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A review by charity1313
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
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