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Reviews tagging 'Torture'
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
4 reviews
himpersonal's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
3.75
This was recommended to me by someone in my Goodreads network. It was good, and I'm glad I read it. Military history is low on my list of favorite genres, but there was enough other content to make it more engaging for me. I had no idea that Dumas was part Black! And I really enjoyed learning more about France at that time, especially how egalitarian they were (at least for a while), considering the times they were living in. Also loved connecting the dots between his father's military and political life and Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo. Knowing his source of inspiration makes his books more alive and enriching for me and makes me want to reread all of them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
booksthatburn's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, Grief, Death of parent, and War
Moderate: Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence
Minor: Rape and Vomit
charity1313's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
It felt like the author wanted to write a book about the French Revolution but his publisher said, "That won't sell, can you dig up something more nuanced?" Yes, there was a lot of interesting info about Dumas the count and Dumas the writer, but there was even more info that was filler, backstory, marginally related historical detail. I'm glad I read it because I love history and I have a greater understanding of the French Revolution now and an appreciation for having NOT lived during that time and place, but it felt like a misleading premise. Or like the book could have been easily half as long.
"Georges remembers everything with an encyclopedic obsession. When he returns to confront the white people who have wronged his family, he profits at every turn by the fact that they live only in the present. The past is not alive to them the way it is to Georges, they do not remember and thus do not see the reality of things. That reality was the dream Georges has come to embody: that a black man can become a nobleman and be better educated and more talented and powerful than the white plantation owners." - Prologue, Part 2
"To him, there was only one kind of loyalty that mattered - loyalty to him [Napoleon]. Napoleon was not Cincinnatus, he was Caesar." - Chapter 17
"But, clothing themselves in the trappings of democracy, dictators may, like drag queens, tend to overdo it." - Chapter 22
"Georges remembers everything with an encyclopedic obsession. When he returns to confront the white people who have wronged his family, he profits at every turn by the fact that they live only in the present. The past is not alive to them the way it is to Georges, they do not remember and thus do not see the reality of things. That reality was the dream Georges has come to embody: that a black man can become a nobleman and be better educated and more talented and powerful than the white plantation owners." - Prologue, Part 2
"To him, there was only one kind of loyalty that mattered - loyalty to him [Napoleon]. Napoleon was not Cincinnatus, he was Caesar." - Chapter 17
"But, clothing themselves in the trappings of democracy, dictators may, like drag queens, tend to overdo it." - Chapter 22
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Torture, and Violence
sherbertwells's review
adventurous
informative
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Before reading Tom Reiss nonfiction biography The Black Count, I had no desire to read The Count of Monte Cristo. I assumed Alexandre Dumas was the French equivalent of Charles Dickens: long-winded, unnervingly-conservative and focused on the drama of love, marriage and social class. I knew his books were classics, but not the sort of classics people wanted to read
I still think that’s true but now I know his dad was pretty neat.
General Alex Dumas deserves the Legion d’Honneur, but the Pulitzer Prize won by The Black Count in 2013 is a fitting accolade. His story is full of dramatic dramatic potential: born to an enslaved mother and a French aristocrat father on present-day Haiti, he moves to France, enlists in the army and is caught up in the egalitarian fervor of the Revolution. In a Europe that refuses to acknowledge the inherent humanity of people of color, the daring exploits of “Mr. Humanity” place him in commands across the burgeoning French Empire, from the civilian horror of the Vendée to the distant terrain of Egypt. Sidelined by Napoleon Bonaparte and by the increasing power of racist, reactionary European monarchies, Dumas’ incredible story has lingered in obscure corners of history despite faithful preservation in his son’s memoirs.
Author Tom Reiss depends heavily on the testimony of Alexandre Dumas, who is famous for such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, for the details of his father’s life. Reiss theorizes that the early parts of the latter novel are inspired by Dumas’ imprisonment in an Italian castle, and after reading The Black Count’s description of this traumatic event I am now very interested in reading its fictional counterpart. Excerpts from Alexandre’s biography appear throughout the narrative, and while it’s clear Reiss doesn’t trust them entirely they paint a very Romantic portrait of the titular character: Dumas the Man is lost in the greater sweep of Dumas the General, the Mythic Hero, and the Patriot of Color.
But this final epithet is explored brilliantly. The coffers of the Ancien Régime are stuffed by sugar and slavery, but when these profits dry up the French Revolution breaks out. Among a small contingent of Black and mixed-race revolutionaries, Dumas fights fiercely for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and the only nation willing to defend these rights. He brushes shoulders with figures like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Joseph Bolgne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Reiss takes care to examine the social predicament of people of color throughout the French Empire. These sections are among the best in The Black Count.
Maybe I’m just a sap for historical context.
The Black Count is a brilliant premise placed in the hands of a mostly-competent writer, and while Reiss does not quite live up to the magnificent persona of his book’s namesake, but he does the duty of every writer-historian: he forges through the confused fog of the past to follow an incomplete trail, and draws out the half-forgotten figure of a tall black man on a strong white horse with a cockade of red, white, and blue.
Oh shoot. I’m going to have to read The Count of Monte Cristo now, aren’t I.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Child death, Death, Sexual assault, and Violence
The relationship between General Dumas' father and his mother is probably not consensual. Reiss describes the history and dynamics of master/slave relationships on Saint Domingue, and it's pretty clear that enslaved women didn't have much of a choice when approached by white French aristocrats like Dumas' father. But not a lot of historical records exist for her, so Reiss doesn't say anything definitively.