Your opinion of The Count of Monte Cristo (spoilers ok)

Cafe Society
1

So, I’ve been watching a lot of those YouTube reading challenges and I decided to participate. I’m already doing the 52 books in a year reading challenge.

Right next to me is an unabridged copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, the first mega classic I’m going to read in years. My last venture into a book like this was the unabridged Les Miserables which was quite a slog and the book was donated immediately after finishing.

What’s everyone’s opinion of Monte Cristo? I’ve always been aware of the novel but it never made it onto a school syllabus nor my personal radar. I bought the Penguin edition translated by Robin Buss. I’ve noticed that Penguin seems to have the best translations which is essential to me liking a book read in translation.

Spoil it all you want, I’ll probably be referring to SparkNotes as I read it anyway.

2

You’ll probably need them to keep track of all the characters and who did what to who when.

Love the book. The 1975 TV movie version with Richard Chamberlain is excellent.

3

It’s a fantastic revenge story. And amazingly, possibly based on a true story. (though I have my doubts) Pierre Picaud - Wikipedia

4

I don’t know if I’ll ever read it again, but it’s among my favorite books. The novel really makes the most of its length, exploring all the subtleties of vengeance, justice, forgiveness, and mercy along the way.

Make sure you’re setting aside enough time for it, and you’re in for a treat!

5

Oh–and I agree that notes would be helpful. The cast of characters was far larger than I could reliably track. My mom, when I gave it to her, printed out a cheat sheet, and she said it helped a lot.

6

Side note: the anime series “Gankutsuou” is the most complete version of the book I know of and it’s 24 episodes long and skips the first half of the book completely. It tells the story from the point of view of Albert, the son of Mercédès. The animation style is unique but a bit hard on the eyes.

7

I loved it. I especially like that the Count is no unambiguous white hat good guy, despite what you might expect, nor is he a Mary Sue. He screws up his revenge plot, badly, and ends up romantically entwined with a slave he bought and raised from childhood. He’s like the original Tony Soprano or Walter White. There’s a lot of collateral damage, especially his poor ex-fiance, who essentially did nothing wrong. And one of the most tragic characters I thought was the guy the Count “helped” by allowing him to be driven nearly to suicide (like, the gun was in his mouth) before miraculously pulling his feet out of the fire at the last minute. And he casually brushes it off, like “nobody can know true happiness unless he’s known true despair” or something like that. It’s a lot more complex and nuanced than it seems at first glance. Also, all the great historical details, like the description of the old telegraph system, or the social intricacies of going to the opera, to be seen more than to be entertained. And I couldn’t help but thinking the whole time about the first picture of a human ever taken, which was about the same time and place as the bulk of our story.

8

I was gonna post exactly this.

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[Moderating]

DrCube, please do not spoil works for people (like the OP) who haven’t read them yet.

10

I first read The Count of Monte Cristo when I was a young teen, and loved it - the elaborate revenge scheme, the fairly complex characters, the feel-good moments when the good guys are rewarded and the baddies punished. It’s long, and, as LHoD, points out, has a large cast; but I didn’t find it a slog, or especially hard to keep track of who was whom. From what I remember, the only thing that gave me trouble were some references to contemporary French events, mores, and technology. I think you’ll find it a fairly easy read.

The scene where Monte Cristo/Sinbad/Lord Wilmore sends M. Morrel the paid bill, the diamond for Julie, and the Pharaon is one of my favorite “read it purely for the feels” scenes in literature.

Looking back as an adult, I wonder if it were the 19th c. version of a Tom Clancy novel - fun, elaborate, but not quote-unquote “serious” literature. I should dig it out and read it again.

Odd, I was just telling my wife about the book last night - she’s never read it. Baader-Meinhof syndrome strikes again!

11

For a different take, you might try Stephen Fry’s novel The Stars’ Tennis Balls, a modern adaptation of the story.

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BTW, that’s nice but the OP specifically said they don’t mind spoilers.

13

This is one of my favorite books of all time and I have read a few translations. I believe the basic story transcends translation issues or discrepancies. If you like old movies where all foreign characters have a British accent- there are translations that will serve you well (but upon subsequent readings I find it gets distracting, also true of the Italian accents it contains).

Like others, I believe it is the best story of revenge ever written, but from my first introduction to it I found more in the pages. I thought of it more as a morality tale with rewards given to those whom suffer well and with dignity. Patience is the ultimate virtue and divine providence rewards those who sacrifice willingly. To a lesser degree those who sacrifice in an involuntary manner must demonstrate patience to receive the full reward. To plan and setup your plans painstakingly then not execute those plans often leads to a Deus Ex Machina or similar device which doesn’t always save the day - - but delays the resolution. It is a reset that allows the conflict to be moved forward to a new chapter, I believe these stories (like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and Dumas’ D’Artagnon romances) were serialized in newspapers. It seemed like the Catholic concept of enduring hardship (Purgatory)was hardwired into the narrative.

The comparison to Tom Clancy above is apt if nothing else simply because of the feeling of eventual redemption. God is in his heaven and the good guys (and gals) are rewarded according to their merits—and evil doers are eventually punished most severely, but not until they believe they have gotten away with their evil deeds! (This is unlike Robert Parker where Spenser or his other characters just stubbornly go through the motions until THEY solve it. With Dumas God always gets the glory and the characters always reap the reward IF and only if they are patient, thrifty, devout, etc.) Divine providence is the force – but the characters must trust and endure for “Him” to work his magic.

The levels of reward are also very telling. The humble woman who only wants to love her son and grandchildren is given that simple reward. The evil man who values reputation and honor is dishonored horrifically in the end (after gloating thru most of his story). The innocent is revived, the keen but handicapped is able to be the instrument of justice. In some sense, everyone gets either exactly what they want . . . or exactly what they deserve. In the end, after a lifetime of toil – even the lover is given love (in an unexpected and unfathomable manner).

I believe this book is very much worth the effort. Even still every few years I revisit the story and it always delivers. Like a favorite piece of music, it is still enjoyable even though you know exactly how it is going to resolve in the end. So thank you to the OP, reading the posts and writing this one brought back all those pleasant memories!

14

I liked it, but I ultimately put it down. Contra some posters here, I felt it started dragging painfully by the midpoint of the book and I just couldn’t chew enough to get through the last third. This is probably an artifact of its origin as a serialized novel.

15

Seriously, dude? Did you even look at the OP? He directly invites spoilers.

Please withdraw your instructions, so that other people can post comments without worrying about getting Warnings.

And as a general policy, is it really necessary to spoiler plot points in classic literature?

16

[Moderating]

Apologies; I in fact did not notice that the OP said that spoilers were OK. Carry on.

17

Actually, even as much as I like the story, I have to admit there is quite a bit of bloat in the middle section. What surprises me though, is that [as far as I can recall] every character is necessary to move the story forward or explain a circumstance, and in addition I do not recall a single character who does not have some form of resolution by the end of the book. No one comes in for a chapter, moves the story in some way— then disappears. They all have some connection to other characters, they have motivations and distinguishing aspects to them, and then they are either rewarded in some way if they are ‘good’, or punished if they are ‘evil’. Intent is significant in each character as I recall it and in two ways. First, if you are good, fair minded and just there will be a reward and evil is punished. But on a secondary level those who are good but passive—only reacting to what befalls them are rewarded faintly while those who plan and work at an objective which is noble or just are mightily rewarded. Likewise, the simply greedy or otherwise passively evil (only victimizing as opportunity allows) are punished less than those who set out to be unjust, to cheat, lie, steal, or especially cover up misdeeds. Those whom scheme or cover up schemes are struck down with furious anger.

While the middle of the book does get more complicated than three soap operas plus the second Back To The Future movie combined, it does all have some effect on the story and each situation does resolve itself in an earnest and just manner. At least that is how I recall the book.

18

I first read this long, long ago, in fact between 6th and 7th grade because (1) I had read some really long books and liked them which made me feel grown up, and (2) I read the classic comic version and wanted more.

Be advised when embarking on this that there are a lot of words. I’m pretty sure Dumas was paid by the word so he used plenty of them. But there’s lots of good stuff, too. It was also serialized, so lots of cliffhangers.

There are also a lot of characters, and you don’t necessarily know who they are in the story for some time.

When my son was the same age as when I’d originally read it, we read it together. He always liked having books read out loud but he did a good bit of the reading himself. He liked it. Lots of excitement, intrigue, a swordfight, and tons of conniving machinations, not just those plotted by the Count, but by others–although Count’s actions were probably the catalyst.

We both agreed that Edmond Dantes turned into a real jerk when he became The Count. And he deserved some revenge for sure, but went beyond. There were some very complex characters in there

But boy was there a lot that I had missed in that book, when I was 12! Like the lesbians, the fact that the Count was a drug addict,and much more–but not the fact that he was a jerk and behaved very badly to his former fiancee Mercedes, who had assumed he was dead and had never loved anyone else (although she married).

Now in all the movie versions i’ve seen he gets back together with Mercedes in the end. But in the book, he ends up married to a much younger girl, who came under his protection when she was 11. I thought that was creepy when I was 12 and I found it even creepier when I read it with my son. (So did he.) First that she was so much younger, but mainly that he was a father figure.

19

Love the book for many of the reasons listed here, although you can tell that Dumas was getting paid by the instalment - that whole middle section about Caderousse and his wife feels like padding even though it’s more grist for the “everyone gets what they deserve in the end” mill.

I agree that Mercedes gets the short end of the stick here, although from a 19th-century sensibility she’s presumably partly being punished for marrying someone else (even though she thought the man she loved was dead) because that’s the kind of romantic bullshit you get. I did think Dumas was surprisingly enlightened about the lesbian couple - their punishment is nothing worse than exposure and embarrassment, but they were already leaving the country anyway.

That the Count ends up with his slave girl (who is, at the end, free, wealthy in her own right and 18 years old) is made slightly less creepy by the fact that he isn’t the one who is pursuing the relationship. And the fact that he has a “slave girl” at all is mitigated by her personal circumstances - he’s not only protecting her but, in the grand scheme of things that are partly by his design and partly by divine direction, is setting her in place to exact her revenge for her parents’ betrayal. It’s a grey area but, perhaps in context, a light grey one.

20

His “you must despair to know true happiness” thing is definitely jerkish but it kind of follows from his own experience (plus, as noted above, this is the kind of romantic bullshit you get in 19th-century literature). And it leads to one, if not more than one, of the best moments in the book.

Overall, however, he clearly sees himself as an avatar of divine justice (and with all the implausible coincidences you can hardly blame him). Note, however, that he doesn’t actually take direct revenge against anyone (except, arguably, with regard to the bandit imprisonment at the end); he simply gives them all an endless supply of rope with which to hang themselves. Indeed, some are given chances to redeem themselves. This is the thing that most of the filmed versions ruin - the Count doesn’t just go around declaring “Aha - you have wronged me! Now I stab you! <stabbity ensues>”. His antagonists are all, in the end, punished not for what they did to him but for their other sins (treason, financial skulduggery, petty theft and murder, hypocritical self-righteousness, etc). This is really what sets this book apart from other revenge-themed stories.

And note that he was willing to sacrifice himself and his plans in order to spare someone who was innocent, and also that he did not expect to have happiness of his own once his plans were completed. The Count is, unsurprisingly, kind of messed up. That he gets his own happy ending is rather nice.