He Ain't In The Mask For Long

Just Finished Reading: Man in the Iron Mask By Alexandre Dumas

You know how people are always saying that the movie is never like the book? Well that's certainly the case with The Three Musketeers. I remember watching the movies when I was a kid. They were great, lots of sword fights and action and the bad guys were clearly bad. But then I read the book. Turns out, the movies usually only cover the first half of the book, leave out most of the intrigue that happens between sword fights, and hacks up almost all of the character development.

Now, when it comes to The Man in the Iron Mask, it's even worse than usual. Maybe you've seen the movie or just heard about it. King of France has a double in prison wearing an iron mask. Turns out it's his twin brother. Musketeers sneak him out. Which side do they take? Musketeer vs Musketeer, etc. Right? Well not exactly.

For starters, I don't think they're ever ALL in the same place at any time in the whole book. They pair up a lot, sometimes you have three of them together, but all four? Nope. And while the guy in prison IS the king's twin brother, he isn't wearing the iron mask for most of the book. In fact, he's only wearing it for 2 chapters and even then it's only AFTER Aramis sneaks him out of prison, tries to sit him on the throne and gets caught. That's when the real king orders him to be put in the iron mask.

This is one of those cases where the book and the movie start in roughly the same place but divert along the way and never come back together. That's not necessarily a bad thing. They're both good, just different. Keep that in mind should you ever decide to read Dumas. There are 5 books total; it's a VERY long piece of work.