The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

I never actually got around to reading The Invisible Man. I made two attempts at starting it then gave up and took a hiatus from fun-reading as work-reading took up all my time. Now that my schedule's freed up ever so slightly, I'm making my way through France in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

For ye olde classics, it always takes me a while to get into them. Much like The Invisible Man I made several attempts at beginning this book only to be thwarted by sleepiness. Lucky for me, I took a trip to Houston and spent my entire flight home avoiding the in-flight movie (Leap Year, a romantic comedy even I don't want to watch) and reading The Three Musketeers. One flight and several before bedtime readings later, I'm about 300 pages into this 700 page novel and I really wish I had another prolonged period to just sit and read. Unfortunately for me (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), I've been busy with work, friends, and tv that I haven't been able to sit down and really read. And The Three Musketeers really lends itself to extended periods of reading. Dumas does a great job of building up the action and intrigue and reading the book in 30 minute segments detracts from the flow of the narrative.

So far, I can't really tell the Musketeers apart aside from D'Artagnan and Porthos. I guess that's half the Musketeers so I'm only having trouble telling apart Athos and Aramis. Aramis is the one who wants to be a priest I believe. All the characters are getting fleshed out and there have already been several intrigues, most notably D'Artagnan's trip to London to fetch the diamonds the Queen gave to the British Duke (his name escapes me at the moment and my copy of the book is all the way across the room -- I'm lazy what can I say) before her husband finds out they're missing at a ball he's throwing where he especially requested that she wear these particular diamonds. I'm not even halfway through and I honestly don't really know what's in store next since I haven't seen a Three Musketeers movie since my youth. So no one spoil it for me!

On a side note, apparently Doug Liman (director of the Bourne movies) is directing a new version of the Three Musketeers. What a perfect time to pick up this book!