Review: The Red Sphinx: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers

The Red Sphinx: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not proud that it took me over a year to finish this bad boy but in my defence it is the size of a toddler. Also, it's kind of - and saying this feels rather blasphemous - dull?

*le sigh*

So, let's break it down.

First: Me.
I am obsessed with The Three Musketeers and the five sequels that follow the adventures of d'Artagnan and his friends. You can see my review HERE and there's enough gushing in that to make it redundant for me to reiterate it all again here. Safe to say that I love everything to do with The d'Artagnan Romances so even though this book wasn't directly related to the musketeers themselves, being in the same realm meant this was a must read for me.

Second: The story behind this book.
This story is actually composed of two parts: an unfinished manuscript titled The Red Sphinx that was published serially between October 1865 and March 1866 but never completed, and a novella, The Dove. Because both feature the illegitimate son of King Henri IV, the dashing Comte de Moret, it's considered that together they make a complete story. I strongly disagree.

So in consideration of that, I'll review both stories individually, as well as provide my thoughts on the merging of the two.

It's also worth noting that there is zero musketeer adventure in this book. You've been warned.

Part One: The Red Sphinx
This story occupies 685 pages of the total 775 so it's a lot to get through. Which makes sense when you consider it's unfinished - I wonder if a lot of it might have been edited out if Dumas had a hand in it's completion. It begins chronologically only a few days after the events of The Three Musketeers however our soldiers have been abandoned for politics. Instead, the focus is on Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII and the traitors: Queen Anne, Queen Mother Marie de Medici and Monsieur aka Gaston, the King's simpering, cowardly brother.

It actually opens brilliantly with a duel that got me all excited for Musketeer-like adventures with new heroes. We're introduced to Latil - a mercenary with a strong sense of honour and loyalty - and then eventually the Comte de Moret, who is to be our hero. However it's quick to jump back to the politics, and a lot of names get thrown around which is going to confuse you if you're not familiar with all the players of French history during this time period.

I really enjoyed the intrigue, and the secrets, and the double crossing, but there's also a lot that felt superfluous and made the story drag. The endless place names and battle strategies wore me down a fair bit, but then I'd be revived by a risky undertaking or the sly workings of the Cardinal. The tone was inconsistent and that contributed to my taking so long to read it. Plus it jumps between Moret and the schemers and it can be a little tricky to keep up with who is where and doing what.

Also, Gretchen the dwarf in a cage really threw me.

It travels a long way without any real satisfying conclusions, so you kind of get that episodic feel of it without the final installment. If you're interested in the political stuff, prepare yourself for a cliffhanger. Thankfully it's historical fiction so we can Google the ending.

Overall, Moret and Latil were really fun characters, so I enjoyed their stories, and it's always fun to read about the Cardinal's plotting because he's twenty steps ahead of everyone else. It's weird to think of him as a villain because he really is formidable, and he seems to be in the right here, so he's become something of a hero. Instead, Anne has become the villain as she plots with the king's mother and brother to bring down her husband and his most trusted adviser. So the role reversal there is rather jarring if you're following on directly from The Three Musketeers.

The war talk is preeeetty boring, but Dumas seems to have loved these details. There is just a lot of it to get through, though, and it detracts from the action so it slows down the pace again. I honestly don't need to know how many soldiers and horses etc are going into battle at which location and which formation and how much everyone is being paid etc. Don't care. Unless it's essential to the plot, of course. This was an overload, and while it will appeal to the real historian types, it was too much for my action-loving heart.

So, to summarise:
- Fascinating characters, though a few too many to keep track of
- Constant focus shift between characters is a little jarring
- Fun action mingled with boring war and politics, making for an inconsistent pace
- Less a coherent story and more several episodes, with no decent conclusion
- Classic Dumas writing, though dense and full of superfluous detail

All in all, about a 3-star read.

Part Two: The Dove
This story, on the other hand, I read in one sitting. It was utterly absorbing and I loved every second. This is a polished, tense, thrilling adventure worthy of the author. It's told in letters between Moret and his love interest from The Red Sphinx, Isabelle. This style adds to the suspense and hooked me immediately. The romance came alive for me, and I'm not someone who usually enjoys romance. This is the power of Dumas.

Hands down an easy 5-star read.

The Combined Novel
Here's the thing: There's very little reference to any of the previous story when we get to The Dove. We jump straight into four years later and the lovers writing to one another. But the tone is completely different, and Moret himself seems to have switched sides. It was really hard to reconcile the hero who fought valiantly for King and Cardinal with the guy who then seemingly betrayed them for Monsieur. Especially when Gaston is Gaston. He's a complete imbecile and Dumas has never had us in his corner, so why would we be there now? Somehow we're supposed to still be rooting for this hero who fought with honour and then for some reason swapped sides? History places Moret at Gaston's side, but Dumas certainly doesn't.

Then you've got the cliffhanger ending of The Red Sphinx. One minute a plot is afoot, next minute it's four years later and everyone is forgotten. There's no neat flow from one to the other, and indeed the different writing styles mark the latter story as very much it's own being.

The second story is refined, succinct and a fantastic, tense adventure. The first is a heavy, overloaded mess of ideas and intrigues that doesn't do credit to the author.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion
Moret and Latil, while fun characters, don't even come close to worthy of the devotion I have to my beloved musketeers. Latil actually seems the more decent of the two, and I would have been much more impressed with a story relating his adventures instead.

This is a book only for solid Dumas lovers, or history buffs. Part One, The Red Sphinx, is a lot to get through and travels at an inconsistent pace, whereas Part Two, The Dove, is a tense, refined read that's hard to put down. I think if the latter was released on it's own I'd recommend it to everyone but, coupled to this hunk of history, it suffers.

And the two smooshed together definitely does not equal a complete novel.

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