The Three Musketeers: wherever I left off - the end

Drinking: Red Stripe Jamaican Lager, Smithwick's Irish Ale, Roadrunner Brown Ale, 2007 Spanish Garnacha

When last we left, the boys had sent off their warnings and were back at work.  We now go to England, where Lord De Winter, Milady's brother-in-law, has received D'Artagnan's message that she is teh ev0l and has locked her up in his castle, to await a sentence from the Duke of Buckingham.  As she is imprisoned, so are we.  We get to spend 12 chapters watching her trying to seduce one of her guards so he'll help her escape.  A geological epoch later, he does, because the story would be really dumb if that was the end.  She also convinces him to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham for her (King - 3, Cardinal - 3, Queen - disqualified).  This takes up many pages, so we're in a rush to the ending.

I couldn't think of an appropriate image, so here's a man running away from a hippo.

D' and the boys learn where his original girlfriend (the landlord's wife) is.  She's at a convent on the other side of the country.  They head there, unfortunately, Milady beats them to her and convinces her the Cardinal is after her.  Just as D' and the boys show up to the rescue, Milady poisons her wine, killing her.  Milady gets away.  D' is heartbroken.  Very sad.  They track Milady down and kill her (all legal like, with a local magistrate).

At this point the dude who has been popping up every once in a while (the guy with ninja skills from the beginning of the book) shows up to arrest D' (the dude's name is Rochefort, and he is not nearly as bad ass as he was when Michael Wincott played him in the Disney movie)

 

Eyepatch WIN

He takes D' to the Cardinal, but  (cue heroic music), D' busts out with the Cardinal's own pardon, which Athos stole from Milady.  Apparently the Cardinal is so impressed he promotes D' to a lieutenant of the Musketeers.  Hooray!  This is pretty much the end,  D' is now the boss.  Athos goes back to being a nobleman, Porthos' marries his mistress after her husband dies and is fantastically rich, Aramis becomes a monk.  Apparently they get back together for The Man in the Iron Mask.  I might read that one someday.

This ending sucks by the way.  The people who most deserve it don't get their comeuppance.  D'Artagnan the homicidal egoist gets a promotion, his girlfriend who didn't do anything except get betrayed by her husband gets dead, Cardinal Richelieu stays where he is, and wins the war against England.  The real hero of the story is Athos, who is a badass throughout, and winds up drinking his days away in a castle like true badasses do.

I suck at writing endings so that will be the end of the first section of this blog.  I'm thinking about The Great Gatsby for my next one, but I'm open to suggestions.  In the meantime, I'll be drinking.

The Three Musketeers: Chapter 36 - oh my LORD this book is long

Drinking: California Coastal Syrah
Listening: nothing

Alright, so if I thought that the last section was getting into the boring stuff, I was woefully mistaken.  Boredom has wrapped his invisible tendrils around the middle of the book and has clasped them in his insidious grip.  Seriously, only a 19th century Frenchman could have written 12 chapters about torrid affairs and war and made them yawn inducing (well, a 19th century Frenchman and Terry Goodkind)

In the next section of the book we learn that D'Artagnan is: (a) a big pimp, or (b) a colossal dick, depending on your view of such things.  Having been introduced to the hot english sister, D' apparently forgets all about his girlfriend (who is his landlord's wife) and tries will all his power to access the pantaloons of this new broad.

 

Victoria's Secret: sexy clown apparel for fall 1628

 

He's having a rough go of it though.  The lady (whose name is Milady, which sounds like malady, which is a disease, which means absolutely nothing), has him over for dinner all the time, but he's leaving  unsatisfied every time.  He decides to while away the hours with her maid.  Yeah.  His girlfriend is in jail, and the person he's trying to hook up with is spurning him, so he hooks up with her maid until the time is right.  What an ass.

Around this time word comes down:  England and France are at WAR.  Finally.  We had tons of gratuitous violence all over the opening chapters, and it disappeared.  War kicks ass though, so we should get to see some shit blow up soon.  Fun fact: apparently Musketeers and Guards are supposed to buy their own equipment to go to war with.  I can just imagine the results that must get at the recruiting office.  "Lessee here son, we'll getcha signed right up, all you have to do is sign here, and buy yerself a several guns, ammo, swords, a horse, saddles, and food.  In return you get to get shot and die.  Good luck".

Now the boys are running around frantic trying to come up with the thousands of dollars it costs to buy all this stuff.  Porthos gets one of his mistresses to buy it for him, out of her husbands bank account, by pretending to be her cousin.  Aramis gets some mysterious lady from far away to pay for his, and won't talk about it.  Likely the chick who sent him the love letter to talk him out of the priesthood.  That's two he owes her.

Back to D'Artagnan's penis, he's still only porking the maid.  Turns out that Milady (who we find out is an agent of the Cardinal, big surprise there), is actually trying to hook up with another dude, who D' stabbed a few times earlier in the book.  She actually is asking him to kill D' for her.  D' starts intercepting her letters, and replying as this other guy.  He arranges a meetup between them, he'll enter through the maid's chamber.

Lets take a moment to reflect on how the author describes this scene, basically D' goes from his current girls room, into the room of her employer for a nice revenge fuck (apparently, it isn't just the Queen, all women in France are idiots and can't tell their boyfriend from the dude they want to kill in the dark).  The author tells us that "he sat next to her on the couch, and kissed her hand".  This is the entire scene.  Apparently they do some weird-ass hand kissing in France. The kind with no pants, as D' is about to flee the room naked.  The ladies will tell you, there is nothing sexier than a dude who is kissing your hand pantsless.  Not creepy at all.

Like this, but with more boners and awkwardness

While she still thinks he's her boyfriend she gives him a real fancy ring.  He then tells her he isn't her boyfriend, and she tries to stab him to death.  Apparently she is the bad-guy for doing this, because quasi-rape is ok for Musketeers!  Here we also find out that Milady is Athos' wife.  And he tried to kill her, because she was already a murderer.  She thinks he's dead and he thought she was dead.  Big shocker to both of them. D' and Athos then sell her ring to buy their war shit.  It's off to the front!

Turns out that the Cardinal is the best general in France.  They show up in La Rochelle and start kicking English ass right away.  This is good because the score was getting pretty uneven, we now have King - 3, Cardinal - 2, Queen - 1.  One night the 3 (sans D' who is on duty) are out at night, when they run across the Cardinal.  The Cardinal asks them to guard him at an inn, where he's meeting someone.  The 3 are able to listen in and it's Milady!  And the Cardinal is sending her to assasinate the Duke of Buckingham! And she only agrees if the Cardinal will help her kill D'Artagnan!  Oh no! (oh yes, little shit deserves it). After the Cardinal leaves, Athos confronts her and steals the pardon the Cardinal wrote out for her that was supposed be her get out of jail free card for murdering D'Artagnan.

 

At this point the Musketeers show what badasses they are.  They need to discuss this with D', but can't where someone will overhear it.  Where do they do it?  In an enemy fortress that was just attacked.  That's right, they head to the front of the front lines, spread out breakfast, and talk it over while repelling various enemy attacks.  Finally, some fucking action.  I was about to slip into a coma.  They decide to send out two of their servants, since getting hanged for desertion will probably not help much.  They send Aramis' servant to his mistress, so she can warn the Queen about the D of B's impending assassination.   They send D'Artagnan's servant to the Brother-in-law that he stabbed, who introduced him to Milady in the first place, to let him know that his sister is a murderous psychotic bitch and he should lock her up in a convent.  Both servants complete their task, D' and the boys are much lauded for their heroism, and D'Artagnan finally gets promoted to the Musketeers. Huzzah.  500 pages in, only 200 to go.

The Three Musketeers: Chapter 11-36

Drinking: Four Peaks Kiltlifter Scottish Style Ale, Newcastle English Brown Ale, Grand Canyon Sunset Stout, Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool Brown Ale, Samuel Adams' Oktoberfest. (yes, all of them, I did promise alcohol abuse didn't I?)
Listening:  The wind through a ponderosa forest, punctuated by occasional gunshots.



This blog has not been going quite like I thought.  I meant to be making fun of classic literature, as it is famously boring and uses obscure forms of English that no one even spoke when they were written.  The whole thing was ruined when I picked up The Three Musketeers and actually liked it.  It is hard to make fun of a book that you are actually a fan of.  Fortunately, the literary gods heard my piteous cries, and made the middle of this book frightfully dull, and the characters started saying things like "zounds" and "gadzooks!" in places I'm pretty sure that even 17th century Frenchmen said "fuck".

When we last left D'Artagnan he had rescued his landlord's wife (sort of) who had been arrested because the Cardinal thought she was helping the Queen cheat on the King with the Duke of Buckingham.  This is the first smart move the Cardinal makes because she is totally helping the Queen cheat on the King with the Duke of Buckingham. D' follows her around one night, because no chick can resist a good stalker, and confronts her when she meets another man, not because she's not with her husband, but because he wants to bone his landlord's wife and no one else should get the priveledge.  Turns out this was the D of B and she was taking him to meet the Queen.  Oops.  D' apparently doesn't give a shit who the Queen is gadzooksing as long as he gets to zounds with this chick.  (Let us take a moment to recall that D' aspires to the kings personal guard, and wonder to ourselves if he isn't a flaming moron.)

Betraying your boss is great for your career

We get treated to a secret liaison between the D of B and the Queen, who gives him a diamond pendant that the King gave her for her birthday.  Because when you are engaged in a capital crime like cheating on the most powerful man in the world, you should totally give your partner something that can be directly linked to you.  Apparently the only qualification for Queen of France is to be a complete idiot.


Meanwhile, the landlord is in jail, where it turns out he's a complete coward and sells out his wife, promising the Cardinal that he will keep an eye on her and report her activities.  I reckon this is so we don't have any sympathy for him when D'Artagnan starts to Egad! his wife.

So now we have about 20 chapters in which the Cardinal finds out that the Queen gave away the diamonds, and comes up with an elaborate plot by which the King will require her to wear them, and D' and the Three get sent to get them back.  D' is the only one to get all the way to England, as the other three all have mishaps along the way  D' gets back in the nick of time to deliver the diamonds to the Queen (King 3, Cardinal 0, Queen 1).  Then goes back out to round up his friends.  Porthos is in a hotel, injured because he lost a duel.  Athos is drunk and locked himself in the basement of another hotel and drank all their wine.  Aramis is about to take vows as a priest, but D' gives him a love letter from some chick, reminding him that getting laid is typically a good thing.

Awesome

Fail

Finally, the landlord's wife manages to get kidnapped again (this time with the landlords help), but she was kidnapped from the place that she and D' were going to Great Scot! fuck.  D' meets the chick that he saw waaaay at the beginning of the book when he was getting his ass kicked (remember? me neither.) when the four beat the shit out of some Englishmen, one of which was her brother.  Which makes sense. I stab you in the chest, you introduce me to your hot sister.  It's how I roll.

The Three Musketeers: Chapter 7 - 10

Alright boys and girls, that's quite enough swashbuckling excitement and adventure, it's on to plot and character development! (I decided to look up swashbuckling because it's a weird word.  Apparently there is no such thing as a "swashbuckle", nor is "to swashbuckle" an appropriate verb.  You can only be a swashbuckler, or engage in swashbuckling)

Mr. Dumbass Dumas takes a chapter here to advise us on the character of our four heroes.  The chapter title is "The Interior of the Musketeers", which made me afraid that I was about to have a graphic scene of Frenchmen engaged in teh buttsecks, but it would seem that there is a God after all.

 

Protecting us from the gayz

Our boys are fresh of their meeting with the king, gold heavy in their pockets.  They throw a party, and D'Artagnan hires a servant (the other three we learn, already have servants).  Soon enough, the gold starts to run out, and D'Artagnan's servant threatens to quit.  Athos, I am not making this up, tells D' to beat his servant.  Yeah.  He does, and the servant has a change of heart and decides to stick around.  This proves, once and for all, that the French are giant pussies.

 

 consider yourself lucky there is no picture to go with this caption

We are treated to a description of each of the The Three Musketeers.  Athos is quiet and even tempered, but apparently beats his servant frequently.  He talks as little as possible, and gets grouchy when the subject of women comes up.  He has a sword hanging on his wall that is worth a ton of money, but won't part with it at any price.  He also has a portrait of a nobleman, and gold box with a key that he keeps on his person at all times.  He is a frequent gambler, who never seems to have problems paying off his debts. It would seem that there is a secret past here...Is Athos a disgraced nobleman in hiding among the Musketeers?  Tonight on TMZ!

Porthos is the exact opposite of Athos, a loudmouthed braggart, with an equally bombastic servant.  He dresses very well and keeps a fine apartment (that no one has ever been inside).  He speaks frequently and openly about his many mistresses, and parties his ass off. Porthos also gambles, and when he loses, he disappears for several days, but always comes back with the money.  Where is he going to get it?

Aramis seems to have no bad habits, and actually aspires to the priesthood.  We aren't told what keeps him from doing so.  Right now he is my least favorite of the three.

Anyways, with that boring shit out of the way, it's on to plot development!  Once the king's gold runs out, they start acting like starving college students.  They each endeavor to get invited to parties with free food, then invite their friends to the party to eat all the hosts food!  That is rather assholish if you ask me.  So what do trained swordsmen do when work isn't paying well enough and they don't have the cash to support their gambling, drinking, partying habits and their servants and wardrobes?  Freelance!

D's landlord comes to him with a problem.  His wife has been kidnapped!  A large reward is offered for her return.  Here's where the plot comes in.  His wife is a handmaid to the queen.  The Cardinal is in love with the Queen, but she doesn't love him back.  She doesn't love the King either.  She loves the English Duke of Buckingham.  The Queen's steward told D's landlord that his wife was kidnapped by the Cardinal to see if she knows if the Duke of Buckingham is in town.  Apparently the French court is like an episode of Days of Our Lives.

 

Will Jessie and Ryan ever realize their true passion is for food?

So via a somewhat complex process that doesn't need to be repeated, D' manages to get the wife back, but lets the husband get arrested in the meantime.  He does manage to once again kick Cardinal's Guard ass when they try to rearrest the wife. (King - 3, Cardinal - 0).  We are told frequently that the wife is hot, and D'Artagnan notices.  Nothing happens though (yet).   The queen's steward tells D' that he does not want this shit coming back on him, and needs to find an alibi.  D' goes to see Mr. T, but set's the wall clock back before he gets there, and sets it back forward after he leaves.  Voila, airtight alibi from an unimpeachable source.  Speaking of which, I was with you guys from 2:30-4:30 last night. Cool?

The Three Musketeers: chapter 6

Drinking: Mountain Dew

Listening: Coldplay

Don't judge me, I'm posting from my Chinese lunch spot.

We left D'Artagnan and the boys riding rather high, fresh off their victory over the Cardinal's guards.   It seems that their victory is causing quite a stir, Mr T. has been summoned to the kings presence.  It turns out that, rather than put foot to ass on his officers like a real commander would do when his troops lost, the Cardinal has been whining to the king about how the musketeers ambushed his troops.  What a wuss.

Actual photo of Cardinal Richelieu

Mr T. tells the king how it really went down (with a few itsy bitsy embellishments), and the king is quite pleased.  It seems that he and the Cardinal are having a bit of a proxy war with their respective forces, a victory for the musketeers is a victory for the king, but only if they don't start it.  The king asks to see the musketeers the next day.

Our boys rise early the next day, but their appointment isn't until noon, so they stop off for a quick game of tennis before seeing the king.  Badass swordsmen like tennis.  It is known.

Everyone loves tennis

During their tennis game, one of the Cardinal's guards shows up, and makes fun of D's tennis abilities.  We're only 6 chapters in and we know what that means: a fight to the death.  D' and Mr. Guardsman step outside for some quick swordplay, and D' totally stabs the guy in the lung.  Unfortunately he does so right outside one of the prime hangouts of the Cardinal's Guards.  Soon, he's outnumbered 3 to 1.  Not to worry though, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis have come outside and the ass-kicking commences.  Soon both sides are calling out their reinforcements and it's a general brawl.  The Guards retreat inside their hideout, and some Musketeers decide it might be a good idea to burn the place down.  I guess I underestimated the rivalry up to this point.  That's some cold-blooded shit.  D' and the boys talk them out of it, and rush off to report to Mr. T.   He's pretty pissed.  In a proxy war, small out of the way duels are acceptable.  Riots and trying to burn down buildings all over Paris, not so much.

They rush off to see the king, but he's out hunting.  Since they won't be the first person to tell him about the battle, they need a witness.  Mr. T calls on the guy with the stabbed lung, figuring since he's on death's doorstep he won't lie lest he damn himself to eternal hellfire.  He brings one of the higher-ups of the Cardinal's Guards along too.   The guy spills it, about how he started it, and the next day they report it to the king.  The king is pretty damn happy.  Not only is the score King - 2, Cardinal - 0, but it's all the Cardinal's fault.  He meets the D' and the Musketeers, and actually rewards them for their valiant service.  D' is now even closer to Musketeerhood.  The king puts him in another guard company that works closely with the Musketeers, and D' only has to serve 2 years for a promotion, or, if he can find a way to distinguish himself . 

D'Artagnan may be a murderous little douchebag, but I'm starting to like the kid.