Gripping read
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This is a very good translation of the full story with excellent notes to explain the more obscure references - or the references to the classics if these too are unfamiliar. The book is surprisingly fast and gripping. The characters are fully formed with insight into their motivations and actions revealed at just the right time. A beautifully told story - with many memorable phrases. A must for your bookshelf to read again and again.
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Dumas is indeed the master story teller!
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Who would have thought that a book, with a simple plot about two rivals trying racing to be the first to grow a black tulip, could be so unputdownable? There are no lords and ladies, no swashbuckling heros, no evil cardinals or Miladys -- nothing but a darn good yarn, and a very sweet love story.
Dumas is just brilliant (as always) and his dialogue (as always) is among the finest I've ever come across. A very quick, albeit enjoyable, read. Highly recommended.
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Dumas on a smaller scale
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While most of Dumas works travel around a variety of places this book spends most of its time in Holland, a very different place to the France of his other works. The charm this book has for me is that it is typical Dumas in the style of writing and in the detail with which he describes scenes, but it is on a smaller scale then most of his works enabling him to spend a little more time on some of the details. It does share certain plot elements with the Count of Monte Cristo but by centering the story around an obsession with tullips it lends an eccentricity to the story which makes it an easy and pleasant read. I would recommend this to any Dumas fans and indeed to anyone who reads widely.
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A dated Dumas
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I have been an avid reader of Dumas for quite some time, and so when I came across this short, strangely titled book, I was eager to get between its sheets. The main focus of this novel is Holland in the 17th century, and there is a lot of historical content which I spent most of the first half getting to grips with. Tulipmania, which gripped the Dutch at the time, is the setting for a political and romantic plot. There are shades of a shortened Monte Cristo - prison and revenge - although I did not feel that Dumas could express such depth in so few pages. The plot is good, but predictable. Still, I would recommend this if you're a Dumas fan; and it is interesting to see so much strife over a flower.
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