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The Count of Monte Cristo
Count of Monte Cristo Q2 2019
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3️⃣ Count of Monte Cristo- Chapter 39 through Chapter 61- Part 3 (of 6)
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What does everyone think about (view spoiler) Have you figured out (view spoiler) It's interesting to watch the Count make small manipulations to the different situations.
Romeo and Juliet! ❤️There are a lot of machinations in the Count's social designs. I can't wait to see how they play out.
Enjoying this section and excited to keep reading. Is anyone else planning to read the current “The Black Count” book after finishing this book? About Dumas and his father and the possible inspiration for this book.
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aPriL does feral sometimes
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Mandy wrote: "Enjoying this section and excited to keep reading. Is anyone else planning to read the current “The Black Count” book after finishing this book? About Dumas and his father and the possible inspirat..."I am planning to!
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It might help make sense of some of the plot twists!
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There are a lot of machinations in the Count's social designs. I can't wait to see how they play out."
There are! And when you see the end results it opens your eyes to the subtle things that happened earlier in the book.
I highly recommend The Black Count. It's about Dumas pere, and utterly fascinating.
He's like a fairy godfather making things happen for people.
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I might! I got the impression so far that skin color was much less likely to be a social barrier than a lack of money or titles. He described some characters as having a "dark" complexion (e.g. Fernand, aka Count Morcerf). But then there were other terms, such as Nubian that seemed to refer to a much darker tone. He was also inconsistent though. At some points Count of Monte Cristo was described as very pale (like a vampire), and in this section he sounds like he's darker (perhaps he's getting more sun now.)
Do you have a sense of which characters in the book (if any) might be most similar to the author or his family?
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What does everyone think about [spoilers removed] Have you figured out [spoilers removed] It's interesting to..."
Max and Valentine is a sweet story. He doesn't pay any attention to Valentine at all at this point, but I'm sure he'll want to help Max since he did so much to help his sister Julie.
The dormice chapter was interesting. I thought it was funny that the next day the government blamed it on a misinterpreted transmission due to the fog. (That was a big stretch.) I think the guy who made the "mistake" might get in more trouble than the Count intended.
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There are a lot of machinations in the Count's social designs. I can't wait to see how they play out."
There are! And when you see the end ..."
I can't wait to see which characters he's going to punish, and how much he's going to hurt (or even help) their family members, especially the children. I really want to know what he'll do to Villefort, who was the worst in my opinion.
I thought the Count's behavior toward Bertuccio regarding the house in Auteuil was rather cruel. He made him suffer and kept him in the dark for a long time about what he knew. That's not a nice way to treat your most trusted employee.
What do you think of Caderouse? Would you have predicted that giving him a diamond would end up hurting his life? Was that his punishment?
Imho, Caderouse could have chosen a different course of action, which would not have meant being evil. Earlier in the book, he refused to participate in the obvious scheme against Edmond, but he did not warn Edmond or help Edmond. He pretended a drunken blackout which he did not actually have. So, what kind of person was Caderouse? Edmond gave him a chance by giving him a choice, instead of simply destroying him upfront. But I can't see how even Edmond could have guessed how to the bad Caderouse would choose.The thing with Bertuccio was cruel! To me, it showed Edmond to be more than just an avenger. He is a little insane, maybe understandably, thinking of himself as someone given a 007 license to do whatever he wants to mess with people, like a person beginning to develop a Messianic complex. I think he has tipped over a bit into real darkness, justifying it, wrongly in my opinion, to do whatever it takes no matter what Innocents or uninvolved parties get smashed along with his targets.
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I just read the chapter where he walks out a door as the Abbe, and then a few minutes later open the door as the count. The next day he's an English man. He's juggling at least three different personas, each with it's own costume, makeup, language and story. It doesn't seem realistic that he can do all this himself (even designing where the trees should go in the Autuiel yard). Not without making mistakes or trusting his staff more. He's too good at too many things.
If you haven't read through Chapter 62, stop reading now to avoid spoilers