Review: Les Mille et Un Fantômes, By Alexandre Dumas

    (English is right below …)

     « Ah ça ! me dit Legros (le bourreau) en me regardant fixement, vous croyez donc qu’ils sont morts, parce qu’on les a guillotinés, vous? … vous ne leur voyez pas tordre les yeux et grincer des dents pendant cinq minutes encore après l’exécution. … voyez-vous, qui ne veulent pas se décider à mourir, et je ne serais pas étonné qu’un jour quelqu’une d’elles se mit à crier : Vive le roi ! […] »

Il m’a fallait lire ce livre, apres avoir vu cet exerpt, et je n’etait pas decu ! / I had to read this book, after seeing this excerpt, and I was not disappointed!

C’était très intéressant, ce livre des histoires en forme d’un “frame”. Je l’ai écoutée sur le lit. / The stories in this book were very interesting, in the form of a “Frame” Story.

Listened to via:

https://www.litteratureaudio.com/livr…

     This was actually a far better book than I had expected.  The story told by the narrator ends up being a series of stories, but this is not a mere anthology, as some reviewers describe it.  The stories are all part of the larger overall story, even if they are separate shorts.  Le Bracelet de cheveux/ The Hair Bracelet, for instance, runs straight into the story of La Dame Blanche/The Pale Lady, and they flow together very well, with each story leading into one more macabre than the last  he stories have more in common than, say, those within the frame of the 1001 Nights, for example, though they are also less complex, they remain engaging.  The tragedy of many of the stories, especially that of The Pale Lady, starts in the very beginning of the set up of the frame, with the author again, as in The Corsican Brothers,  inserting himself into the story, amusingly enough.  In fact, the timing of the French rendition of the 1001 Nuits makes me wonder if that frame story inspired this one.

   

Shira

Action Items:

Dear Readers, what are your thoughts on this book, and Mr. Dumas’ works in general?

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Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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