Before beginning this book (if you do make the mistake of doing so) you should be aware that it is not a stand alone story. Before reading "The Man in the Iron Mask", I strongly recommend that you have read "The Three Musketeers", "Twenty Years After", "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" and "Louise de la Valliere" (in that order). If you try to read this one without having read the others, you probably won't know what's going on. Not that it's worth it to know what's going on in this book though.

First of all, this book was absolutely not worth getting to. As previously stated, you need to read the other four books before getting to this one. "The Three Musketeers" and "Twenty Years After" were both great and I highly recommend them. However, "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" and "Louise de la Valliere" left much to be desired. They were both very tedious reads comprised mostly of pointless scenes. And in addition to that, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan were not in them enough to justify reading them for the characters. The only reason that I was able to finish them is because I had read a lot of reviews that said this one was suppose to be worth getting to. Well, "The Man in the Iron Mask" was absolutely not worth the effort of reading through the two previous books.

I found the plot to be very weak. I don't want to say too much about the plot so as not to spoil it for anyone who may want to make the mistake of reading this thing. I will just say that the book had potential in the first half but then it fell apart completely and the second half of it was just a complete mess.

Another problem that I had with this book was the fact that it added very little to the characters of the four musketeers and their relationship. One of the things that made "Twenty Years After" good for me was the fact that it added so much more to the characters and their friendship than the first book had. This book added so little that it wasn't worth the time and effort to read.

I was also disappointed with the characterization in this book. The characterization of D'Artagnan, Athos, and Porthos was quite okay other than the above mentioned problem. But Dumas couldn't seem to make up his mind as to how he wanted to portray Aramis in this book. At times, Aramis seemed to be portrayed as being sympathetic and doing what he did for noble reasons. But then at other times he was portrayed as being selfish and ambitious, and doing what he did merely for personal gain. Aramis was somewhat of a confusing character in the first two books. He kind of went back and forth between wanting to be a musketeer and a churchman. But Dumas made the conflicting behavior of Aramis work in those two books. He failed miserably in trying to make it work in this one. Also, most of the other characters in the book weren't nearly as interesting or as well developed as the characters in Dumas' other novels.

There also was not enough interaction between the four musketeers in this book. What made the first two books so good for me was these characters and the interaction between them. The musketeers were in the book a good bit, but it was usually only one or two of them at a time. There were only a few scenes in which three of them appeared together and those scenes were brief. All four of them never appeared together at all in this book.

The ending was simply atrocious. It's not what happened in the ending that I found to be so appalling. It was the fact that I got the impression that Dumas put no thought whatsoever into it. I felt like he was writing just anything so he could hurry up and finish the novel.

Read "The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Three Musketeers" and "Twenty Years After" but avoid this one as if it were the plague. If you want to know more about the musketeers, then go watch the movie instead and imagine that that's what Dumas wrote.


Brace yourself   November 21, 2000
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

It's always sad when you've lived with characters for so long to say goodbye, but Dumas does it in style. The title is misleading, and readers should not expect the entire book to be based on the one sub-plot; this is a book that draws all that has gone before it together, into a melancholy, yet valiant ending.


The best possible end to the greatest literary saga   June 13, 2000
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

This is the final part of the final instalment of the musketeers trilogy, and this is no doubt where much confusion arises. After the completion of The Three Musketeers in 1844 and Twenty Years After in 1845 Dumas once again returned to the musketeers for one final outing. Published in serial form between 1847 and 1850 The Vicomte De Bragelonne is a massive work. So massive in fact that it is normally not published as one edition (as is the case with the current Oxford edition) the first part of which is, confusingly, normally called The Vicomte De Bragelonne. The second and third parts are given the titles Louise De La Valliere and The Man in the Iron Mask respectively.

It is clear, therefore, that The Man in the Iron Mask should not be read out of sequence as it will make little or no sense. What we get is the culmination to the greatest literary saga of all time. And this is perhaps the reason why this book is so misunderstood. The ending is not sad (except in the sense that it's a little sad when anything ends) although most people will cry. This is an outstanding tale of heroism, of friendship and of honour. It contains some absolutely magical scenes (although to list them would be to give too much away).

As if an exciting story about the musketeers wasn't enough Dumas added a fantastic subplot: the man in the iron mask. However the man in the iron mask is just that, a subplot, a means for Dumas to get his characters where he wants them at the end of the novel. The title is, in this respect, rather misleading (but remember it is only the title given to the third part of a novel). While many are disappointed by the lack of prominence of the man in the iron mask and others dislike the ending the fact is that this is one of the greatest books ever written. It is the story of the destinies of the musketeers and how they meet them, the man in the iron mask is merely a plot device.