Today’s post is a part of the Classics Circuit discussing Alexandre Dumas.

Somewhere around the age of thirteen, I fell in love with French classic novels.  I devoured Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo; Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables; to name a few.  I spent my summer lounging on my bed or out in the sun, immersed in the romance, the adventure, and the just downright FUN of reading these chunkster books. Just picture it.  I was a short, skinny bean-pole of a girl with knock-knees, white as a lily skin, brace-faced teeth and was painfully shy, naive, and as ungraceful as they come.  I was convinced that no boys would ever LOOK AT ME let alone want to romance me.  I was reading stories of high adventure, death-defying daring-do, revenge, and romances that were instantaneous, passionate and lasting.

Can you see how I fell in love?  Who needed BOYS? The added bonus of all the historical detail (even then, I loved history!) was just icing on the cake.  And my all time favorite of  all those French novels from long ago continues to be The Three Musketeers.

The Three Musketeers is set in the 17th century, during a fascinating time in French history.  It follows the adventures of a young man from Gascony named d’Artagnan and his three Musketeer friends; Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.  And, as you may know, they all live by the motto “All for one, and one for all!”  Or, rather, “Tous pour un, un pour tous!”

I don’t know about most people, but my favorite character isn’t d’Artagnan.  It is Athos; the Comte de la Fère.  Perhaps it was because he is more of the father figure of the group, or maybe it’s because Keifer Sutherland played him in that Disney movie.  Or maybe it’s because, at least for me, he’s such an ambivalent character.  I was never *quite* sure whose side he was on and even then I was fascinated by such unreliable characters.  It’s also likely it’s because he’s such a melancholy man, something even at thirteen I was familiar with.  Mostly likely though, I think I found his relationship with Milady to be romantic, which is probably pretty twisted, but I still think his love was unrequited, as in, he still had feelings for her, even if he did want her dead.

Upon rereading it as an adult, I was surprised at how much I still loved it, and maybe hated it a bit too.  I didn’t really notice, at 13, the horrible portrayals of women.  Indeed, if they aren’t just plain stupid, they are evil, manipulative, and petty.  I’m not sure that I liked one female character and was surprised to find myself rooting for Milady!  Despite that though, I still enjoyed the adventure of the books; it’s my favorite thing about it.  I have the rest of the the series; The Man in the Iron Mask, Twenty Years Later and The Vicomte de Braglionne: Ten Years Later but haven’t read them yet.  Perhaps I will soon; I feel about ready for some more adventures with these guys.

The Three Musketeers
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Category: French Literature/Classic
Published by: Barnes & Noble
Format: Trade Paper
Pages: 720
On Sale: December 2004
ISBN: 9781593081485

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Paris in the Spring: Alexandre Dumas on Tour

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I am so very happy to share a new online book club that I have the honor and pleasure to be helping with this year.  It is The Classic Reads Book Club and it starts in January!  A few of my fellow book bloggers (Jen at Devourer of Books, BethF of Beth Fish Reads, Michelle of Galleysmith, Trish of Hey Lady Whatcha’ Readin?, and bunches of other wonderful bloggers) and I were chatting on Twitter, as usual, and well, one thing lead to another… you know how it goes….  This little book club was born!  We will be reading and discussing one classic book per quarter, starting with East of Eden by John Steinbeck and then A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I will be leading!!!

Discussion questions will be based on specific sections of the book and will likely be posted 1-2 weeks prior to the beginning of conversations.  The club intends to space the read-a-long and discussion over the full quarter to accommodate all participants busy schedules.   Further information about where discussions will take place will be available on the Classic Reads Book Club blog linked above.  Preliminary start dates for the first quarter discussion of East of Eden is as follows:

• January 25th – discussion of Section 1 (Ch 1-11)
• February 8th –  discussion of Section 2 (Ch 12-22)
• February 22nd – discussion of Section 3 (Ch 23-33)
• March 8th – discussion of Section 4 (Ch 34–end)

Ongoing discussion (and news about the club) can also be found on Twitter using the hashtag #classicreads so please join us there as we continue to be chatty and bookish.

I hope you will join us all in reading East of Eden in January and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn soon after!!  I mean, it will be LOADS of fun and *whispers* it will help you meet some of those reading challenge obligations you have, right?

From left to right; Betsy, Tacy and Tib. I found these on Flickr. Are they not adorable?

The Betsy-Tacy Series
Written by Maud Hart Lovelace
Published by HarperCollins, Reissued 2000 and 2009

With all that is going on in our lives right now, be it sickness, job worries or money concerns, we need comfort reads.  These cozy, good-hearted, snuggly reads reminds us how good the world can be, how wonderful caring people are needed and how to take pleasure in the simple things in life.   That is why I have whole-heartedly thrown myself into the world of Betsy-Tacy, the fictionalized autobiographical books by Maud Hart Lovelace.

I don’t know how I missed these books when I was young. Of course, I missed Anne of Green Gables too, so someone somewhere was lacking in my reading development!  Actually, more than likely, I was too wrapped up in Laura Ingalls Wilder and Beezus and Ramona to notice any of the other excellent children’s books that were to be had.  It’s such a shame because the Betsy-Tacy books are a delight.

The magic of these books, as well as the ones I remember reading, is the experience of growing up with the main character, especially for the intended audience.  For those of us who are older, it is an opportunity to remember.  To remember the joys of childhood, the bliss of playing with your friends, of using your imagination to make up stories and games, the excitement of those little things that you took for granted. 

We are first introduced to Betsy and Tacy in the first book of the series, aptly titled Betsy-Tacy.  Betsy and Tacy are only five years old and have just become the best of friends.  They met at Betsy’s birthday party and quickly become so inseparable that people being to think of them as one person, Betsy-Tacy.

The next in the series is Betsy, Tacy and Tib, where a new girl, Tib, is added to the mix.  The girls are now eight years old and just as inquisitive and precocious as they were at five.  Tib is the adorable, tow-headed beauty who moves into the curious chocolate brown house that Betsy loves to look at.  This one was a particular favorite of mine because the three girls, when left alone at Betsy’s house for the first time, make , a mix of a little of this and a little of that from around the kitchen – something that sounds like something I would have done (and probably did!) when I was their age.  

In Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, the girls meet that huge milestone – ten years old.  After all, it is the start of growing up, having two numbers in your age instead of one!  This one was absolutely adorable, with the girls falling in love with the King of Spain.  They even send him a love letter!  They also have the biggest fight of their lives with their sisters and meet a real, live princess, living in their own town!  I really enjoyed this one too.

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown finds the girls at twelve years of age and finally old enough to go downtown on their own.  They see their first horseless carriage; Tacy even gets to ride in it, and experience being in a real play, in a real theater, with a real, huge, audience.  They also make a new friend out of the most unlikely person. 

There is also an amusing side plot here.  Betsy, more than anything, wants to be a writer.  She writes plays, poems and little stories for her family and friends.  She has taken to writing stories up in a tree in her backyard.  They have discovered dime novels (the one referenced in the book is Lady Audley’s Secret) and Betsy has started her own such story.  When she shares this secret with her mother, her mother encourages her to write stories that are a little less…scandalous.  This prompts Betsy to burn her stories.  Her parents, to encourage a love of classic literature and therefore less salacious reading, decide she will be allowed to go to the new downtown library every two weeks to read and check out better books.   

Now, I don’t quite agree with the burning of her stories, but I love how her parents took her desire to write and gently steered her into writing more wholesome stories.  Nowadays, Lady’s Audley’s Secret is considered a classic, up there with Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and the like, but during the time this was writing it was quite scandalous.  I like how instead of outright telling Betsy no, you can’t write this kind of trash, they push her to expand her mind and talents in a better way.

Of course, I’ve read, and quite enjoyed Lady Audley’s Secret.  Hello, the woman is the villain! What does that say about my readings tastes? Oh dear!

The girl’s story continues in Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy’s Wedding.  Which I am saving for another post because wow, I’m reaching too long, didn’t read territory and I barely feel like I have scratched the surface of my feelings for these magical books of a peaceful, imaginative, and sadly forgotten (?) time when things were quieter, easier, peaceful and loving.  When neighbors were your best friends, your parents your protectors and nurturers, and everyone was ready to lend a helping hand.  Makes me we could all go back to a time like that. But really, thank heavens we can! We can get there, through these books and we can lead our children there as well.

I picked up an interesting tidbit from Wikipedia about the series:

As of 1992, only the first four books were still in print. A letter writing campaign to the Harper Collins publishing house organized by The Betsy-Tacy Society, a group of mostly adult Betsy-Tacy fans, led to all of the Betsy-Tacy books being reprinted. By 2006, several of the later books had gone out of print again, but three new editions (in 2009) by Harper Perennial Modern Classics feature pairings of the final six books, with forewords by authors who remember the stories fondly and illustrated notes on the books and Lovelace herself.

Way to go Society peoples and thank you!  Thank you to the publisher for suppling these books.  And a huge thank you also to TLC Book Tours for offering me the chance to be introduced to these lovely books.  It’s never too late to meet an old classic and now I can make sure my own daughter meets these lovely characters. 

Other stops on the Betsy-Tacy Blog Tour:

The Betsy-Tacy TLC Blog Tours TOUR STOPS

Monday, September 21st: 5 Little Monkeys
Tuesday, September 22nd: Six Boxes of Books
Wednesday, September 23rd: Here in the Bonny Glen
Monday, September 28th: Booking Mama
Tuesday, September 29th: The Brain Lair
Thursday, October 1st: She Is Too Fond of Books
Tuesday, October 6th: I’m Booking It
Wednesday, October 7th: Kate’s Book Blog
Thursday, October 8th: The Tome Traveller
Monday, October 12th: Red Lady’s Reading Room
Wednesday, October 14th: The Well-Read Child
Thursday, October 15th: Diary of an Eccentric
Monday, October 19th: Joelle Anthony
Wednesday, October 21st: KidLit History