The Three Musketeers

Wonderful! Amazing! Incredible! Why did I not read this book DECADES ago?

I just finished a first reading of Alexander Dumas' great book The Three Musketeers. And as I read the last word on page 700, I was like the early young Harry Potter readers who wished the book could be twice as long! Friendship. Honor. Courage. Intrigue. The Unknown. Strategy. Unsheathe your swords, my friends! All for One and One for All!

In this story of nonstop action and insights into human nature, you'll be astonished at how well political machinations and tactical deceptions are portrayed. As a reader, you'll come away armed in a new way against the devious schemes of others. In fact, toward the end of the book, we find almost a novel within the novel depicting what may be the greatest villain I've ever come across, and this embodiment of evil is a woman with every physical and spiritual advantage apart from goodness. What burns within her soul makes her powerful beyond anyone's expectation. And you come to wonder whether she can ever be defeated.

The greatest wisdom of the book is in the story's many insights about dealing with Machiavellian characters. How do you protect yourself? How do you prevail? First, with friends, partners, confidants you can trust. And second, well, read the book to find out. I think of it as vastly superior to the thin swill too often published nowadays on navigating the difficulties of a sometimes harsh corporate culture.

Throughout the book there are nuggets of insight to spark your own thinking. I'll append a few below. My pagination is from the Barnes and Noble Classics Edition.

Of one thing I must warn you. Be careful in your comments, here, friends, for one untoward word or careless gesture may require the response demanded by the honor of a gentleman. En Guarde!

For the book, click HERE.

Some sample passages:

Obstacles

A weak obstacle is sometimes sufficient to overthrow a great design. (20)

Fragility

 “I was just reflecting on the rapidity with which the blessings of this world leave us.” (337)

Difficulty

“That is rather difficult, but the merit of all things consists in the difficulty.” (338)

“Eh, gentlemen, let us recon upon accidents! Life is a chapelet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink.” (526)

Fortune

“Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow.” (410)

Opportunity

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured, the more we gain, when we know how to wait.” (465)

 Philosophers

“But then, philosopher that you are,” said D’Artagnan, “instruct me, support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled.” (325)

Advice

“People in general,” he said, “only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.” (387)

Grandiose Ambition

“I am at the age of extravagant hope, monseigneur,” said D’Artagnan. “There are no extravagant hopes but for fools, monsieur, and you are a man of understanding.” (441)

On Too Many Public Speakers

He not only talked much, but he talked loudly, little caring, we must render him that justice, whether anybody listened to him or not. He talked for the pleasure of talking and for the pleasure of hearing himself talk. (91)

A Good, Virtuous Character

The New York Times Book Review recently asked two writers, Thomas Mallon and Alice Gregory, a question about characters in novels that's often been discussed before. It was posed like this: Can a Virtuous Character Be Interesting? The most common, received opinion is that a scoundrel, scalawag, deviant, or miscreant is much more interesting to read about than a normal garden-variety good guy. The argument usually given for such a view is simple. Imagine this story: A guy is born into a great and psychologically healthy family, he grows up around good friends, attends a fine school, is very nice himself, graduates from an ideal college, meets the perfect life partner, and lives happily ever after. It would not be the typical page turner. "Wait. I have to finish this chapter. Somebody just nicely asked our hero to pass the salt and I've got to see what form of graciousness he displays to comply!" 

We're often drawn to flawed characters. For one thing, we may see in them, on full parade, various traits that we've felt in ourselves and rightly suppressed. It's instructive and sometimes even fascinating to witness them fully developed and on display. In a related way, truly despicable characters in fiction make us look not so bad, after all, by contrast - which is surely one of the reasons reality television shows are so popular. And then, in another way, we may enjoy the insight that such portrayals can give us into the souls of people we actually have to deal with now and then outside the realms of novels.

Most good writers can provide long lists of baddies who have been more interesting to read about in the history of literature than almost any of the goodies. But should writers aspire more, and work harder, to depict goodness rather than focusing on so many types of evil?

Alice Gregory has something worthwhile to say about it all. She writes:

A truly radical 21st-century novelist wouldn’t ask us to see ourselves in made-up villains, and then, hopefully, revise our opinions of the real ones in our own lives. Rather, they would ask us to see the arduous and often acrobatic effort that goes into living a life of common decency. They would coerce us into believing that virtue is interesting and fun to think about and far more dazzling to encounter than malevolence.

In her 1947 book “Gravity and Grace,” Simone Weil wrote: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

I think that's well said, both by Gregory and Weil.

I've just finished the most unexpected adventure in writing, over the course of my entire life, A movie started playing in my head one morning about four and a half years ago, and I immediately rushed to write down everything I was seeing and hearing. It was the most amazing process of writing I've ever experienced, and quite different from the rational and heavily planned creation of a nonfiction book of philosophy. The movie kept playing, and an entrancing prologue book, recounting a trip across the desert in Egypt in 1934, quickly came into being, and has been followed by seven subsequent much longer novels, so far. The prologue, The Oasis Within, is a short book just shy of 200 pages, and is going to be announced here soon, as it will be published within the month.

The Oasis Within, and its novel series that follows, are all my favorite books I've ever written. And the main characters are all very good guys. They display everyday virtue in dazzling ways. They do confront evil, and great danger, many times, and in wildly varied forms, but they are themselves great people I'd love to know. And they're the opposite of boring. In fact, they may be the most fascinating characters I've ever been introduced to, in any story. But maybe that's just me. And they confirm richly Alice Gregory's point.

I'll announce it here when the first of the eight books laying out their story is available. It will be very soon. A twenty-first century novelist is about to do something very different. 

The Goodness Guarantee

There are very few guarantees in the world. One of the rare ones is that if, from a perspective of basically true belief, you try to do good or try to do evil, you're guaranteed to succeed. Let me make it clear what this means.

The single condition for this guarantee is that you have mostly, and at least roughly, true beliefs about what's good, and what's evil. You don't have to be a master of ethical insight, but have generally accurate and non delusional views of what's right and wrong, at a simple and basic level. Then, the guarantee kicks in. If you're trying to do good for the world, beyond your own narrow interests, in your pursuit of a goal or in your treatment of another person, then, whether you succeed in accomplishing exactly what you're attempting or not, your effort to do good is itself a form of good. In even trying to do good, you've brought a dose of good into the world.

Likewise, and conversely, if you're trying to do evil in the world, of any kind, in your pursuit of a goal or in your treatment of another person, then, whether you succeed in accomplishing exactly what you're attempting or not, your effort itself is a form of evil. It is evil to try to accomplish evil. 

To sum up, armed with a basically correct grasp of good and evil, then you get a rare guarantee. When you try to do good, you actually do good. When you try to do evil, you really do evil. And this is true regardless of circumstances. Because of that truth, something important follows.

There's aren't many such guarantees in life. When you try to make a lot of money, there's no guarantee that you'll succeed financially. If you try to get famous, there's also no guarantee that your intent will be realized in any form. Likewise for the pursuit of power, or status, or any other external thing distinct from good or evil.

So, therefore what should we make of this realization? Our conclusion is crucially important, and potentially even life changing.

Consider this. One way not to waste your time and energy in this life is to seek first and foremost a goal that's guaranteed. That leaves two options. Whatever we do, we should either seek to do good, or to do evil. But seeking evil, as Socrates long ago pointed out, is in itself wrong and, in addition, will just make your world a worse place for you. We should not seek evil. Therefore, the opposite conclusion follows quickly: We should always intentionally seek to do good, whatever the particulars might be. 

This conclusion then comes with a cosmic promise. Your effort to make a positive addition to the world will itself be one. And then, everything else is gravy. Or icing on the cake - depending on whether you prefer the savory or the sweet, each of which is available to the seeker of good.

First, seek to know what is good and what isn't. Strip off false beliefs, and escape illusion. Then, the job is clear. Determine, whatever you do, to do good, and good will follow. Even if you're somewhat mistaken in your understanding of what the good requires, a sincere and humble pursuit of the good is more open than any other mindset to correction about what it truly entails. That way, in seeking to do good, you position yourself to both do good and become better. And I have just one question: As a fundamental starting point, what could be better than that?

Preparing For the Big Next

We have no clear idea what's next. I mean, after this life. Really.

We speak of heaven, and "the next adventure" but we have for this inevitable end that each of us will meet the most extreme dearth of detail regarding any important thing imaginable. That's why life after death books sell so well, and it's why psychics and clairvoyants stay in business. 

One thing seems likely to me, having studied this for decades. It will matter then what we do now. We should treat each other in this life as well as we possibly can. For theists, it's an obligation. For atheists and agnostics, it's a bold dramatic gesture. For all, it's an exercise of radical freedom, achieved with difficulty - not to react slavishly and reciprocally to what others do to us, but to set new standards for what those others need to have done for them. Each of us is called to be a pioneer of elevating action. Each of us is called to heroic grace.

We should treat others exceedingly well, despite what they sometimes do to us, not just because of what they are created to be, but because of what we ourselves are created to be. The fact is that we deserve the effects of such actions as those we ought to perform. Many great thinkers, such as Plato and Shakespeare's Hamlet, have understood this. We all need to, as well.

The relationship between the now and the hereafter is simple. The now is limited. We know that. And it will affect whatever hereafter there is - even from an atheistic perspective, for what is now created and done will never cease to have been, forever into the future. Every act is eternal. The full story of reality is vastly and everlastingly different, depending on what we do now, day-to-day. There's always the possibility of demeaning behavior or elevating action - it's left to be our choice. What then will we do?

Redemption

I'd never read Truman Capote. It's hard to have grown up in the twentieth century and not have come across and read anything by him. But just the other day I picked up the Modern Classics book, A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor, largely because I noticed it on a shelf in my house. He was an amazing writer.

In the story about Thanksgiving, the narrator is an eight year old boy who has been relentlessly and cruelly bulled by a twelve year old boy in his class, a young man who has failed grades, and comes from a background of failure. Our narrator, Buddy, lives with some older relatives, several sisters and a brother, in Alabama, and is closest with a lady in her sixties, Miss Sook, he calls her, who is in many ways like a child. Her simplicity causes her to favor the company of young children. But it also helps her to see deep truths that normal people would miss. This comes across in all three stories, and struck me deeply as I read.

Because of an act of kindness she does for Buddy's tormentor, the sort of favor he's never received from anyone, apparently, he changes. He becomes a better person, in contradiction to all his previous behavior. The story reminds us that almost anyone can be redeemed, or transformed. But it rarely happens apart from an act of love and kindness.

We tend to think in the opposite way, that bad people deserve bad consequences. But sometimes, a small act of acceptance, and respect, and care, can change a heart. The author Truman Capote suffered much in his life. And because of that, he has some lessons to pass on to the rest of us. Redemption is possible. Change can happen. But if it's radical enough, it has to be helped along by acts of love, which themselves are radical enough to make it happen.

Our lesson is simple. It's important to be able to rise above things, and even act in love toward someone who seems not to deserve it. That way, you just might help make something radically good happen.