Age before beauty

Something that never ceases to amaze me is how The Beatles managed to so completely revolutionise popular music in so many ways. It's like they invented the wheel, then made the next three and the chassis, then decided to pull it apart again and reinvent it from scratch. All in the space of seven years. Some bands go that long between albums. Writers are similar – the length of time between novels can be huge (Franzen, Eugenides) and in other cases startling short (Cartland, the Paterson factory), though perhaps neither of the latter two have much of the hallmark of quality about them. By reputation anyway, having never read anything by either of them, I suppose I shall have to reserve my opnion for a later date.

What did surprise me was the prolific output of some Victorian novelists. Dickens churned out classics like they were going out of style, the majority of them weighty tomes, and he had his fingers in several other pies all the time. Verne apparently wrote about 80(!) novels and my latest victim, Dumas was also pretty quick on the draw. The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, neither what one would classify as slender volumes were both turned out in under two years. Having enjoyed both greatly, I prepared to buckle my swash once more and picked up Twenty Years After, the first of the three sequels featuring the musketeers.

Older, perhaps wiser, though not necessarily any richer or happier, our fab four have gone their separate ways and are all pursuing different ends. Indeed, to begin with they end up split between two different factions. However, they are able to put aside their differences and prove that they had a bond that would stand the test of time. Excellent adventuring stuff, full of twists and turns, plus swordplay, wordplay and a plot set in both France and England against the backdrop of the English Civil War, and it did everything I asked of it. The politicking and fairly extensive cast at times confused, not least because everyone seemed to have several titles or names, but these are minor quibbles that probably reflect more on this reader than the writer. I look forward to the next time I can draw my rapier (or my rapier wit) and send up a hearty cry of "All for one!"

Book number: 82
Title: Twenty Years After
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Category: Pre-20th century literature