolai]

Bump, mostly. But thanks to everyone who is reading, has read, is re-reading the book. I got a lot from the book on a re-read; parts of the story actually felt very different the second time around.

I have also started a thread over in Off Topic Discussion, trying to find out what the (untranslated) extract from the Nine Doors in Chapter III says in english.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101519