En esta novela conocemos al intrépido D’Artagnan y sus fieles compañeros, los mosqueteros Athos, Porthos y Aramis. Si optáis por leer esta obra, veréis que las aventuras no terminan nunca, entre las que os váis a encontrar duelos de espadas, batallas, intrigas en la corte, venganzas y por supuesto también algo de amor.
Además del trama, que no deja un momento de respiro, otro de los puntos fuertes de la novela es la caracterización de sus personajes. Héroes valientes y divertidos como lo son nuestros mosqueteros (aunque ni mucho menos perfectos), villanos astutos y calculadores (los cuales algunos de ellos los odias y lo amas por su inteligencia), entre otros muchos más personajes. Cada uno de ellos viene con su historia y su personalidad particulares.

The beginning of this book was a real stinker. I couldn't believe it was getting 4 star reviews from people. After the first couple of pages, I was ready to throw in the towel but I kept going and I am glad that I did. I am almost finished with this book. I will forgive Dumas for the first couple of pages - okay for me the first 45-50 pages. Because the rest of the book has been very good...should finish the book later today.

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I did not expect that a book written in the 1800s about events set in the 1600s, would be this FUN AND HILARIOUS. the overall plot was meh, I don’t like reading about politics, infidelity nor insta-love

سه تفنگدار ، رمانی ایست نوشته آلکساندر دوما ، نویسنده مشهور فرانسوی در ژانر ماجراجویانه و تخیلی که در بستر تاریخ فرانسه در قرن هفده می گذرد . کتاب اول که همان سه تفنگدار است در سال1844 تقریبا در 700 صفحه منتشر شد و در سال بعد ، با توجه به استقبال فراوانی که از این کتاب شد ، دوما تصمیم گرفت که ادامه ای بر آن بنویسد ، این کتاب با عنوان 20 سال بعد و تقریبا با 800 صفحه کتاب منتشر شد . جناب دوما داستان سه تفنگدار را رها نکرد و چند سال بعد کتاب دیگری به نام ویکنت دو براژلون را نوشت که شرح داستان فرزند نامشروع آتوس و البته دوران پیری سه تفنگدار بود که البته این رمان به فارسی ترجمه نشده .
نگاهی کوتاه به ترجمه های موجود سه تفنگدار در ایران
بیشتر ناشرها ترجیح داده اند که خلاصه و تلخیص شده کتاب عظیم دوما را منتشر کنند . این کتاب های خلاصه شده معمولا بین 60 تا 220 صفحه دارند . اما نشر هرمس و امیرکبیر متن کاملا وفادار به کتاب اصلی با ترجمه محممد طاهر قاجار را منتشر کرده اند که با توجه به فونت و قطع کاغذ ،کتاب بین 1400 تا 1660 صفحه دارد . نشر نگاه هم ترجمه دیگری از ذبیح الله منصوری منتشر کرده که تقریبا 3 برابر کتاب دوما حجم دارد ! کتاب منصوری که به جای دو جلد کتاب اصلی پنج جلد دارد ، مانند دیگر کتاب های ایشان تا جای ممکن اقتباس و بسط داده شده و نام کتاب هر چه باشد مسلما ترجمه سه تفنگدار نیست .
سه تفنگدار نشر هرمس با ترجمه محممد طاهر قاجار
محمد طاهر میرزا که از نوادگان عباس میرزا و پسر عموی سلطان صاحب قران و تحصیل کرده و فرنگ رفته بوده ، این کتاب و کنت مونت کریستو را درزمان ناصرالدین شاه به فارسی ترجمه کرده . محمد طاهرقاجار شخصیت جالبی داشته ، او به جای آنکه در دربار قاجاری مستقر شود ومانند باقی قاجارها به دسیسه و توطئه مشغول باشد به کاشان رفته و شروع به ترجمه کتاب های دوما کرد . نشر هرمس هم در مقدمه کتاب هم نوشته که در متن اصلی کتاب دخل و تصرف چندانی صورت نگرفته و تنها در برخی موارد اصلاحاتی انجام شده است . بنابراین ترجمه ای که خواننده در قرن 21 می خواند همان ترجمه قرن 19 است که ناصرالدین شاه هم احتمالا همان را خوانده است !
ترجمه جناب قاجار گرچه در زمان خود احتمالا جالب و گیرا بوده اما نه تنها هیچ جذابیتی امروزه ندارد بلکه تمام وجه طنز و البته ماجراجویی داستان دوما را هم از بین برده است . استفاده فراوان از لغات و اصطلاحات عربی مانند الله اکبر که به جای تعجب به کار رفته و فی الحقیقه ؟ که معادل های بهتری مانند به راستی ؟ یا به درستی ؟ دارد ، تنها نمونه کوچکی از انبوه لغات و عبارات عربی ایست که بیشتر فضای کتاب را به داستانهای عربی تبدیل کرده تا یک رمان فرانسوی !
متن جناب قاجار شباهتی چشمگیر به گلستان سعدی هم دارد :

n
مع هذا با این طبع عالی و این همه دانش وقتی که بهت و فکر بر وی مستولی شدی و این نیز غالب اوقات بودی بالمره زایل گشتی . ساعت های طولانی همان طور بر چیزی نظر افکندی و نگران ماندی و هیچ نگفتی و هیچ نفهمیدی ، و اگر در یکی از این حالات اجتماع رفقا اتفاق افتادی آتوز هیچ نگفتی و مطلقا داخل محاوره نشدی اما به عوض به قدر چهارتای آن ها شراب نوشیدی و مستی در وی ظاهر نشدی الا اینکه به حالتی بسیار محزون داخل گردیدی و بی اندازه ملول نشستی .
n

بنابراین خواننده باید خود را برای خواندن 1660 صفحه مانند متن بالا آماده کند !

محتوا و داستان کتاب :
سه تفنگدار اولین کتاب از سه گانه دوما در زمان لویی سیزده وصدراعظم مقتدر او کاردینال ریشلیو می گذرد ، آنچه در این کتاب می بینیم پادشاهی ضعیف است که از تفرقه میان وزیر خود و ملکه و برخورد میان هواداران آنها و تفنگداران خود و تفتگداران خود به شکلی دیوانه وار لذت می برد . افزون بر رقابت های سیاسی ، جناب دوما محاصره روشل و کمک انگلیسی ها و یا به قول مترجم انکریزی ها و کمک دوک دوبوکینگهام به ساکنان محاصره شده شهر را هم در کتاب گنجانده تا این گونه شاید تقابل میان کاتولیک ها و پروتستان ها را در فرانسه نشان داده والبته تعادل هم میان تاریخ و تخیل حفظ شود .
در کتاب دوم ، لویی سیزدهم در گذشته و لویی چهاردهم طفل کوچکی ایست و فرانسه را ملکه و باز هم وزیر مقتدری به نام کاردینال مازارن اداره می کنند . دوما در کتاب بیست سال بعد به دو واقعه تاریخی مهم اشاره کرده : اول شورش کرامول و اعدام چارلز اول ، پادشاه انگلستان توسط او و حادثه تاریخی دوم شورش فلاخن و تلاش اشراف و مردم برای کنار زدن مازارن .
شخصیت های اصلی کتاب دوما ، همان سه تفنگدار معروف ، یعنی آتوس ، پروتوس و آرامیس هستند که از همان ابتدای داستان ، دارتانیان ، جوان شجاع ، باهوش و با کفایت هم به آنها اضافه می شود . این تفنگداران در حقیقت اصیل زادگان بی پولی هستند که به دنبال ماجراجویی ، لقب و ثروت در فرانسه قرن هفده هستند و اسامی آنها ( به جز دارتانیان ) اسم حقیقی آنها و در برگیرنده عنوان درباری آنها نیست . دوما آرامیس را آرام و مکار ، پروتوس را قوی و ساده دل ، آتوز را شجاع و مسلط به اخلاق و دارتانیان را بسیار باهوش خلق کرده . در حقیقت هوشی که دوما برای دارتانیان آفریده به قدری ایست که از همان ابتدا دیگر اعضای گروه را تحت الشعاع خود قرار داده و به گونه ای با وجود سن کم ، نقش رهبر و طراح گروه را به دست می گیرد . این هوش زیاد دارتانیان معمولا خود را به شکل کارهایی مانند سکوت ، استفاده از تاریکی ، مخفیانه گوش دادن و تغییر لباس نشان می دهد ، کارهایی که امروزه بسیار ساده و پیش پا افتاده به نظر می رسند اما برای دارتانیان معروفیت و شهرت همراه می آورد .موفقیت دارتانیان تا اندازه ای ایست که تنها با سکوت و استفاده از تاریکی موفق به هم آغوشی با زنی بسیار زیبا می شود !



سه تفنگدار با سفر دارتانیان از شهر خود به پاریس ، برخورد او با سه تفنگدار و دوستی و اتحاد آنان در مقابل تفنگدارهای کاردینال شروع می شود. آنها ماموریت های مختلف را با هم انجام داده و در تمامی آنها هم پیروز شده و دوستی آنها هم تقویت می شود .دوما محاصره شهر روشل توسط کاردینال و تلاش دوک دوبوکینگهام برای رساندن آذوقه و مهمات به شهر محاصره شده و قتل دوک را در کتاب شرح داده و البته نقش سه تفنگدار و دارتانیان را هم در این نبرد به شکلی اغراق آمیز نشان داده است . دوما کتاب را با انتقام به پایان می رساند .
بیست سال بعد ، کتاب دوم دوما ، همانگونه که از نامش مشخص است بیست سال بعد از انتقام رخ می دهد ، در این زمان ارتباط دوستان با هم قطع شده و تقریبا رابطه ای با هم ندارند . از میان آنها فقط دارتانیان است که تفنگدار مانده و باقی زندگی نسبتا اشرافی دارند . در این داستان خبری از لویی سیزدهم و کاردینال ریشلیو نیست و مازارن که یکی از شاگردان کاردینال سابق است جای او را گرفته .
کتاب در دو قسمت به صورت موازی بیان می شود ، بخش اول که مربوط به انقلاب در انگلستان ، سقوط چارلز اول به دست کرامول و تلاش سه تفنگدار برای نجات اوست و بخش دوم ، قیام در فرانسه و به ویژه در پاریس برای عزل مازارن . جناب دوما باز هم مانند کتاب اول ، تاریخ و تخیل را در هم آمیخته و با اضافه کردن چندین داستان فرعی که البته بیشتر حالت اکشن دارند داستان کتاب را پیش می برد . او در این کتاب هم چند شخصیت آفریده که راول پسر نامشروع آتوس را باید مهمترین آنان دانست . شرح زندگی راول به همراه دوران پیری سه تفنگدار پایه و اساس آخرین جلد این سه گانه شده است .
نتیجه گیری نهایی :
حتی با وجود ترجمه نه چندان مناسب ، خلاقیت و نوآوری ، شرح تاریخ ، تخیل ، طنز ، سبک زندگی اشراف و نگاه آنان به مردم عادی ، زندگی درباری ، سبک زندگی طبقه تفنگدار ، قمار ، مشروب ، عشق و عاشقی ، قدرت محدود شده شاه در برابر صدراعظم و اشراف ، تلاش مردم برای نفوذ یر پارلمان ، تاثیر انقلاب جمهوری خواهان انگلیسی در فرانسه را می توان دید ، گرچه که مخاطب فارسی زبان باید صبر کند تا ترجمه جدیدی از آن منتشر شود ، گرچه که به علت ابر تورم فزاینده ، احتمالا قادر به خرید آن نخواهد شد ....

Една случайна среща в Мьон, презрителна усмивка към старичък, но възжълтеникав жребец и буйния гасконски нрав, ще поведат младия Д'Артанян и верните му другари към безброй интересни и опасни премеждия!

Дюма е просто колос във френската и световната приключенска литература!

P.S. Естествено, не трябва да забравяме и за фаталната жена!

To paraphrase a top reviewer here, Bill Kerwin, this may not be the most profound of novels, but it may be the most compelling. I would add that perhaps its profundity is discounted more than it is deserved. I might add too that it is possibly the most entertaining of novels.

Dumas was a bestselling author of his day. The Three Musketeers is not mentioned in the same breath as more literary 19th century works such as War and Peace or A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, I doubt I am not the only reader who suspected before opening the book that it might be a little lowbrow or even geared toward children.

From the first chapter to the last word, this novel puts contemporary bestsellers to shame. It would slay a thousand Kings, Rowlings, and Meyers. It is written in majestic prose, and even though there is plenty of swashbuckling and cloaks and daggers, one can find some high minded thought sprinkled throughout. There is much comaraderie and court intrigue. There is historical significance, though it is not meant to be historically accurate.

One of the title characters, Athos--a lover of wine (Spanish or French), has many thoughtful lines, such as: “Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as surveying it through a glass of chambertin,” and, "In general, people only ask for advice that they may not follow it or if they should follow it that they may have somebody to blame for having given it.”

The Cardinal, Richelieu, also tends to muse like a great thinker, albeit a rather deceitful one. Louis XIII is shown as a weak monarch who is frequently out-crafted by Richelieu. Lady d'Winter is an archetypal femme fatale. Aramis is a womanizer with noble aspirations aimed at the cloth and is one of the more interesting characters.

One weakness of the novel is its predictable nature. Dumas lingers a bit too long on Lady d'Winter's imprisonment and the seduction of her captor. But even here, there are enough twists, and things lead to such calamities and exciting scenes, that all is forgiven. Dumas must build up sufficient hatred for the dastardly characters and enough admiration for the honorable ones.

This one tied me up for a while, but ultimately it is a great adventure story.
Written around 1844, but set from 1625 onwards, Dumas brings to the table on the hero side camaraderie, honour and intelligence, and on the side of the villains - deception, plotting and cowardly poisoning. But it is far from a fairytale of good vs bad.

Our heroic Musketeers (D'Artagnan and "The Three", but I suppose The Four Musketeers doesn't have the same ring) are not without fault - Porthos is having an affair with a married woman, who steals from her husband for Porthos, Aramis can't decide between a woman and the priesthood, D'Artagnan using deception and lies to trick the villainous Milady. They all treat women rather poorly, pick fights for unnecessary reasons, they are economic with the truth, and treat their servants with a mixture of distrust and contempt (as well as often praising them for their bravery and faithfulness!) - Athos does not even let his servant speak. Of course to a degree, this is all symptomatic of the time in history.

But ultimately the end justifies the means in most cases, and the Musketeers are the loveable rogues who manage to tread the line of honour without tipping too far into disrepute. I suspect if the heroes in this book were too squeaky clean they would have much less appeal than the excellent antagonist characters, who are almost more likeable in their villainy.

There were a few disappointments for me - at the commencement of the book, D'Artagnan meets his nemesis in Rochefort  who he catches glimpses of during the novel, and only meets face to face again in the final chapter in what is probably the anticlimax of the book - we are told in a sentence or two that they duel four times, then become friends. There also lacked a little physical swordplay - starting off well with some duelling and arguments, but it petered out as the book went on. I expected more of that, mixed in with the plotting and intrigue.

But overall, an excellent read, good characters and an interesting setting in history.

What an adventure!
Highly recommended.

Remarkable book. I have been, on occasion, accused of some sort of self-set elitism which suffuses my opinions and critiques on literature. It seems people are often more likely to think one has an ulterior motive for liking or not liking a book rather than looking at the presented arguments. In any case, I would posit this book as the countermand to that sentencing. It is not a literary book, as such, as it does not place itself in a deep referential or metaphorical state. Though it is certainly influenced by many great works, it is, in its whole, no more nor less than the reigning king of the pulp adventures.

Built on the ridiculous, the humorous, the exciting, and deeply in the characters, this work creates a world of romance (in that oh-so-classic sense) and adventure which conscripts the reader and delivers him to the front lines. I am alway amazed by this book's ability to invoke lust, pity, wonder, respect, scorn, and hatred, all while driving along a plot filled with new events and characters.

Should there be any future for Fantasy, it lies not in the hands of Tolkien-copying machines, nor even in Moorecock's 'un-fantasy', but in whatever writer can capture  Beowulf,  The Aeneid,  The Three Musketeers, or  The White Company and make a world which is exciting not because everything is magical and strange, but because everything is entirely recognizable, but much stranger. Of course, one may want to avoid going  Mervyn Peake's route with this, and take a lesson from the driving plot and carefree frivolity that Dumas Pere and his innumerable ghostwriters adhered to.

It is amusing here to note that Dumas has accredited to his name far more books than he is likely to have ever written. As he was paid for each book with his name on it, he made a sort of 'writing shop' where he would dictate plots, characters, or sometimes just titles to a series of hired writers and let them fill in the details.

So, praises be to Dumas or whichever of his unrecognized hirees wrote such a work.

For the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Lord of the Rings (2) versus Les Trois Mousquetaires (31)

n  Three musketeers for the elven kings under the sky
Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone
Nine for mortal man, doomed to die
One for Cardinal Richelieun

It's a beautiful afternoon here at the Coliseum, and they're cleaning up after the Lions v Christians fixture... Christians lost as usual, ha ha... everyone's looking forward to the main event, we hear they've got a surprise planned, and by Apollo! they've just announced it, well, this is a good one and no mistake! The Lord of the Rings against The Three Musketeers, I wish I knew how they'd organized that...

The rest of this review is available elsewhere (the location cannot be given for Goodreads policy reasons)>

There exist in the world authors from previous eras whose characters have become so ubiquitous in the popular culture that they undergo a strange kind of infantalizing. The rather serious philosophical questions Robert Louis Stevenson posed about mind-body duality and evolution are passed over in favor of the monster story of wicked Mr. Hyde. Jonathan Swift’s venomous satires of English life are reduced to the tale of an island of little people and an island of giants.

And even as I knew this, I steadfastly avoided reading the works of Alexandre Dumas pere, considering his most well known work, The Three Musketeers, as nothing more than an early proto-swashbuckling Saturday matinee serial. Plus, there was the length consideration. Dumas wrote by the line and it shows, at least in the heft of any one particular volume of his work. A typical Dumas can make Dostoyevsky look like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Novel. And who wants to sit through a long, long, loooonnnng children’s adventure tale?

Well, as it turns out, I do. Or rather, I don’t.

Because Dumas, while he’s fun, breathtaking, ludicrous, exciting — in short, all the things too often lacking in “serious fiction” — is anything but a kid’s writer. True, even though there exist children’s versions of his novels with all the alluded to naughty bits excised (or even unexpurgated texts marketed at children); true, even if he is widely considered by many scholars as no more than a hack penny a line scribbler who worked with collaborators like an assembly line, incapable of serious literary quality fiction.

The basics of the plot are relatively well known: young hot-headed D’Artagnan meets with and challenges each of the Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis; the three, impressed by his bravery and quick-thinking, take him under their wing; meanwhile, the Queen of France, engaged in a never-consummated affair with the Duke of Buckingham, is under the watchful eye of Cardinal Richelieu and his spies; most formidable of his spies are a team made up of a shadowy figure referred to only as the Mysterious One and Milady; and through various means and machinations, our four heroes are drawn into a contest against Richelieu on the side of the Queen.

Now, over time, the term “Musketeer” has obtained some gloss of nobility, chivalry, and honor, having become stripped of its mere military title aspect. It is as if a book written over a hundred years ago entitled The Three Corporals had elevated that rank to nobility. We clearly discover throughout the book that most of the musketeers are bullies and ruffians, even our heroes are not without their bad points. Still more curious about this name is that most of these men are swordsmen, who don’t seem to ever partake of any “muskets” or the like. It is a rare moment when our heroes come into contact with gunpowder.

None of which matters, because we are quickly drawn under Dumas’ spell. His characters are all distinctly drawn, Aramis with his holy orders and quiet philosophy, Athos with his distinguished paternalism and deep sorrow, and Porthos with his loud and brash manner and his vanity. Likewise the enemies they are up against, the smoothly evil and calculating Richelieu; the seductive, brilliant hellcat that is Milady, a stronger female in literature nowhere to be found; and the dangerous Comte de Rochefort, a shadowy presence of malevolence.

It becomes clear rather quickly too that Dumas had an extraordinary gift for the cliffhanger style and the miraculous escape, double-crosses and triple-crosses filling out the bill all the way. Mistaken identities and figures hidden in cloaks and masks populate the novel in every shadow, every corner, and every darkened hallway. Intrigues always just out of arm’s length draw both the characters and the readers along deeper and deeper into court secrets and competing factionalism.

Probably no greater advertising for the Machiavellian schemes of Cardinal Richelieu ever existed or was more broadly bruited about than this novel. At every turn, at the moment when the Musketeers or their allies think that they may have gotten the best of the Cardinal, like an octopus, his tentacles are everywhere at once, grasping at every likelihood. His agents are in every corner of the country, his name whispered fearfully by every innkeeper and tavern wench, the King in his pocket. He is almost evenly matched by his agent Milady, more cunning than a snake. The scenes in which she seduces her jailer Felton are some of the most exciting and suspenseful in the novel, and next to nothing happens in every one.

Thus it is that the author must manage pretty fast footwork for his heroes if they are to have any hope of outwitting the Cardinal. Dumas’ plots hinge on that accepted notion of coincidence writ large across the story where evil designs are overheard in casual conversations, where a figure sighted in the distance just happens to be who D’Artagnan wants it to be, where every twist of the story fits neatly into every other. Novels are no longer written with this tailored manner and it’s easy to see how too many of them could eventually become stylistically clichéd. Taken every so often, Dumas’ novels, though, are a cure for what ails you when the reading doldrums strike and every book selected seems tedious and vague.

Yet all of this sounds distinctly like good fun for younger readers. And it is. That’s the strange magic of it. At no point while reading The Three Musketeers does anything happen that isn’t entirely kid acceptable while there is much here for adults. Even the scene in which D’Artagnan seduces Milady is done in such delicate style that it achieves its goal of sophistication and sultriness without dropping overt hints, the kind prevalent in any PG rated film these days. And at no point while reading The Three Musketeers do you, as an adult, feel like the book is talking down to you or cheating you in any way, all the while you’re having a grand time.

Which is the strange magic of Dumas. A six hundred page novel passes in barely the time it takes shorter books to lose your attention near the middle. The cliffhanger style chapter endings pull you along ever deeper into the book. Even though I was listening to an audiobook most of the time, I had to pull down a copy off my shelf, never before cracked open, and read ahead after hours. It even lit a fire under me to read and listen to more Dumas, propelling me to the next book, the nearly twice as long Count of Monte Cristo. Happy adventuring awaits should you follow this path.

Nonostante le gesta dei cavalieri non siano tra le trame mie preferite, riconosco che leggere Dumas è sempre un piacere. Tanti bei personaggi (che dire di Milady), tanti episodi che si susseguono senza tregua.