![]() ![]() Reiss offers a start, but we have yet to reach the end of Dumas’s story. The past has no choice but to rely on writers and readers. At the end of all these travels, Reiss returns with an account that, in its essentials, does not differ from John Gallaher’s 1997 monograph, General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution. The biggest problem, though, is that this story frequently seems to be less about Dumas than Reiss. All too often, when Reiss turns a phrase, he turns it towards a cliché. Tom Reiss wrings plenty of drama and swashbuckling action out of Dumas’ strange and nearly forgotten life, and more: The Black Count is one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that also sheds light on the flukey historical moment that made it possible.-Time A remarkable and almost compulsively researched accountThe author spent a decade on the case. It is not that he gets the general history of the revolution and Napoleon wrong it’s just that he does not get it right enough. Such errors weigh less than other, more elusive problems with the historical canvas painted by Reiss. Reiss, a professional journalist, gets bits and pieces of European history wrong. They also allow Reiss - though with less literary panache than Dumas and, at times, an equally cavalier treatment of history - to introduce us to the world that, come 1789, replaced the Old Regime. ![]() These experiences, we discover, were as remarkable and romantic as the man who related them to his son. ![]() Reiss in turn emphasizes that Dumas’s novels were fueled by his father’s own experiences in earlier wars. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |