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A review by mafiabadgers
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
First read 02/2025
I think, if I were a sixteen year old male aristocrat reading this about 150 years ago, I would have liked it very much. I would have become obsessed with the Count, with his vast wealth, elegance, inscrutability, desire for revenge, vampiric appearance, skill at arms, and beautiful besotted princess/slave. I think I would have tried very hard to imitate him in every way, even though, in twenty-first century parlance, this would be cringe. It does, however, help me to understand why this book gets so much praise on Reddit.
Unfortunately, the pacing is abysmal. I enjoyed the first 300 pages; they were slow, and the characters (the loving father, devoted fiancée, kindly employer, and scheming 'friends') were not very nuanced, but I thought I understood the necessity of driving home who all these figures were, and what they meant to Dantès, before they dropped out of the narrative for a while. This was inded what happened. He goes to prison, and things dragged a bit, but it felt appropriate. He had an exciting escape, which was nice, and then it all fell apart.
The book starts to meander, with anecdotes that are only vaguely linked to the main plot (the worst of which is the life story of the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa). I've read The Three Musketeers, I know Dumas can do better than this when he wants to, but the pacing never sped up and the characters never became complex enough to justify taking so long. It doesn't hold your hand at all when it comes to keep track of them: a General Quesnel is murdered off-page in one of the early chapters, and this name doesn't crop up again until we're introduced to Monsieur le Baron Franz Quesnel d'Epinay about 200 pages later. The name Quesnel is not used again for about 500 pages (he's called Franz, or Baron d'Epinay), until the connection becomes relevant. This could have been an attempt at a bit of a twist, but there are various characters referred to mostly as "Monsieur [Name]", and their wives are "Madame [Same Name]", and sometimes they have affairs with each other, and it's really not easy to keep up. For what it's worth, I'm an attentive reader who usually manages this sort of thing well, and I read the book over the course of a week. Given that Monte Cristo was published serially, I have no idea how people were supposed to understand it.
I do think there's something to be said for Dantès' journey from good man to prisoner to avenger setting him up as an inverted Christ figure, and I did feel quite good when I realised how much of an influence it must have had on The Scarlet Pimpernel (as well as more obvious derivatives such as The Stars My Destination and The Baron of Magister Valley). Dumas can manage some very pretty description, and there's a delightful snideness sometimes in his narration, but by the end I was glad to see it finished, and that's never a good sign. I did like the butch lesbian, though.
I think, if I were a sixteen year old male aristocrat reading this about 150 years ago, I would have liked it very much. I would have become obsessed with the Count, with his vast wealth, elegance, inscrutability, desire for revenge, vampiric appearance, skill at arms, and beautiful besotted princess/slave. I think I would have tried very hard to imitate him in every way, even though, in twenty-first century parlance, this would be cringe. It does, however, help me to understand why this book gets so much praise on Reddit.
Unfortunately, the pacing is abysmal. I enjoyed the first 300 pages; they were slow, and the characters (the loving father, devoted fiancée, kindly employer, and scheming 'friends') were not very nuanced, but I thought I understood the necessity of driving home who all these figures were, and what they meant to Dantès, before they dropped out of the narrative for a while. This was inded what happened. He goes to prison, and things dragged a bit, but it felt appropriate. He had an exciting escape, which was nice, and then it all fell apart.
The book starts to meander, with anecdotes that are only vaguely linked to the main plot (the worst of which is the life story of the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa). I've read The Three Musketeers, I know Dumas can do better than this when he wants to, but the pacing never sped up and the characters never became complex enough to justify taking so long. It doesn't hold your hand at all when it comes to keep track of them: a General Quesnel is murdered off-page in one of the early chapters, and this name doesn't crop up again until we're introduced to Monsieur le Baron Franz Quesnel d'Epinay about 200 pages later. The name Quesnel is not used again for about 500 pages (he's called Franz, or Baron d'Epinay), until the connection becomes relevant. This could have been an attempt at a bit of a twist, but there are various characters referred to mostly as "Monsieur [Name]", and their wives are "Madame [Same Name]", and sometimes they have affairs with each other, and it's really not easy to keep up. For what it's worth, I'm an attentive reader who usually manages this sort of thing well, and I read the book over the course of a week. Given that Monte Cristo was published serially, I have no idea how people were supposed to understand it.
I do think there's something to be said for Dantès' journey from good man to prisoner to avenger setting him up as an inverted Christ figure, and I did feel quite good when I realised how much of an influence it must have had on The Scarlet Pimpernel (as well as more obvious derivatives such as The Stars My Destination and The Baron of Magister Valley). Dumas can manage some very pretty description, and there's a delightful snideness sometimes in his narration, but by the end I was glad to see it finished, and that's never a good sign. I did like the butch lesbian, though.