A few years later, the Sabatinis returned to Italy, this time to Milan. In Porto, Portugal, Rafael attended a Catholic school. Early on, he fell in love with the borderland between England and Wales. Sabatini grew up in England and Portugal, exposed to many languages. Sabatini’s parents were well-known opera singers who traveled the world. You will note in Scaramouche that the stain of his own birth gave Sabatini the incentive to dig deep into the issue in his fiction. He was born in the then small town of Jesi, Italy, near the seaport of Ancona. Rafael Sabatini’s life (1875-1950) was almost as eventful as his action-packed novels. It is not a book to read and forget: rather it is a book that keeps on giving as long as you live. But there’s far more to the book than mere action, intrigue, and romance: At the heart of it is this great truth: To know all is to forgive all.

It takes a little while to get through the scene that triggers the rest of the almost unputdownable plot. The book begins with a famous line: “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” The highlight is the climactic sword duel–longest in cinematic swashbuckling history.

Star-studded cast includes Stewart Granger, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh, Mel Ferrer, Henry Wilcoxon, Lewis Stone, Nina Foch, Richard Anderson, and Robert Coote. Directed by George Sidney, and screenplay by Ronald Millar and George Froeschel. Scaramouche has been filmed twice: first in 1923, and second (and more significantly) in 1952. I guess, in a way, I too like to have my general history reading sugar-coated by excitement and romance based on the author’s prior historical research of the time period. Like most historical fiction readers, I’m not much interested in historical novels that are not true to their time period. That French revolution breaking out a scant thirteen years after our American revolution. That disruptive out-of-control time period that separates Louis XVI from the Napoleonic Empire. One reason for my returning to the book again and again has to do with my intense interest in the time period in which Sabatini sets the action: the French Revolution. And that’s unusual for I rarely read a given book more than once. In fact, I have now read it around six times down through the years. So here is Question #2: As you have journaled your book-related thoughts, what kind of mental dialogue with yourself has resulted? In other words, what do you find is most helpful in enabling you get to the essence of a given book?įew historical novels are more beloved than this one.

By responding (on Facebook), we could thereby get more discussions in motion. As mentioned in our January 29 blog, our daughter Michelle suggested we pose one question to our Book Club members each month.

Scaramouche the kingmaker