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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
I feel like this book has left a hole in my heart. I will miss it so much! It’s much like saying farewell to a dear friend. I enjoyed this story so much, and cared so much about many of the characters. It’s a big book, I figured at some point I’d be ready to finish, or bored with the story. But every chapter felt so engaging and easy to read. If I could give six stars, I would!!
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The Count of Monte Cristo is a story about vengeance and finding peace, but how do you execute this life-long tale though 1243 pages? I'll tell you: immersive storytelling, rich characters, and excellent figurative language. Dantes as a character is magical, and how he pulls off his schemes, lies, plans and disguises is nothing short of admirable. You'll find yourself realizing as the story goes on that maybe Dantes' revenge isn't so justifiable, and you'll even feel remorseful for the story's "villains", i.e. Danglars, Fernand, and Caderousse. This isn't a book on how to seek havoc on those who have wronged you or mistreated you, but on how to embrace and understand suffering as a part of life. Dantes’ punishments are cruel, vile, and downright disturbing, yet the choice is given to the reader to decide whether or not they side with Monte Cristo's actions. The main moral of this story though, is that despite the idea of revenge sounding like pure justice and liberty, it will not solve your anger. Finding happiness elsewhere will cure more than violence, and that’s one of the most important things one can learn. An excellent book that never feels tiring, A+.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
This is my new favorite classic.
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), main character Andy Dufresne sets up a prison library and gets his less-than-well-educated co-prisoners to help him unpack books. One of them picks up this novel and announces the author’s name, raising a laugh in the middle of a film that sorely needs them: “Alexander Dumb-ass.” It’s a quote that has entered the ‘library of family references only my wife and I get’ that regularly annoys our children, but as I listened to the audiobook of Monte Cristo, I found myself regularly thinking about how actually, Dumas was pretty damn clever to be able to wrangle this beast into a meaningful story over two years of serialised publication. I wouldn’t call it perfect, but it’s damn good and very immersive. But if you’re going to dive in, it will require commitment — my library audiobook service had it listed as a 47-hour listen, which took me just over a month to get through (and I sped it up to x1.75!).
For this reason, the plot (for anyone not aware of it) may take a while to set up! The year is 1815; main character Edmond Dantès is a young sailor just returned from sea in Marseille, France. He has a fiancée (Mercédès) ready to marry him, a father to be reunited with and merchant navy career prospects on the rise. Unfortunately he also has enemies who conspire against him: Fernand Mondego, love rival for Mercedes, and Danglars, a shipmate jealous of Dantès’ sudden rise within the ranks. They accuse him of political treason, and when the case comes before Villefort, the local prosecutor, he realises his career will be ruined if he lets Dantès go free. So the young sailor is arrested and imprisoned in the brutal Château d’If, an island prison in the Mediterranean Sea. He remains there for fourteen years in total, working on an escape plan but also getting to know a fellow prisoner who tells Dantès of a great store of treasure on an island called Monte Cristo. When Dantès manages an almost miraculous escape, he avails himself of this huge fortune and sets himself up as the titular Count, eventually working his way into Parisian high society where Danglars, Villefort and Mondego have established their exceedingly wealthy families. He then sows the seeds for his plan to exact revenge on the men who wronged him so unjustly in Marseille.
I am a firm believer in not spoiling stories, no matter how old they are, so I will not go into much more detail about the plot. What I have revealed above is about 20% of the story, which also contains some of the following scenes, not necessarily in this order: runaway horses endangering lives, poisonings, children being buried alive, financial shenanigans, duels, clandestine meetings between young lovers, kidnappings by Italian bandits, consumption of haschich, lesbian lovers on the run, courtroom drama, gossip in boxes at the opera… Boring it is not. There are points where you wish Dumas would move things along a little more quickly, but when a novel is serialised over two years (as this was between 1844 and 1846), I can cut the author some slack for taking his time. What’s astonishing is that the plot elements feel planned, rather than padded out; sure, some of the descriptions stretch things, but the aspects that pay off in the final act are all seeded in the first half, which is impressive, especially bearing in mind how much readers would have forgotten over two years of one story. Hell, I listened to it in a month and I forgot things that were set up early to pay off later.
I was also surprised by certain choices Dumas made to include character types that might not always be treated well in 19th century literature, but here he gives them agency. As previously mentioned, it is revealed that one (minor) character who resists her arranged marriage does so at least partly for reasons of sexuality, but I was also impressed by the inclusion of a disabled character whose actions are vital to how the plot develops. Villefort’s aged father, Noirtier, is paralysed in all but his eyes, in descriptions that we might now recognise as locked-in syndrome. His grand-daughter Valentine and his servant Barrois are the only two people who love him enough to have developed ways of communicating with him and listening to his desires, purely through blinking and meaningful looks. This happens first in a key scene where Noirtier requests a notary to adjust his will, who arrives at the Villefort house sceptical of being able to do anything for the old man. In a painstaking scene, Valentine proves that her grandfather still has presence of mind despite not being able to speak or move, and the notary sees this and starts making the desired adjustments to the old man’s will, much to the chagrin of his son (Villefort), and therefore to the reader’s delight.
There are also elements that stretch believability, such as the Count’s incredible insider knowledge of everything that is going on in multiple households of Paris at all times, and his ability to know exactly when people are going to be traveling from place to place in a particular way, enabling him to manipulate them to his own ends. Having said that, I do love Dantès’ propensity for dressing up as alternative characters throughout the novel; as well as his main pseudonym of the Count of Monte Cristo, he inhabits the character of an Italian priest, an English lord, the chief clerk of a banking firm, and ‘Sinbad the sailor,’ among others. This leads to a delightful moment about three quarters of the way through, when it is revealed that a key character from his past has known who he was all along but kept it to themselves. Hiding this from the reader is a master-stroke on Dumas’ part as it brings a lovely emotional resonance to Dantès’ relationship with that character.
There is obviously plenty more to say about this novel, and I’m sure there is scholarly work galore I could explore. But taking it at face value, it’s a rollicking (if hefty) revenge adventure that certainly kept me engaged for its running time and that has (in my view) earned a rightful place in the annals of classic literature.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated