Where Zorro Gives Them the Slip

The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is very entertaining old pulp fiction novel.

Zorro--meaning tv shows and movies and tie-in kids' books, etc--was already old in the 60s when I was little, and always seemed dated to me. I didn't ever try to look into anything related to Zorro because I didn't think I'd enjoy it. But then I got curious when I found the Isabel Allende version, interested in the history (real and fictional) and culture of the region before California was part of America. The Allende version was, for me, super boring and disappointing, so I had to see if the original was better.

I think it is.

It has fewer pretensions, which is an advantage. This is meant to entertain. You can tell he wasn't expecting write a sequel, let alone a bunch of them, so he was putting it all in this one story. Zorro is bigger than life, flamboyant, risk-taking, and very capable, though not quite a superhero. There's a lot of action, a lot of sword fights and chases on horseback and highwayman tricks, and there is a bit of romance and even a few laughs. The good guys are very good and most of the bad guys are very bad, though he does have a few sympathetic guys in the middle. It's genuinely fun.

It has flaws for sure. The author isn't too particular about the exact history of the time, and he doesn't show a lot of modern awareness of human rights and equality. However, it seems like his heart is in the right place. (Or Zorro's is.) The natives' treatment is considered important, and Zorro wants to protect them, but the story seems to uphold a pretty rigid hierarchy, with hidalgos at the top, peasants (including mestizos, apparently) next, and natives at the bottom. The author seems to be okay with keeping those distinctions, just with a little more fairness applied.

Still, considering he wrote it in 1919, it leans more toward justice than the society he was part of, IMO.

The plot is really just Zorro annoying corrupt politicians and embarrassing soldiers while defending simple people. In the midst of that, Diego Vega, the unmasked Zorro, is wooing a rich young woman who wishes Diego were more like Zorro. His escapes get more and more unlikely until we get to the conclusion, when his survival appears impossible. The existence of sequels makes one hope he does, in fact, survive the final trap.

If you sometimes like old pulp novels, give Zorro a try. I'm gonna go look for those sequels.

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Where I get to the end of the Musketeers' story

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm sad to finish it, but it was really good.

The third novel--whether broken into 3 parts, as it often is, or 4, as I had it--is mostly good, but has long stretches that are less interesting. A lot of focus on the court and finances and secondary characters that mostly disappear. That's okay, but it's not my favorite. But the last volume is back to the musketeers, and that's the best part.

It's also the sad part.

Aramis, Athos, and Porthos are 60 something, and D'Artagnan is a little younger. They're all still powerful, brilliant (well, not Porthos, I guess), capable, energetic, and honorable (with an asterisk for Athos), but age is about to catch up to them. It is terribly melancholy to see the heroes become old men and reach the end of their careers. Still, it's beautifully done.

Dumas can bewilder me with 17th Century French politics and matters of finance, but nobody writes better action or more amazing dialogue between brilliant men (and a handful of women). Even in translation, even 170 years later, it's still a brisk read.

And even though it's 170 years later, and most people who are going to read it already have, some have not, and the best parts of the story to talk about are spoilers. I'll leave them alone and just say that I enjoyed the novel and found it very touching. And I'm glad to finally understand what "the man in the iron mask" is all about. Now I want to see if I can find some better versions of these stories as movies or series than I've found in the past.

Anyway, recommended. For most folks, it'll take time, especially slow readers like me. But I didn't mind.

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