The Count of Monte Cristo
Jun. 8th, 2024 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearSo, I recently joined an online book club and really enjoyed the first meeting I went to (last week, luckily for a book I'd already read) - and their next pick was The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
It's 1243 pages long... And I have no idea why I found that off-putting. It took me a whole month to get through - but I would have been reading *something* during that time regardless - so why do huge books seem so intimidating and start feeling like a chore, even if they're really good?
And The Count of Monte Cristo is really good! I never would have read it except for the book club - and I'm really glad I did.
It tells the story of Edmond Dantes, a young man with everything going for him (engaged to the love of his life, about to become captain of a trading ship) until several people who are jealous of him cause him to be thrown in prison for fourteen years. When he finally escapes, he vows revenge - and takes almost 1000 pages to do it!
The twists and turns and intrigue and excitement and gasp-worthy moments abound!
Plus, I wasn't expecting it to be funny. Or to have queer characters in it.
There are a few aspects that denote the serialised nature of the original book - several incidents are recounted multiple times by different people at different times and it does drag a bit in places. Also, after being intensely in Dantes' thoughts for the first 300 pages or so, the rest of the book is from lots of different people's viewpoints, viewing the (now) Count of Monte Cristo from the outside, and we don't really get Dantes' thoughts again until right near the end. That was interesting in some ways, since it means the reader knows a lot more than the viewpoint characters for a lot of the book - but it also diminished the emotional impact a bit for me, since it was all a bit more remote.
There's a whole cast of great female characters - good and bad, layered and complex, with very different personalities, backgrounds, motives and agendas, which was great.
And the way it all finally comes together is truly epic.
I wasn't entirely sure I was on board with where Dantes ends up - I liked that the eventual focus of the book was more on love and hope than revenge and despair, but there's a rather problematical relationship involved (in my view), with regard to the power dynamics and the scope for fully informed consent.
But overall, this was tremendous fun, a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's 1243 pages long... And I have no idea why I found that off-putting. It took me a whole month to get through - but I would have been reading *something* during that time regardless - so why do huge books seem so intimidating and start feeling like a chore, even if they're really good?
And The Count of Monte Cristo is really good! I never would have read it except for the book club - and I'm really glad I did.
It tells the story of Edmond Dantes, a young man with everything going for him (engaged to the love of his life, about to become captain of a trading ship) until several people who are jealous of him cause him to be thrown in prison for fourteen years. When he finally escapes, he vows revenge - and takes almost 1000 pages to do it!
The twists and turns and intrigue and excitement and gasp-worthy moments abound!
Plus, I wasn't expecting it to be funny. Or to have queer characters in it.
There are a few aspects that denote the serialised nature of the original book - several incidents are recounted multiple times by different people at different times and it does drag a bit in places. Also, after being intensely in Dantes' thoughts for the first 300 pages or so, the rest of the book is from lots of different people's viewpoints, viewing the (now) Count of Monte Cristo from the outside, and we don't really get Dantes' thoughts again until right near the end. That was interesting in some ways, since it means the reader knows a lot more than the viewpoint characters for a lot of the book - but it also diminished the emotional impact a bit for me, since it was all a bit more remote.
There's a whole cast of great female characters - good and bad, layered and complex, with very different personalities, backgrounds, motives and agendas, which was great.
And the way it all finally comes together is truly epic.
I wasn't entirely sure I was on board with where Dantes ends up - I liked that the eventual focus of the book was more on love and hope than revenge and despair, but there's a rather problematical relationship involved (in my view), with regard to the power dynamics and the scope for fully informed consent.
But overall, this was tremendous fun, a great read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
