The Count of Monte Cristo is a wonderful tale of one man's revenge against three of his friends who landed him in jail for a crime he did not commit. It has everything a good epic should: a chilling plot, a tragic love story, and even ponderings on the meaning of God. The Three Musketeers is a textbook adventure story, but its real strength lies in its description of how the three become four and the unswerving loyalty of the four friends.
The sequel, Twenty Years After, combines the excitement of new adventures with a consideration of what age does to friendships and the realisation that youthful dreams are but illusions waiting to be shattered. Dumas' novels have made frequent appearances on the silver screen. The Three Musketeers alone has been adapted over 30 times, including some bizarre offerings, such as Zorro and The Three Musketeers and a couple of porn films.
Claude Schopp's Alexandre Dumas: Genius of Life is the result of a lifetime devoted to the study of the French writer. Alexandre Dumas, pere. Tue 22 Jul Despite the turbulent economic times which followed the Revolution of , Dumas turned out to have something of an entrepreneurial streak, and did well for himself in this decade.
Until the mids, life in France remained unsettled, with sporadic riots by disgruntled Republicans and impoverished urban workers seeking change. As newspapers were publishing many serial novels, in Dumas rewrote one of his plays as his first serial novel, Le Capitaine Paul.
He consequently went on to found a production studio that turned out hundreds of stories under his creative direction, and began to produce serialised novels for newspapers which were widely read by the French public.
The best known of these, were the Celebrated Crimes series. Dumas wrote in a wide variety of genres and published a total of , pages in his lifetime. To keep up this prolific output, Dumas depended on numerous assistants and collaborators, of whom Auguste Maquet was the best known. It was not until the late-twentieth century that his role was fully understood. Their method of working together was for Maquet to propose plots and write drafts. Dumas added the details, dialogues, and the final chapters.
Marquet was consistently un-acknowledged for his help however, and eventually took Dumas to court to try to get authorial recognition and a higher rate of payment. He was successful in getting more money, but not a byline. He had numerous liaisons with other women however — Dumas had a total of forty mistresses — and was known to have fathered at least four children by them.
Dumas made a lot of money from his writing — especially his classic stories — but he was almost constantly penniless as a result of his extravagant lifestyle and love of women. The second was Monsieur Deviolaine who was connected to the Dumas family. He was the forest inspector of a thirty thousand acres land. A good friend to Madame Dumas, he was a person of tough exterior but a kind heart. The third was M. Collard de Montjouy, a member of the legislative body who owned a lavish Chateau three miles from the main town.
Here, young Alexandre spent his days in merrymaking and happiness, roaming about in the wide open spaces. Just as the earlier house was associated with Buffon, this one was associated with a nicely illustrated bible. Meanwhile, all of it was supplemented by Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian Nights and a Mythology for the young. Madam Dumas now decided to send her 10 year old son to a clerical seminary. However, after enough persistence from his mother, young Alexandre gave away his reluctance to join.
On the eve of the departure, Alexandre went ahead to buy himself an ink stand. At this point, Miss Cecile Deviolaine intervened since she dreaded her cousin becoming a priest. She ironically remarked that she would later take him as his father- confessor. The outcome of such a trivial issue was much bigger and much positivity was to emerge from it. The young lad ran away into the forest, leaving a note for his mother to reduce her anxiety and hid there for three days.
He took shelter in the hut of a native, whose chief occupation was bird snaring and poaching. Alexandre returned on the persuasion of Abbe Gregoir, another friend of his. His education was shaping up in the form of regular lessons sporadically marked by holidays. It was then that he was invited to visit Abbe Fortier, a simple man with fondness for food, billiards and most importantly the gun.
The young lad witnessed a world of activity like never before and developed a love for sports. Accompanying Abbe on hunting and shooting expeditions, Alexandre eagerly waited for a time when he would get to hold the gun. Developing an innate taste for the wild, he overcame natural obstacles with ease. When Alexandre returned after a fortnight from his sporting escapade, the mother and son made Rue de Lormet their home, close to where her son had been born.
A routine marked by lessons, sojourns in the forest and play followed here. Daily walks to the cemetery to talk to his father and the addition of graves each month moulded his sentiments and lingered on till the later years of his life.
The peaceful routine was broken amid disturbing public events. Alexandre was 12 when the Allied Powers begun to invade France. Napoleon, who was till now a victorious hero, was now known more as a destroyer who was draining France and separating men from their wives, sisters from their brothers and mothers from their sons.
When Soissons, a town sixteen miles from the main land was invaded, the civilians gathered their belongings and hid in caves. Alexandre witnessed two contradictory and opposing sights at once: the show of war and the reality behind it.
None of it was forgotten by him. On account of all this, his education witnessed a break. His school days ended prematurely since Abbe Gregoire had to give up teaching students in school due to some regulations.
Henceforth, he visited pupils at their own houses. This is how Alexandre received education from Gregoire in Latin. Consequently, his moral and religious training was given by Madame Dumas which lent him an emotional and spiritual outlook towards life. Honourable and generous, the boy had imbibed such traits of his father. Alexandre possessed fearlessness for the open grounds, for fresh air and the wild. He had inherited a love for sports from his father.
He was always eager for sports, except for the fear of heights. He no longer wanted to be known as a little boy, instead wanted to give wings to his to-be-found early adolescence. The vagaries of nature quickened his imagination, creating a love for nature and a disliking towards the humdrum city life. He also developed a passion for travelling. All of this was to influence his writing in the later years. Alexandre had his first apprenticeship in at a local notary. The notary being a liberal, Alexandre had the privilege of reading revolutionary literature.
It was here that Alexandre collaborated with Adolphe de Leuven, a young nobleman and became friends with him. Adolphe visited Villers-Cotterets and took him on his first trip to the Paris theatre in November, Passing by Theatre Francais, Alexandre observed that a play featuring Talma, the famous actor was supposed to be exhibited that day. Alexandre made up his mind that he would see the play at any cost. Talma called him forward and said that he must also come later to watch other plays.
Alexandre: Unhappily I must go back to-morrow to the country to my office, for I am a lawyer's clerk. Talma: No need to be ashamed of that, young man. Corneille was a lawyer's clerk. Turning to the company Gentlemen, let me present to you a future Corneille. I baptize thee Poet in the name of Shakespeare, Corneille, and Schiller.
Return now to your office, and be sure your proper vocation will find you wherever you are. Come, come this lad has enthusiasm: he will do something yet. Returning home to break with his former employer, Alexandre started searching for novels with suitable subjects to turn into plays and plan his escape. This turned out to be simple. One evening he won 90 francs at billiards, a small fortune enough for a coach fair to Paris and sustain himself till he found his feet.
Without any delay he set out to conquer Paris, bidding goodbye to his childhood. An introduction to General Foy, the deputy of his department sought him a place as a clerk in the service of the Duke of Orleans with a salary of francs.
While in Paris, Alexandre and Leuven started working together to produce vaudevilles and melodramas. Madame Dumas later joined her son in Paris. A major piece of work of the romantic drama saw admiration from Victor Hugo and Alfred de Vigny, two great writers of the time. His second play Christine, produced in also became popular and sufficed his financial needs, enough to start working full time as a writer.
The mid s saw the end of a cumbersome republican era which was marked by occasional riots.
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