Swashbuckle

On my Kindle, I'm re-reading The Three Musketeers. (I bought a big compendium of Alexandre Dumas works. Interestingly, on the Kindle, buying "the complete works of" or the like is often the cheapest way to get a novel by an author.) Possibly the last time I read The Three Musketeers was in high school. That's about when the Richard Lester movies came out -- I still love those movies (The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers). I probably was attracted to the movie because Michael York played d'Artagnan, although Richard Chamberlain as Aramis might have been a draw, too.



It's serendipitous that while I'm reading this book, my mom returned to me a clay sculpture I did in high school during my interest in things Dumas, which I called "Aramis":

Aramis

From the side, it's not too bad, for a high scholar's work, although obviously I had no patience to provide any detail in the hair and perhaps used the Prince Valiant type of hair style to avoid having to make ears.

As I recall, I was most interested in the face. I was trying to make an attractive face, but apparently I lacked knowledge of realistic proportions of facial features. The eyes are extremely large, the nose long, and the top of the head narrow:

Aramis

It looks rather primitive, although I can see it also bears a resemblance to figures in Orthodox iconography, which is also a type I am attracted to.

12th-century icon of Archangel Gabriel from Novgorod,
called "Golden-Locked Angel",
currently exhibited in the State Russian Museum.
This is a faithful photographic reproduction
of an original two-dimensional work of art.
The work of art itself is in the public domain
because its copyright has expired.

I may have had a little crush on the character Aramis. If I were going to have a crush on a character from The Three Musketeers at this time of my life, it would more likely be Athos (played by the gifted Oliver Reed in the movies I liked). But I don't think I'm capable anymore of getting crushes on characters in novels. I wonder when I passed that milestone.

As I re-visit the book, I'm struck by what a good adaptation the Lester movies are, by the way. Very true to the book.