dumas pere discussion
If you like Dumas you might like...
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This is the second time I have heard some one recommend Raphael Sabatini. I did love the movie Captain Blood so perhaps, it is a worth a look. My problem is that I hated the movie Scaramouche. I know don't judge a book by its movie. But my problem was I thought he ended up with the wrong girl in Scaramouche. Is the book better about this? Because the opening of Scaramouche is tempting.As for other books if you love Count of Monte Cristo you really should read Victor Hugo's Les Mes... (that as much of the title as I will attempt). Dantes and Valjean make a great comparsion.
In a different style but, with the same theme of redemption is John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
I've enjoyed the Sabatini I've read. "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." Great first line, but Scaramouche is all about the swashbuckling. Fencing tactics for the long duel. And obviously a wee bit of revenge. Captain Blood is pretty close to the movie, as is The Sea Hawk. The Lost King was the last I read and I really enjoyed it, many characters you'll find irritiating due to selfishness or childishness, but great stuff.Well, I enjoyed them anyway...must stop before I fall into ranting mode.
Been pondering Les Mes for a while now.
I will give him a try. Frist though I'm taking some time off and reading some children's fiction. We have a bunch of new titles that I haven't read. Then Les Mes and then I'll get to Sabatini. Do read Les Mes. It does have the bonus of being the happinest ending Hugo ever wrote with the exception of his first novel. I got this from brother who is a Hugo fan. I tried some of his other books but, The Man Who Laughs proved to be my last. I hate authors who switch gears at the end of the book. Reading a comedy for about 200 hundred pages and in the last ten end with a tragedy.
By the way thanks for starting this thread. I was wondering about where to go for Dumas type material. Have you tried Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. He is a bit too much into Joan but, the book does have great characters.
By the way have you read Dumas' Thousand and One Ghosts. Very strange book but, also good.
I liked the Captain Blood movie. (I'm sure that Errol Flynn has a great deal to do with it!)Les Mis is something that I mean to get around to reading someday!
I've been told that Arturo Perez-Reverte has some good books. I've only read The Club Dumas, but I liked it well enough that I'd read others.
Captain Alatriste is the Perez-Reverte hero. There's a movie of is books coming out with (I think) Vigo Mortgensen in it.Not bad books, set mid 1600s. Spanish wars in the Low Countries.
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I'm always nervous about reading Hugo, he's so heartbreaking.
I agree about Perez-Revert, he's very good although a little uneven: some of his books are really fun to read, others I find kind of stilted and cold. The Club Dumas is a good one, definitely. I think they made the movie The Ninth Gate from it, with Johnny Depp (six degrees of separation from Barbarossa...Pirates of the Caribbean).
Hey, don't confuse me with Bonebeard! I'm a corsair not a pirate! Must have standards...Thanks for the Zorro tip.
Viggo in the movie, huh? I'm so there!I read Allende's Zorro book last month. I must confess that I was disappointed in it. The chronicles feel of it was good at first when the story was around Diego's parents and early life, but after awhile it was getting annoying to me. Maybe it was just me, but I was losing the flow of the passage of time too even though the sections were divided up into years. I prefer the original novel by Johnston McCulley, The Mark of Zorro, when it comes to the masked hero.
One book - trilogy actual - that I thought of would be the Shiloh trilogy. It is a children's book but, it does carry off a redemption theme so well. One book to save the dog and three books to save the man.I read it when I started out as a children's librarian and it has remind one of favorites. I even managed to get it on the summer reading list.
Today Shiloh Tomorrow Count of Monte Cristo.
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But... and this is an off the wall idea... but the only other author really that I find I kind of settle down with and enjoy over the long haul as I would with a Dumas, and who creates really interesting characters (to me) and who captures the time period well is Trollope. Of course, he's into romance and politics, not adventure, but I think Trollope is the only author whose work I would compare to Count of Monte Cristo.
I like RLS...love Kidnapped, Master Of Ballantrae and DJ+MH. I think though, most 19th cent. stuff in English suffers dreadfully from self (or imposed) censorship...and sometimes fairly turgid prose.
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Very tangential there Cynthia. Just wondering why the leap? Why me?Never read it, will have a wee look here and see what folk say.
Is anyone else here a fan of The Scarlet Pimpernel? I love reading those books.
Was a fan of the movie. Think it a shame that poor Lesile Howard is going to be remember for Gone With the Wind (a part he didn't even what to play) and not for The Scarlet Pimpernel. Have the book marked down as on my to read list.I have a lot of Barbarosa's suggestions.
Anoyone intrested in Dumas' A Thousand and One Ghosts?
Loved the Blackadder take on "The Scarlet Pimpernel". "Ha! Aristo peeg!"Have "A Thousand and One Ghosts" somewhere, don't know where though. Will have a look...
Want to read it in October? That's the perfect time when the ghost are out. I read it once but, I really would like to discuss it with someone. Not quite sure what I read.
Maybe we could make it a book of the month group discussion? I would be up for reading it, btw!Leslie Howard is my favorite actor to play the role of Percy. I wish I was so easily to please when it came to Chauvelin, but I really haven't seen an actor that I particularly like in the role.
New thread for book of the month then?
Shall we go festive and make it for October too?
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I'm up for 1001 ghosts for October, I've never heard of it before, I'll go look it up at abebooks now.
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Great! I think it would be super idea. What should be the date for finishing the book?By the way did anyone see the movie Pimpernel Smith? Lesile Howard redoing his role only now in WWII. It was a film for the war effort but, I remember liking it.
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I think it would be better to chose an early October date say the 10th and then chat about the book during the rest of October like we have been doing. So, far it has worked out well. October 31 I get deluge with trick and treaters. I turn my place into a haunted house and now people are looking for my place. I don't think I can move.
By the way are any of you Steinbeck fans? Posted a question and for five days nothing.
Should be OK for Oct., gives me a month to find the book.Never read any Seinbeck.
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Sorry to be a party pooper but... I was introduced to Steinbeck in 7th grade English class and never recovered from the experience. The Pearl is one of the few books that I have ever absolutely hated. Soooo twistingly dark and horrible.
My daughter read it last year for school, knowing how much I hated it, and she said it was fine. Then she read Of Mice and Men, and she liked it okay. I have never read it but after she gave me the plot summary we decided to change the name of the novel to "No Bunnies for Lenny." Probably wouldn't have won that ol' Pulitzer Prize with a title like that though. : )
Actually I had to read The Pearl in the 8th grade and swore off Steibeck. Then recently I picked up and read East of Eden. I was ready to kill who ever thought to put The Pearl on my reading list. It was probably one of his worst books.East of Eden though runs in a similar way to The Count of Monte Cristo. Both of which are my tipest top books. East of Eden is focused on how does one overcome sin. I read quotes of it to my Mom. She than ran out and bought the book.
As for Mice and Men it is a tough book but, I enjoyed it. Grapes of Wrath is also a great book but, is very similar to Les Mes especially in tone. East of Eden is probably Steinbeck most beautiful book and most like Dumas.
But, enough of Steinbeck back to Dumas.
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Haven't seen Sweeney Todd but, know the music and story through my brother. He had the whole recording. Monte Cristo? I guess in the idea of revenge but, it does seem a stretch. I mean by that idea any revenge story could claim to be part of the Monte Cristo. To me the most important part of Monte Cristo was the lessons it provided about revenge. Death is a poor method of revenge. The Count was fair in he did leave his most innocent victim a small chance to escape him. Caderousse could have been happy enough with the jewel. The Count also ploted the downfall of his enimies through their own defeats. Most important though revenge can't involve the innocent. Seems to me Sweeny Todd broke all those rules.
If Sweeney Todd was like anyone of Dumas it would be Mordanut.
PandoraKat: Any recommendations on translations of Les Misérables? I feel it may have to be added to my ever growing mountain of books "to read".
My brother who is a major Victor Hugo fan says the second best translation he read was the Signet Classic edition translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee. The best is hard to get. I will check with him on which it is though.
If you have time and want to go on a search my brother's favorite edition is the one translated by Isabel F. Hapgood. This version though is difficult to find. PS. Got the Gene Kelly movie version of The Three Musketeers. The Count of Monte Cristo (how my brother signed the tag) gave it to me. Haven't watched it yet but, I'm looking forward to it.
Just finised Scarmouche. What a great book!!! Thanks, Baarabarossa for being the spur that got me to pick up this book despite the awful movie. Definetely worth picking up if you have run out of Dumas. Now it is on to Captain Blood. I think I have a new author.
This looks interesting:The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
About the author's father.
The Black Count does look interesting. I will have to check it out. Perhaps a Christmas gift. Let me know if you get to what you think OB.By the way OB you have got me in a runt. All I want to read currently is Sabtanni. Currently I am reading The Ventian Mask and I have two other Sabtanni on order from Amazon. I also have 14 of his books on my kindle. Still, I am enjoying the books and do force myself to read other books.
dumas pere
Books mentioned in this topic
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (other topics)Gone with the Wind (other topics)
Les Misérables (other topics)
Raphael Sabatini, did Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, Scaramouche and a whole bunch of other stuff. I recently read his The Lost King, set mainly in France circa 1814. About political manipulations round missing monarchs. La Salle is one of my favorite fictional "honest rogues", up there with Alan Breck from RLS's Kidnapped.
Actually, Robert Louis Stevenson does a good historical adventure...and Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures Of Brigadier Gerrard is good Napoleonic escapism.
I will close with a more recent set of books, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles by Robert Anton Wilson. Secret societies and revolution at the end of the 1700s. Washington and Cagliostro in the same books.