The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)

Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" is in many ways the classic story of revenge and justice. The falsely accused Edmund Dantes is imprisoned in an island jail, separated from the love of his life, the beautiful Mercedes. After wallowing in self-pity and anger, a fellow prisoner encourages Dantes to plan a dramatic escape, tempting him with a story of a fabulous treasure hidden on the foreboding island of Monte Cristo.

After his audacious prison break, Dantes makes his way to the isle of Monte Cristo, using his experience as a ship's officer. There he does indeed find a staggering treasure, which he uses to finance his attempt to uncover who had him imprisoned. Dantes creates multiple personae to carry out his investigation and his later attempts at revenge, none more unforgettable than the mysterious and fabulously wealthy Count of Monte Cristo.

Dumas offers a sprawling epic against the backdrop of the social upheaval in early 19th Century Paris. Insinuating himself into association with both the upper crust and criminals, Dantes stops at nothing to discover his betrayers and then to work revenge upon them by destroying their careers and social relationships. It is a gripping tale of intrigue and romance, the satisfaction of revenge and yet its hollowness. ( )

I'm finished. It got better. MUCH better. More later. Maybe. ( )

First of all, this edition of the classic is just beautiful. It may not be the quality of Easton Press or other leatherbound companies, but it is still an attractive book.

On to the story. I'm sure most people know the plot well enough for me to gloss over a summary, so we'll just move on to how much the story gets slowed down when events move to Rome. Along with spending far too much time devoted to Franz d'Epinay considering the minor role he plays in the later part of the story, this section introduces the reader to a version of Edmond Dantes who is completely unsympathetic. At first you're rooting for him, but this change is so drastic that it's hard to keep reading. However, things speed back up again when Paris takes center stage and the last quarter of the book really flies by as all the threads come together and conclusions are reached.

This is a classic that everyone should read, not just to be familiar with a cornerstone of literature, but for a rip roaring tale of revenge (I apologize for the accidental alliteration). ( )

I found The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas to be a very readable, highly entertaining story that was great fun to read. I was quickly immersed into the story and found, other than a slight slow down in the middle of the book, that the story flowed smoothly and kept my curiosity peaked.

I admit I was a little daunted by the sheer size of this book, but really, size didn’t matter in this case. I believe this book was originally released in a serial format so the writer knows how to keep his plot moving along with many peaks and valleys with the result being that the reader is quickly caught up in this story of ultimate revenge. There have been many books written since that have borrowed freely from the Dumas plot so it was a pleasure to actually read the original.

I am very happy that I have read this book and can now number myself among the millions of fans of The Count of Monte Cristo. ( )

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. ( )