What was he thinking?!

For years I have wanted to read "The Man In the Iron Mask." I was always reluctant to attempt it, however, because it is the final book to the three musketeers series and I didn't want to read it before finishing all the books before it. Unfortunately, some of the volumes proved somewhat hard to locate and time went by, yada, yada, yada...so I finally read it.

Not since I watched "The Swan" with Grace Kelly and Louis Jordan have I been so disappointed with the ending of a story.

*spoilers* for the ending of the book.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand what Dumas was thinking when he ended this book. The majority of the book deals with this huge plan to dethrone the present king and replace him with his infinitely more worthwhile twin. Once the deed is accomplished, the new situation lasts for about an hour before it is done in by a stupid revelation to an untrustworthy party. Like that, the major plotline to the book is terminated.

But this is nothing, NOTHING compared to what Dumas does to the ultimate fate of the four musketeers. After hanging out with these guys for 4 books, becoming invested in their outcome and well-being, we are given dismal, pointless deaths for them: strong Porthos dies, a hapless dupe to Aramis' scheming and miscalculations; wise Athos withers away of sadness after his son throws his life away in despondancy; and clever D'Artagnan is killed by a random shot on the verge of achieving his greatest ambitions. Only Aramis survives to manuever for another day. After all their heroic accomplishments, their vows of friendship, we are forced to watch them perish without purpose or justice, for the most part separately and in misery, not even able to say goodbye to each other. How cruel is this?

My epinion on this one--unless you're a glutton for despair, pass it by. It gets points for being written in the inimitable Dumas style, but on the whole, I think the only thing for me to do is to read "Three Musketeers" again to get the taste out of my brain, and keep repeating "it was only a dream..."