★★★★★ Action on the page, even better in French

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

Les trois mousquetaires

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas

I'm going to cheat and review four books together: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Les trois mousquetaires, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Three Musketeers. Of course, that is really just two books, since the latter two are English translations of the first two. I read these in High School, first in English translation, and they quickly became my very favorite novels. (The first time I read The Three Musketeers I had no idea of the correct pronunciation of d'Artagnan, and our hero's name was a major roadblock.) I of course read all the d’Artagnan Romances. They're full of action and adventure.

Later I read them in French, which astonishes me now. I took three years of high-school French. If you have ever read a book in a foreign language (by which I mean a language you first learned in school), you know that it is, at the start, a slow business. Les trois mousquetaires was a major project -- it took months. (I am retroactively impressed that at the age of fifteen I had the perseverance to stick to such a project.) But, if indeed you have read books in foreign languages, you know that this is exactly the kind of book to start with: something exciting and not too subtle, that can hold your attention despite slow progress.

Reading Dumas in French is rewarding. His language is full of life and humor that doesn't usually carry over into translation. For instance, Les trois mousquetaires begins with d'Artagnan père giving our hero d'Artagnan fils a sword and some advice:

battez-vous à tout propos; battez-vous d'autant plus que les duels sont défendus, et que, par conséquent, il y a deux fois du courage à se battre.

fight about everything; fight all the more because duels are forbidden, and, consequently, there is twice the courage in fighting.

d'Artagnan's mother gives him the recipe for a miraculous balm that will cure any wound that doesn't touch the heart. Dumas writes as d'Artagnan leaves

En sortant de la chambre paternelle, le jeune homme trouva sa mère qui l'attendait avec la fameuse recette dont les conseils que nous venons de rapporter devaient nécessiter un assez fréquent emploi.

That made me laugh. My English translation has it thus:

On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we have just repeated would necessitate frequent employment.

That is a very literal translation, one of the better translations of this passage I have seen, but still, it lacks the bite and laugh of Dumas's French.

So, if you want adventure novels with lots of intrigue and battles, the novelistic equivalent of an action movie, these two novels are ideal. If you want profound, morally ambiguous characters, not so much.

Postscript: Many years later, when we were all grown up, one of my sisters was laid up in bed at home. She was not in the habit of reading books for pleasure, but she asked me for a recommendation. I recommended The Count of Monte Cristo. Recommending books, particularly to someone who is not a reader, is always hazardous. But this recommendation was startlingly successful, perhaps for the same reasons that Dumas was a good choice for my first read in French. In fact, my sister later asked me if there were any other books like The Count of Monte Cristo. I had to give her the bad news that Dumas was sui generis, so, aside from The Three Musketeers she was unlikely to find anything really similar. However, she enjoyed Monte Cristo enough to go on to become a regular reader. Chalk one up for Dumas: a reader reclaimed for the forces of good! 

Amazon review of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

Amazon review of The Count of Monte Cristo

Amazon review of Les Trois Mousquetaires

Goodreads review of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

Goodreads review of Les Trois Mousquetaires