The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics)
by Alexandre Dumas père
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alexandre Dumas pèreBrand: Penguin Group USA
Introduction: Robin Buss
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Unabridged
Published: 2003-05-27
ISBN: 0140449264
Number of pages: 1276
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Immersed in another world
Summary: 5 Stars
I read The Count of Monte Cristo a few months ago, and it took me two months to get through it. It was the best reading experience I've had since reading The Lord of the Rings almost twenty years ago.
Initially I wanted to read an ebook version of the novel -- I wanted to be able to carry it around easily in an ebook reader. So I loaded one of the free versions in the public domain onto my ebook reader and started in ... but it was no fun. The translation was very old, and latinate sentence structure and archaic words made it difficult to understand. After doing a little research I found that the only fully modern translation is the one by Robin Buss in Penguin Classics. And I actually had a copy sitting around my house, but I was reluctant to carry around a fat paperback as big as a Bible for the time it would take to finish the book. Yet I wanted to read this novel, so I gave up and started in on the paperback edition. (I see now that amazon carries a kindle version from Penguin that appears to be the Robin Buss translation. But I don't have a kindle.)
As other reviewers have noted: don't bother with any other version than the one translated by Robin Buss. Seriously -- don't waste your time (unless you know French and are going to read it in the original language). The suffering quotient is just too high. And that would be true even if you read an abridged version. Yes, this is a very long novel, but any abridgment is going to have to leave out some of the most truly wonderful things in the book, because again and again, the things that make The Count of Monte Cristo such a pleasure to read are things that don't really advance the plot. So just resign yourself to slogging through the whole thing. It's worth it, believe me. Not only is the style of writing infinitely easier to understand, but the book is, as they say, "unexpurgated." Earlier translations apparently leave out some of the weirdest and most fascinating parts of the book. In one section there's a lengthy description of a drugged, erotic reverie. In another section one character is portrayed implicitly and (by modern standards) humorously as a lesbian. And in yet one more section, we get a truly fascinating and horrifyingly detailed description of a brutal execution. Someone looking for things to cut from the book could easily cut any of these. But I know you'll want to read them.
My impressions of the Dumas' novel overall are that it creates a whole world that's both remarkably similar to our own, yet remarkably different, and very strange. In fact the book creates several worlds, including the world of the young Edmond Dantes, before his incarceration; the world of the prison, the Chateau D'If; the world of Monte Cristo, Dantes island paradise, the world of carnival season Rome; the world of high society Paris; and several others along the way, drawn quickly and then not seen again (e.g., the world of the telegraph operator). Linking all these worlds is Edmond Dantes, aka the Count of Monte Cristo (and many other aliases), in his journey from innocence, through suffering, to vengeance and final repentance.
From what I knew of the book before reading it, I assumed the greater part of the novel would be taken up with the adventures surrounding Dantes' arrest, imprisonment, and escape, with vengeance plot being somewhat secondary. But this is completely wrong: the section leading up to Dantes' escape and his finding of the treasure is all prelude: by a great degree, the book's main plot deals with Dantes secretly returning to the world and insinuating himself into the lives of those who victimized him. He does this over a period of years, and his essentially infinite wealth turns him into a kind of God, pulling the strings for almost everything significant that happens in their lives. Admittedly much of this very long part of the book is slow ... too slow. The plot becomes quite convoluted, and sometimes you wish the writer would just get on with it. But then, suddenly, when you're almost ready to give up, a big action scene will take place, and the suspense will be ratcheted up for another two hundred pages.
One trick I used to make myself keep reading through the slow parts was to remember how the book was originally published: as a serial. Dumas had to produce a certain number of words for each installment, so even if he wasn't ready to make use of a planned plot development, he still had to write X number of words. This means some installments have little plot development. But at other times, the plot seems to move very quickly, and some action scenes seem oddly compressed -- again, probably because Dumas was limited in how many words he could write for each section.
A significant flaw of the book is that the major characters who plotted Dantes' downfall in the early part of the book, and who disappear for several decades while Dantes is imprisoned and then while he is planning his return -- these characters seem hard to connect to the villains who appeared in the early pages. For the most part their characters seem unrelated to the people Dantes later tracks down. Since they also change their titles, this makes it hard to keep track of who's who. And the extremely complex plot makes it even harder. So, another suggestion: as you read, keep a little chart of the major characters (including ALL the villains, as they appear, and their families). As the book progresses and more details are revealed, you can add to your chart. Of course you can find this information in many sources -- wikipedia, CliffsNotes, etc. -- but these all contain spoilers. It's best to discover these things for yourself.
In the end, The Count of Monte Cristo is not very deep, in the way Tolstoy or Flaubert are deep. To put it simply, what it is, is the most fun you can have in reading for the sheer pleasure of reading. Some scenes stay strongly in my mind even now -- for example the Carnival scenes in Rome, and the gruesome executions that follow it.
I only wish I had this book to read one more time, for the first time.
Summary of The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics)
Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss.
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