Book Review: The Count of Monte Cristo

© sometime in the late 1840s, by Alexandre Dumas

O to be Edmund Dantès! Young, dashing, exuberant – the world his oyster, the world on a string, pick your metaphor, the world, for our hero, is one of endless possibility. Just returned home from his first naval command, a smashing success saving his employer a fortune, Edmund cannot wait to be in the arms of beautiful Mercedes, his bride to be in only a few short days, and see his devoted elderly father. He can expect a fruitful life in a wonderful marriage, and with his effortless ability a sure climb up to one day owning his own shipping fleet.

That is, until the nefarious machination of a cabal – one member who desires the hand of Mercedes for himself, another shipmate jealous of Edmund’s talents, a third a drunken lout of a neighbor, and, later on, a fourth, a local judge with his eye on national prominence – all conspire to falsely accuse and imprison our young protagonist into the deepest, darkest dungeon imaginable, to be forgotten by all in all of history.

Poor Edmund!

For interminable years Dantès struggles in the solitary prison. A first few days of defiance follow by years in agonized battle to maintain a tenuous grasp on sanity. Then, a chance encounter gives him hope and power, and a chance at escape – sixteen endless years after his initial chaining. Edmund does indeed escape – but no longer Edmund. He is now the Count of Monte Cristo, king of a barren rock jutting out of the middle of the Mediterranean. The Count of Monte Cristo – the Vengeance of God!

And God help those four men, now lords of wealth and power firmly ensconced in French aristocracy, as vengeance comes down upon them.

Over the course of another thousand pages, spanning ten or twelve years novel time, the Count exacts his revenge, one by one, on each of his accusers. A web of secondary characters emerge, all magnetically drawn to Monte Cristo, who utterly destroys some and, surprisingly (though not so upon further reflection) supplying a source of redemption for others. No character is whoever he or she seems at first, and there are at least a handful of jaw-dropping surprises.

Hopper could not put this book down.

Longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was hooked from page one. No doubt due to a modern re-translation (by Robin Buss, 1996), the novel was an endlessly entertaining, witty, sometimes comical and sometimes somber voyage through the world of 1840s Europe. I realized a hundred or so pages in that this was World Building, the foundational skill of any fantasy writer worth his salt. Only this Built World of fantasy actually existed two centuries ago.

As its length would convey, this is not a straightforward tale of revenge. And that’s its charm. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey, right? With a cast of 35 characters (yes, each plays a part, with the vast majority spanning the novel’s duration), each with his or her own motivations and secrets, with several sub-stories within the novel (that always come back to reconnect to the main plot, sometimes after two or three hundred pages), with even the main character having a half-dozen aliases and identities that sometimes are not revealed until much, much later in the tale – yes, with all of this this is indeed a journey. But my testimony here is to say that’s it’s one well-rewarded.

The best modern analogy I could think to convey the gist of The Count of Monte Cristo comes from one of my favorite movies of the past decade, Limitless. In that movie, the protagonist ingests an experimental drug that enables him to utilize and use his mental powers to a degree never before known in man. The Count himself seemed to have similar powers (which are explained in the novel and I won’t spoil). So much so that it was quite enjoyable to watch this man play 10-dimensional chess with haughty amoral leaders of business and state who spend their time boasting their abilities at checkers. The best part of Monte Cristo was trying to detect what scheme he had in mind for each of his four foes.

The book wasn’t even on my radar; perhaps I might have heard it mentioned twice in the past ten years. Thus I had no reason to read it. That is, until Patch, my youngest who’s in sixth grade, excitedly told me about it while running errands one Saturday in February. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that we borrowed the library’s two copies and decided to read it together. The result, I am pleased to say, is a happy memory that will last a lifetime.

Grade: A+