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highly recommended |
Superb Romantic Fiction 
There was a time when the word "romance" when applied to fiction meant "exciting adventure," not, "lonely girl lusts after bare-chested hunk." Classic authors of the genre would include Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas and Arthur Conan Doyle. Among these giants one would have to include Rafael Sabatini, and of his many works, Scaramouche is probably his greatest.
It is the story of Andre-Louis Moreau and takes place during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. Moreau is a splendid creation and a classic hero of romantic literature. A man of thought and introspection, Moreau becomes a man of action when his close friend Vilmorin is unjustly provoked into a duel and murdered by a noble with whom he can't possibly hope to compete. Moreau, initially dismissive and cynical about the movement for liberty in which his friend was so passionately involved, vows to take up his cause.
He does so, and quickly becomes such an effective speaker that he is forced into hiding, which in his case means taking up residence in a traveling theatre group. This group practices the improvisational technique known as commedia delle-arte, and over time Moreau becomes one of the stock characters: "scaramouche," the boastful, deceptive captain. But after enjoying much success, this venture comes to an end, when, seeing his bitter enemy in the theatre one evening, Moreau uses the stage to scathingly attack the unjust actions of the nobility and provokes a riot.
His next adventure finds him as the apprentice in a fencing academy where he becomes expert with this weapon, a skill he uses with ever-increasing frequency as he re-enters society as a member of the newly-formed parliament, and finds he must defend himself against those upper-class rogues who would provoke him into a deadly duel.
It is an absolutely splendid tale and works on every level. Clearly, from the above, you could hardly ask for more in the way of adventure. But there is so much more than this. The characters, for example are all richly portrayed and nuanced. Even his enemy, the terrible Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr, is fully-fleshed out well beyond the one-dimensional evil-doers so often found in the genre.
The historical and political aspects are well-illustrated as well. One comes away from the novel with a clear understanding of the way French society operated in 1787, and more importantly, one gains this understanding through the thoughts, actions and discussions of the novel's major and minor characters. That political change was coming to France was known to everyone, and everyone had an opinion to share on the subject.
Beyond all of this though is the simple, exciting pleasure in the reading of it. More than anything else, this novel is fun! Winding in and out of the plot and the historical context there is treachery, double-dealings, surprising revelations of identity, and yes, romance of the boy-girl type, made all the more delightful by Moreau's cool, detached, wry and often hilarious reactions to these events. He is the indefatigable Moreau, the man of justice, the man of fairness, the man of action . . . and the man of reason, in the age that was defined by that phrase.
It is a splendid performance by one of the truly great authors of the historical romance.
One of the best books written
Rafael Sabatini is a brilliant author. This story centres around a young man, Andre Louis Moreau at the beginnings of the French revolution, who witnesses a crime against his best freind, perpetrated by a wealthy Marquis of France. Andre Louis takes an oath to take up the ideas of his murdered freind. Hes seeks justice for his murdered freind. Finding none, he speaks out, and in the course becomes a fugitive from the law and his family. The story then follows his amazing exploits, with his path continually crossing with the ruthless Marquis. It is not Andre Louis who seeks the Marquis but rather fate that puts them in each others paths. The ending to this book is simply amazing and entertaining. Its a must read.
I find the most rated review to be off in some aspects. I dont believe Andre Louis has personal quest for revenge. It is only justice that he ever seeks, and he is not driven by hatred. Revenge and Hatred are the Marquis. Andre Louis is driven by survival, love & success. As I said above, it is lady fate that plays her game. He is also never in pursuit of the beautiful Aline de Kercadiou.
But thats just my opinion.
Free SF Reader 
Across the backdrop of the French Revolution, a man falls foul of the authorities because of his politics. Going on the run, he encounters some actors, leading him to take up the role of Scaramouche, a clown type rogue character.
Eventually, he settles in at a fencing academy, working for a master. Taking over after his death he puts his sword skills to good use.
a well told story
When I was growing up, I loved stories of adventure. The Count of Monte
Cristo is still among my favorite books. Therefore, I I am not quite sure
how I managed to not even hear of Rafael Sabatini until recently. Well,
I am certainly glad I did - this is an excellent story. The writing
is perhaps short of Dumas', but the twists and turns do justify the
novel's status as a true classic. Moreover, Scaramouche is a very interesting
character. Themorally ambiguous motives that frequently guide him make for a
fairly atypical hero.
He was born with the gift of laughter ...
This is my first Sabatini novel (just finished it last night), but it won't be my last - I found Scaramouche excellent.
Scaramouche is set during the years leading up to and including the French Revolution, and follows the exploits of one Andre Louis Moreau, a lawyer, a bastard, and a Frenchman with close connections to the ruling class. Moreau begins the story without an inkling of support for the Republican cause, but this changes early in the novel when Moreau's best friend, an outspoken Republican with a "dangerous gift of eloquence", is wrongly and permanently silenced. With that event, Sabatini not only changed the course of Moreau's life forever, he also had me hooked less than 30 pages into Scaramouche - an impressive accomplishment given my attention span, or lack thereof.
Moreau, or Scaramouche as he's eventually known, is a complex and unique character. Moreau's motives are often contradictory and hard to understand yet, at least to me, remain believable. He devotes his life to a cause he (at least initially) doesn't believe in. He seems to have little care for those around him, and is even called heartless by his friends and peers numerous times, yet he possesses loyalty worthy of admiration. An admitted hypocrite, he despises the emotion of hatred whilst himself dedicating a good portion of his life to vengeance. I found this unique character memorable and also worth liking and rooting for.
If there is one negative worth pointing out, it's that Scaramouche (the novel, not the character) is, at times, highly predictable. In particular, there is a revelation relating to Moreau's linage revealed at the end of the story that I saw coming from a mile away - and I'm pretty dense, there's generally a lot I don't see coming from a mile away that many other readers would. The story also is peppered with a number of fairly unlikely coincidences - but I think it's reasonable to consider these not coincidence, but Providence, or fate, and their prevalence is common to other works that I'd consider within the same category as Scaramouche, including everything I've ever read by Dumas or Hugo.
However, aside from what I'd consider a good to very good story, any negatives I can point out are, in my opinion, more than offset by Sabatini's excellent writing. This is clearly a matter of opinion, but I like his writing style better than just about anything I've read in the recent past, and I've read works by some pretty well regarded authors in the recent past. And in my opinion it's much more than a good vocabulary, the entire 350 pages are dotted with more great one-liners than I could possibly count or keep track of (beginning with the opening line of the novel, but this is far from the only memorable line). I was laughing out loud multiple times while reading this, moved to laughter by the overweight Pantaloon's "ponderous yet curiously noiseless gait" and, crap, countless other lines that make me wish I'd read with a highlighter nearby so I could quote more than one of them in this review and elsewhere - I never do that (read w/ a highlighter next to me) but do wish I had in this case and will when I read future works by Sabatini. The comical nature of the book is also bolstered by Moreau's cynical, dry humor that I find appealing.
As for my highest praise for this piece, I can offer two examples. The first is that I will read more works by Sabatini (in fact I just received a copy of Captain Blood today). The second is, if asked by a random friend to recommend a single book I've read over, say, the last six months as an easy, entertaining (yet nonetheless thought provoking) read, my answer would come easily and immediately: Scaramouche.
reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau - as the lad had been named - and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.
french, revolution, romance, scaramouche
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based on 36 reviews
