The Count of Monte Cristo in What's the Name of That Book???

Dec 31, 2007 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, own, theclassics, literaryfiction

Really horribly long, but still fabulous. The escape, the vengeance, wonderfully drawn. There's a reason this is a classic.

Reread 2022: I swear I don't remember most of this, did I read an abridged version? I do not remember reading 1,200 pages, and some of the characters and plot lines drew a total blank.

Loved it, though. So intense! So crazy! ...more

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Sep 14, 2007 Maria Elmvang rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2010, 4-stars, owned-physical-book, owned-audiobook, classics

A good book that would have been great - even excellent - had it been properly edited. Dumas was paid according to length, and at times it shows. Had it been half, or even two-thirds the size I think it could have become one of my favourite books. As it was, I felt that there were some plotlines that were superflous and which I then naturally cared less about than the others. Also there were very few twists I hadn't guessed ahead of time.

It took me a bit to get thoroughly captivated by the book, ...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Sara ♥ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: multicultural, favorites, action-adventure, audiobook, general-fiction, 2009, challenge-fall-2009, film

I don't know what to shelve this one. Maybe I should make a new shelf called "holy-crap-this-book-is-freaking-awesome---" where the last three dashes are exclamation points, except those aren't valid characters in a shelf name, so they'd get replaced by dashes. I'll just stick it on my favorites shelf for now... ;)

All right. So I had seen the movie (the James Caviezel version), and thought it was pretty awesome (as did the hubby), so when it came time to pick out an audiobook to listen to on the I don't know what to shelve this one. Maybe I should make a new shelf called "holy-crap-this-book-is-freaking-awesome---" where the last three dashes are exclamation points, except those aren't valid characters in a shelf name, so they'd get replaced by dashes. I'll just stick it on my favorites shelf for now... ;)

All right. So I had seen the movie (the James Caviezel version), and thought it was pretty awesome (as did the hubby), so when it came time to pick out an audiobook to listen to on the drive to and from Las Vegas (a 21-hour drive from home), and we saw this ridiculously thick case at the library, we decided to give it a go. The narrator was great. We had to take some breaks at the beginning-ish, as it was a bit slow (and, to be honest, we were freaking tired and didn't want to crash the car).

And then later, Dumas would go off on these random tangents about random characters, and I was like, "Yo, Alex... What the frak are you talking about? Who cares about this guy?" And then a disc or two later, it was like, "Ohhhh... ohhh... hahahaha... that's clever..." He always worked the character in somehow... I think my favorite character in THAT respect was Andrea Cavalcanti. *snorts* I don't want to give anything away, but OH. MY. GOSH... I about DIED when I found out who he was. I seriously had to turn the CD off to scream out loud in my car. It was SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME! I couldn't WAIT to see how that particular story line would be resolved. *dies laughing*

Okay, so the movie is really good. The book... blows it out of the water. It's so much more robust. I don't know if you can describe a book as robust, but it is. There are so many more characters (but not so many that you can't keep track of them *grumbleWheelofTimegrumble*), and none of the ones who are described in any amount of detail are superfluous. They may SEEM so when you're first introduced to them, but every single one of them matters and fits very nicely into the plot like a puzzle piece. And the plot is so much more intricate... all the story lines weave together in such a complex pattern that you can hardly believe it sometimes (yet you do).

But I think the thing I liked most about the book that differed from the movie is Edmond's motivation. In the movie, it's like, "OMG, I hate these guys! I'm gonna kill them all to get back at them for being mean to me!" But in the book, it goes deeper than that. He believes he's some kind of avenging angel, bringing God's justice to these terrible, evil men. And that's more convincing to me. Acts of blind rage happen quickly, you know? But he takes his time and works it all out... and BOY HOWDY is he effective!

I think they should make kids read this book in high school. Not really. The book is over 1200 pages, and that would be evil. But why the crap do they make kids read such AWFUL books in school, when there are seriously kick-ass books like this one out there? Highschoolers would LOVE this book! It's got it all! Action, adventure, mystery, revenge, true love, Jerry-Springer-like situations that I won't go into detail about..., bandits, poison, death, guns, swords, etc. It's a sweet book. Seriously. Totally awesome and worth reading. ...more

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Jun 03, 2010 Porter rated it really liked it

For a book that was essentially the "summer blockbuster movie" of 150 years ago, and has stuck around as long as it has, The Count of Monte Cristo is just as fun and exciting as you'd expect.

It's a long book, and it drags a bit in a couple of places (specifically the denouement and Carnival) , but not nearly as much as you'd expect.

What was especially fun was to realize that The Princess Bride is, in many respects, a parody/humorous version of this book. There were several times when I half exp ...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Cait rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: quote-classics-unquote

This was one of the books my family read aloud when I was very young. It's hard to look at it critically, because it shaped my brain. (I also feel this way about Endurance, and the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The originals; pre-Disney.)

Anyway. Adventure, capers, plots, moral ambiguity, swashbuckling, prison breaks. This book has them all. (And now I kind of want the tv show version.) ...more

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May 05, 2014 Marianne rated it really liked it

This book has a lot of great characters and is full of adventure--I had forgotten how good it is. You can tell it was written as a serial, though. Very long. . .

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