The Count of Monte Cristo in Classics Without All the Class

Aug 24, 2009 Gaijinmama rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, classics

This is 1200 pages long and took me nearly four months to read but it was definitely worth the time. The characters are memorable, the language is brilliant, and the details of 19th-century European history are fascinating.
I think fiction that inspires me to do some research is most awesomely awesome.
Most importantly, though, we have a damn good story here. As an English teacher, I am compelled to come up with a theme, and I'd have to say it is that what goes around, comes around. If you ruin an ...more

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Aug 20, 2015 Beth Given rated it really liked it

I tackled the unabridged edition of this one for summer book club, and man -- this is one long book. If I had to pick a single adjective to describe this book, that's what I'd pick: LONG. I'd put in hours of reading for weeks and still have several hundred pages to go. For someone who averages a book a week, this was crazy.

Maybe I should have gone with an abridged version, but I was expecting The Count of Monte Cristo to be amazing. Les Miserables was amazing, but I feel sheepish calling it one I tackled the unabridged edition of this one for summer book club, and man -- this is one long book. If I had to pick a single adjective to describe this book, that's what I'd pick: LONG. I'd put in hours of reading for weeks and still have several hundred pages to go. For someone who averages a book a week, this was crazy.

Maybe I should have gone with an abridged version, but I was expecting The Count of Monte Cristo to be amazing. Les Miserables was amazing, but I feel sheepish calling it one of my favorite books, because I've only read an unabridged version. (It was a 900-page unabridged and not a 200- or 500-page one, if that redeems me at all).

I didn't think this book was as amazing as Les Miserables or Gone with the Wind, and it comes down to this: those books are heavy on character development (for better or for worse -- Jean Valjean is my favorite character ever for his deep integrity, and I love to hate Scarlett O'Hara because she just can't let Ashley go). We do get to know the characters pretty well (I mean, really -- this book is 1200+ pages long), but The Count of Monte Cristo is not as much about delving into the psyche of the character as it is about the plot.

But wow, what a plot! Alexander Dumas is quite the writer. He'd advance the storyline through the perspective of various characters, sometimes very periphery or even unnamed characters. (Admittedly, this was confusing sometimes, like when we are randomly seeing the mysterious Count through the eyes of brand-new character Franz d’Epinay. And Franz is on a hallucinogenic drug trip, no less.) The suspense in some chapters was amazing; I particularly loved the chapter where Dantes escapes to "the cemetery of the Chateau d'If." And even though there are more than a hundred sizable chapters in this book, they went pretty fast -- there was plenty of action and drama going on to keep a reader interested: murder and betrayal and lust and romance.

Favorite characters: Maximilien and Valentine and Nortier (I loved all the parts about Nortier!). Albert and Mercedes, too. Abbe Faria. I guess I like the good guys. As for the "bad" guys, I loved watching the Count of Monte Cristo razz on them -- how he uses their ego to get them right where he wants them (Danglars extending him a line of credit, for instance. And how he makes a big point of calling him "baron" when he knows he basically bought the title).

But at the heart of the book, I felt sorry for Dantes. He was dealt a bad hand, and for that he lost his career and his father and his fiancee, but then he wastes away even more of his life making sure that justice is served. He sees himself as an instrument of God's hands, bringing about justice to those evil men who were the cause of his trouble, and he spent almost as long "getting revenge" as he did sitting in prison. Was prison so bad? He returns at the end of the book, and yes, it was. But he did get to know Abbe Faria there, which led him to fortune and, even more, led him to stop wallowing around playing the victim and take charge of his life. But couldn't he have just gone on to live his life, to find happiness where he could? (Easier said than done, maybe?) Even though I just noted how long this book was, I do wish I could find out what Dantes does after the novel is over. I'd like to think he truly does find happiness now that he's set aside his quest for revenge.

This was a good read, very entertaining (especially for a classic), and has given me plenty to consider and think about. I'm glad I read it. ...more

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