I’m not even sure I would label **Hamlet ** Shakespeare’s best literary work on the theme of revenge. Othello, Merchant of Venice, and my aforementioned Titus Adronicus, explore that particular theme with more vigor, and more insight. **Hamlet ** may be his greatest literary work, and one of the world’s best, but not on the merits of this theme.
Of course, YMMV.
Jack
Same opinion here – I grew up reading the Count of Monte Cristo, but was rather sadly disappointed in the movie. 
It pretty much bowdlerized the book. And I think I might have seen the earlier one. Will have to rent it again to see if it is.
Eh, I don’t know. If I hadn’t seen the movie first (I’ve seen both versions, and I like the newer one better), I don’t know that I could have kept track of all the intricate plots in the book. Sure the movie was a very simplified version of the stories, but it had all the main characters, and it made my subsequant reading of the book a lot easier.
Well, obviously you’ve got to read some Sabatini. Someone already recommended Scaramouche (“He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad”), and you might try Captain Blood.
I didn’t quite get that out of the book. He might have gotten reminded of love and all, but he sure wasn’t smart enough to take it. When the woman told him she only wanted him, he should have just taken her, his kid and run like the wind. Instead, he wastes his time trying to ruin everyone else’s life, and in the end ruins his as well. Though it might not have made as good of a book had he done that.
I did like the new movie, though it’s not the same, to me the theme is at least the same. Well except for the ending, why can’t we have the same ending? Not everything in life is all hunky dory.
I saw this version which I thought was very good. It was a French mini series and quite long but still good.
Speaking as someone who saw the Jim Caviezel movie before the book, I loved it. Sure, it wasn’t the book, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” but it was damned good on its own merits.
Yes, indeed, everyone should read that one. Its basically a series of revenge stories one after another, and plain old fun to read, definitely something to consider before the sequel to Pirates of the Carribean comes out.
Dumas also has a new book out 
The musketeer novels (Oxford paperback editions):
Technically 3, 4, and 5, are all parts of the same book, The Vicomte de Bragelonne. But most English-speaking publishers split it up into three (sometimes four) installments. The Man in the Iron Mask is the most famous, but it is only the tail end of the novel.
Another good one by Dumas is Queen Margot ISBN# 0-7868-8082-1.
It takes place in the court of King Charles X, a couple of generations before the time of the musketeer novels. It is full of conspiracies and betrayals, plotting and poisoning. A few years ago it was made into a pretty good movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110963/
Not Dumas: But try The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. A ground-breaking, hyperkinetic novel by one of the masters, a seething revenge story very loosely based on Monte Cristo but set in the near future. The revenge is subtler and more desperate, and the denouement, in my opinion, is by far the most poignant.
(Amazon sells it along with Bester’s The Demolished Man, which happens to be one of the finest crime stories every written, about a man who commits the perfect crime in a society where crime is no longer possible.)
It’s not Dumas. It’s not classic. Master of the Game was a great pool side, guilty pleasure read for me …when I was 13.
:eek: Erk…falls over dead
Come on. That movie sucked eggs. I can’t say what I truly feel about that movie in this forum. I can’t. I’ll scorch everybody’s eyes. I mean, *he * was such a…and *she * was such a…and the *ending * was so…
OK, I’ll go away now. But it was awful.
For everybody else, I’m working on the *Man in the Iron Mask * now. Didn’t realize it had Aramis in it!
Didja read the book first or see the movie first? My wife and I saw the movie first, and quite enjoyed it as a pretty swashbuckler of a movie. I’m sure that if I saw it again I would be pulling my hair out in frustration, but without knowing of the joy that is the book, the movie was a pleasant diversion.
Daniel
Read the book first. And then someone *gave * us the movie, so we are subject to the indignity of having it on the shelf.