Bookshot #182: The Count of Monte Cristo

I have had this book lurking on my bookshelf for years and I've made an attempt or two at actually


reading it, but have never made it all the way through- at least until now. It is, I will confess, an abridged version, which some purists may have an issue with, but I didn't. 

The story begins with Edmond Dantes who is returning to the port of Marseilles after being at sea and his future is looking very bright indeed He is on the verge of becoming the master of his own ship. He has a young lady that he loves (Mercedes the Catalan) who accepts his offer of marriage. Good fortune, stable finances, and a prosperous life seem to be ahead of him. 

However, not everyone is happy with Edmond Dantes. His crewmate, Danglars wants the job that Dantes is on the verge of getting. He's also got a rival for the affections of Mercedes: Fernand Mondego. Together, they plot to undo him and in this, they are helped by an unusual fact. On the way back home, at the behest of the Captain (now deceased)- they stop at Elba, where Napoleon is in exile and Dantes delivers him a letter and doesn't think anything of it. (This is before Napoleon returns from exile to launch the 100 Days.) But Danglars and Mondego decide to hatch a plot to accuse him of being a Bonapartist-- another crewmate, Caderousse is aware of the plot but says nothing to stop it.

Dantes is arrested and the whole thing seems to be a big mistake-- but the local Crown Prosecutor, Villefort reads the letter that Dantes picked up on Elba and, realizes that his own career would be destroyed if it became known that his father was a Bonapartist, destroys the evidence. Dantes is found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment in the infamous prison on the Isle of the Chateau d'If.

Six years into his solitary confinement, Dantes is on the verge of suicide when he meets another prisoner, the Abbe Faria, an Italian priest, who has been trying to dig an escape tunnel and ends up in Dantes' cell instead. Faria asks why Dantes is in prison and when Dantes tells his story, Faria guesses the truth. The two become friends and over the next few years, Dantes is educated in language, history, culture and all kinds of math and science. Knowing that he's close to death, Faria tells Dantes about a huge treasure on the island of Monte Cristo.

Despite his best efforts, Faria succumbs to catalepsy and dies. Dantes takes Faria's body back to his cell and takes his place in the burial bag and is thrown into the sea where, after cutting his way out of the sack, he makes his way back to land where he secures the treasure of Monte Cristo, the title of the Count of Monte Cristo and starts planning his revenge.

Danglars, Mondego and Villefort are his three main targets and first, he disguises himself as the Abbe Busoni and returns to Marseilles to look for information. Caderousse is still around and regrets not speaking up for Dantes, but lets him know that Mercedes did marry Fernand Mondego, his father died of hunger, despite the best efforts of his former employer, Morrell who is now on the verge of bankruptcy. 

(Here's where the abridged of it all comes into play-- because there's a few more details when you check the wiki-summary of this book that I didn't get when I read the actual book, so I'm going to try and focus on what I actually read.)

In short, Dantes helps out Caderousse and Morrell since especially the latter has done right by him or tried to, anyway. He gets himself to Paris and in short order ruins Mondego and after Mercedes reveals that she knows who he is, manages to extricate himself from a duel with her son. 

Morrel's son, Maximilian is in love with Villefort's daughter, but unfortunately, her mother is busy poisoning people and eventually, despite the count's best efforts, it appears that Valentine, the daughter succumbs to the poison. Villefort accuses the mother of being the poisoner and makes the mistake of leaving her alone with her child Eduard and she poisons the little boy and herself-- this is the event that brings Dantes up short. He cannot save the child, however much he tries and Villefort is driven insane with grief at the death of his son. Dantes seriously questions his revenge at this point but after ruining Danglars, he convinces Maxmilian to come to Marseille with him.

There, Mercedes finds a strongbox he had buried years before and gets some money for her and her son, now estranged from the disgraced Mondego. Eventually, Maximilian arrives at Monte Cristo where he is reunited with Valentine, whom the Count had successful healed from her poisoning. He departs with Haydee, who provided testimony that disgraced Mondego to the East and leaves a note telling the young people to 'wait and hope.'

Overall, I guess the question I'm left with about this book is this: how much of a purist am I? Am I going to go back and get the complete version of this book and read it to compare and contrast?

Maybe? I don't think I'm especially motivated to run out and grab a complete unabridged copy right this second, but I'm definitely open to the idea. The abridged version was an easy read-- when I say this book has been on my shelf for years, it's probably closer to a couple of decades and I probably got this for a birthday or Christmas when I was a kid, because that's the audience it's aimed it-- just based on the language and syntax it uses. But it was an easy read.

I hesitate to say that this was the progenitor of the 'revenge novel' either. Technically, Les Miserables could lay claim to that title and there's elements of literature as far back as Homer that play with some of the same themes. But you have to this book it's flowers as well: it echoes into the present day. There's a touch of Batman about this, the way Dantes is hell bent on revenge and his mysterious past and multiple identities. Revenge is an idea that's been around as long as humans have, but Dumas examination of the idea might be amongst the most evocative. Wrongful imprisonment, losing everything, getting out and getting the means to take revenge on those who have wronged you? At it's most basic, you can take those elements and drop them into any time period or geographic setting you can think of and still have a damn good story. That's rare. That's worth acknowledging and that is what makes this- even an abridged version- a damn good story. My Grade: **** out of ****

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