Alexandre Dumas: "The Man in the Iron Mask" (Is There a Consrvative Twin of Obama Who Can be Substituted by a Modern Aramis?)

One of the "crimes" of Slumdog Millionaire" (a good, but severely flawed, movie--which this blog rated at 82) was turning "The Three Musketeers" into a trivia question for "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".


Let me state it as flatly as I can: Alexandre Dumas is the greatest adventure writer who ever lived. And it pains me to say that about a Frnchman, but it is true. "Slumdog Millionaire" is NOT in that league, and the use of "Aramis" as a game show answer merely highlights that truth.


I just finished re-reading "the Man in the Iron Mask", which is the swan song of the FOUR musketeers featured by Dumans in a series of books constituting essentially one continuous novel in multiple parts. "The Man in the Iron Mask" is a novel with parralels to the USA at present. It is really a melancholy novel aobut a time when the Age of Heroes, and individuals, is over--in favor of an all powerful state. This downbeat message is the reason I only rate it at 99 (out of 100). It contains the greatest death scene (of Porthos) in the history of adventure fiction--perhaps in the history of all of fiction (although here you bring in writers like Dickens and Shakespeare to the comparison). .


Dumas was writing about (although living in a later France in the 19th Century) a France heading toward the horrors of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a royalty with too much power. There was no more room for the individual heroics of the four musketeers. Their time was over. This is not "smple" adventure fictioni, but fiction about the relationship between men, freidnship and honor more profound than anything imagined in "Slumdog Millionaire". Dumas, of course, has the Frenc attitude toward love and women, with women being more a source of downfall for men than love a reddeming feature for men. In Dumas' novels, women are more complications for men of honor than they are creatures fundamental to the lives or happiness of men. The "love story" of "Slumdog Millionaire" looks--and is--puerile in compariston (not that I agree with the French attitude toward love).


"The Three Musketeers", and the sequel, "The Four Musketeers", rrepesented one movie, split into two, based on the earlier Dumas books about the musketeeers. I rate that movie at 100--an abaolutely first class advaenture movie (even if not exactly faithful to the Dumas book). There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that either, or both, of the parts of that movie were more worthy of "best picture" recognition that "Slumdog Millionaire"--in other words, "Slumdog Millionaire would have had no business being "best picture" in a year in which really good movies were made. It is sad, and not a triumph, that "Slumdog Millionaire" may actually have been "best picture" of last year in the moviews. I would not, in fact, rate it so, but the case can certainly be made--sadly as to the comment on the quality of modern moviews.



Bottom line: You should read Dumas. Oh, he is somewht over-descriptive, in the style of the time. And he is not really in a class with Dickens, but who is? Sir Walter Scott also wrot3e first class adventure fiction. But Dumas really has no competition in the field. He is the best--perhaps because he lived many of the types of adventure he wrote about.


As stated, "The Man in the Iron Mask" is not even really an "adventure" novel. It is a melancoly novel of the end of an age. It shows how good Dumas was that he was able to keep that kind of novel interesting, and filled with things perfectly relevant to our time (and all time). As I say, Dumas pretty well describes what I regard as the decline of respect for the individual in the modern USA. You can see echoes of the Age of Obama in Dumas' descriptions of Louis X!V and his court.


Yes, I am back to my own downbeat message of the USA being a country in decline. I strongly maintain that you can see the parallels in "The Man in the Iron Mask", although I admit that many might think I am projecting my own views on Dumas. Doesn't matter. Dumas is still a great adventure writer, with real depth in his analysis of men, freidnsip, honor, politics and conflict.