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The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)…
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The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics) (edition 1985)

by Alexandre Dumas (Author)

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2,055177,830 (4.32)2
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read A popular bestseller since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, "I do not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance."… (more)
Member:Ohyess
Title:The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)
Authors:Alexandre Dumas (Author)
Info:Bantam Classics (1984), 544 pages
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The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged ∙ Bantam Classic) by Alexandre Dumas

  1. 10
    The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (TomWaitsTables)
    TomWaitsTables: Jay Gatsby is Edmund Dantes rewritten for the American dream. And no, I'm not high.
  2. 00
    Dragon Weather by Lawrence Watt-Evans (caimanjosh)
    caimanjosh: This might seem a little odd, but bear with me here. Both are stories of a character who starts out in chains, manages to free himself, then works his way up into high society, with an agenda hidden those those around him. One's fantasy, one's historical fiction, and both are enjoyable.… (more)
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» See also 2 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 17 (next | show all)
This is a horrible version of this masterpiece. Abridged versions of classic lit are an abomination. This book is not even a tenth of the actual story.
  JHemlock | Oct 19, 2021 |
I read this at least twice as a teenager, maybe three times. One of my favorites at the time. Wonder what I'd think if I went back to it now? ( )
  HenrySt123 | Jul 19, 2021 |
This exciting story focuses on Edmond Dantès's revenge against those who wrongfully caused his imprisonment in his youth. There were a large number of characters, and while I enjoyed their variety, it was a bit hard to keep track of them at times. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book. ( )
  brp6kk | Jun 2, 2021 |
I read and enjoyed The Three Musketeers last month, and I enjoyed The Count of Monte Cristo even more. Dumas created an action-packed tale of betrayal and calculated revenge; this is a classic that well deserves to be read and enjoyed, almost two centuries on. I do wish the women characters had been as strong and nuanced as in Musketeers (Haydee never had an opportunity to develop, and she had so much potential) and I had some issues keeping characters straight because the cast was so huge. Still, great fun. I hope I can read more Dumas this year! ( )
  ladycato | Jan 15, 2020 |
So, we all know the basic premise: a promising young man is betrayed by his rivals and locked up in a prison. While there, he inherits an enormous treasure from a scholarly abbé (oh, and he is taught the entirety of human knowledge), flees the prison and seeks out revenge. And what a revenge it is.

I can’t give this book credit for being realistic, because, let’s be honest, the reach and extent of the count’s influence was just ridiculous. His plan had way too many uncertainties and risks to be executed so flawlessly. Knowing exactly when and how the dapple-greys would go crazy, predicting so impossibly accurately how people react… always. For example him meeting Madame du Villefort years before and finding out she is interested in chemistry and the like, learning that she wants an inheritance for her son, and just assuming that given the chance, she would poison anyone who stands in her way. How was he sure she would do it? Did he have a backup plan in case that didn’t work? We were never given many details as to his plan (even though the book is 1200+ pages long), and sometimes that made the whole thing far too contrived and improbably perfect to be real. But it was whimsically fantastical, and over the course of the story I just got used to it. It also added to the mystery, and personally, the way revenge was executed was, for the most part, a surprise – I didn’t feel the story was predictable at all. Especially in the part with Franz and Albert in Rome, I had no idea what was going on, but it was fun to go with the flow and watch how things slowly unfold. I never really knew what the count was up to until following his actions for a considerable amount of time, and the clever, roundabout way that he brought his enemies to ruin was a pleasure to observe.

But like I said, not knowing the details of the plan was sometimes annoying, just like the fact the count was so shrouded in mystery for a great part of the book. He was such a wonderful character and could have been developed so much more than he was. It was only towards the end of the book that we really saw him beginning to doubt that he was doing the right thing, that he really was an agent of Providence. We needed more of that. We needed his plan to go awry earlier on. That’s the stuff I wanted to hear about. I wanted to know exactly how much of Edmond Dantes was left inside of the Count of Monte Cristo.

Character development was just generally sacrificed for the sake of an incredibly well-paced plot in this novel. The only section that was slow, in my opinion, was the part in Rome. Otherwise, I was never bored. Almost all the subplots had me hooked, and I felt like no part of the book was unnecessary. Everything was there for a reason, and there were no loose ends. Which has its negative side as well, because, for me, everything tied up a bit too well, every story we heard was somehow related to ours in an improbable way, and I didn’t necessarily like that. But the fast, rollicking pace of the story was phenomenal; it’s been a long time since I read something so expertly plotted. (And while Dumas gets a bad rap for bloating his books for money, I, at least, feel that he does it so masterfully that I don’t care one bit!)

The beginning of the book was entertaining for me, but a bit shallow. I like philosophical books, so it really picked up for me when the characters began musing upon death and revenge, justice and providence. I felt like these themes were developed really well, but the one thing that felt rushed and weird was the redemption story. It just happened really quickly after Eduard’s death, and it didn’t feel real to me. I felt like that process should have begun a lot earlier to be more realistic and impressive.

Like I said, character development wasn’t one of this book’s strong points, but I felt there were some intriguing and real characters nonetheless. Albert’s character underwent a big development, as did for example Mercedes. The Danglars’ were great (Eugenie!), as were the Villeforts. I loved grandpa Nourtier and the way he could influence events so radically while only being able to blink. I had sympathy for Monsieur du Villefort, and I actually felt the count was too cruel on some occasions. However, some of the “good” characters were pretty bland. Maximilian and his family were a tad bit too pious and perfect to be likable, but it wasn’t a great problem.

I also loved the symbolism in the Dantes’ different identities. Abbé Busoni was the judge, Lord Wilmore the generous philanthropist, and Monte Cristo the avenging angel. It also showed his inner identity crisis, like he didn’t know who he was or who he wanted to be. He lost himself in his insane obsession with revenge.

I also really loved the theme of justice. I mean, what is justice? This book really made me think about that. We’re confronted with human justice in the face of Villefort, but we see quickly that it’s not potent, it’s fallible. Then we have MC’s “divine” justice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – it’s cruel and has unexpected consequences. In the end we find out that it, too, is just human justice in another form. In the end the count truly leaves justice in the hands of God. We also have the interesting aspect of self-ruin. Du Morcerf was ruined by his own betrayal, really, as was Villefort by his own sins. The past caught up with them and the facts were laid bare… but did the really deserve their fate? And what about their children? Should they really suffer for the sins of their fathers? Is it inevitable? Andrea Cavalcanti claimed it was. And did the count’s revenge really give him peace? Not really. In the end he learned, I guess, that forgiveness is the better way (Danglars really got away easily, dangit!), but this is an exceptional revenge story nonetheless. It ends pretty openly, with MC getting together with Haydee and sailing off into the sunset. A fairly happy ending for pretty much everyone still alive… except Mercedes. She really got the worst of this whole ordeal, and I didn’t feel she deserved it. The irony is also that MC’s revenge was really about her… but in the end they were two very different people than the young lovers they used to be, and Mercedes never really found happiness again. But I guess that’s life, and I guess that’s why the revenge really wasn’t worth it in the end. Even though it was epicly awesome.

So even while this is a book replete with flaws, it deserves, in my humble opinion, a 4-5 rating. It’s a story that really stayed with me; once I finished it, I couldn’t stop thinking about or reading discussions and reviews about different aspects of it. It really haunted me and gave that transcendent feeling in the end, and not a lot of books can do that lately. And come on, it only took me two weeks to read a 1200+ book. That’s something. ( )
  bulgarianrose | Mar 14, 2018 |
Showing 1-5 of 17 (next | show all)
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Alexandre Dumasprimary authorall editionscalculated
Bair, LowellTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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[H]e felt he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, “God is for and with me.”
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Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read A popular bestseller since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, "I do not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance."

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This beloved novel tells the story of Edmond Dantès, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress, the Château d’If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest of his life to tracking down and punishing the enemies who wronged him.
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