Huntsville-Madison County Public Library discussion

When the cold dish of revenge meets the white heat of Fate

I have been curious to read this massive novel for many years. Having read other books at least as long if not longer (‘War and Peace’, ‘Les Miserables’, ‘In Search of Lost Time’), the only excuse for my procrastination was the reputation the book has been given over time as a genre novel, a tale of revenge (there are hundreds of those by now, many influenced by ‘Monte Cristo’ itself), an adventure novel. This reputation was not entirely deserved and I knew that the novel transcended genre, so the question was when was I ready to devote the necessary time to tackle it?

The premise of the novel is well known to anyone who has either read an abridged version or watched one of the many TV and film adaptations; a young sailor, Edmond Dantes, has everything going for him. He has just been promoted as the new captain of the vessel he has served, he is engaged to a beautiful and devoted young woman named Mercedes, his aging father is devoted to him, and he is on excellent terms with his employer and his family. However, there are a few people who are envious of his good life enough to take advantage of an opportunity to take him down. Fernand Mondego has been in love with Mercedes almost as long as Edmond; he is single-minded in his obsession with her enough to sabotage the upcoming marriage. Fernand comes in contact with another mate on the ship, Denglars, a bitter man who is envious of Edmond’s promotion, resentful of serving a man who, in his mind, has no qualities that make him superior to Denglars.

On his way back to Marseilles, Edmond is tasked with delivering a package to Elba, home of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile, and picking up a letter, contents unknown to Edmond. This gives Fernand and Denglars the perfect opportunity to frame Edmond. He is arrested and brought to the deputy crown prosecutor, Villefort, who opens the letter, seeing that it was from Napoleon to his own father, a Bonaparte supporter. Villefort burns the letter in front of Edmond and says he may go. Rather than setting him free, Villefort orders Edmond to be taken away to prison, suppressing the knowledge of his father’s association with Napoleon and preserving his own reputation.

Without a trial or any kind of explanation, Edmond is taken to the Chateau d’If, an island prison analogous to the American Alcatraz, locked in a dungeon cell and left there. Driven to despair, he unsuccessfully tries to kill himself, finally resigned to live this subterranean existence. After a few years, he hears some hammering and digging and finally meets his next-door prison neighbor, an older man named Abbe Faria. The Abbe has been digging in the wrong direction, coming up in Edmond’s cell. They reach a mutual decision to start digging in the right direction. During this time, the Abbe, a political prisoner thought to be mad by his captors, tutors Edmond on reading, writing, languages, sciences, giving him a thorough education on a variety of subjects. Edmond suddenly has a will to live and, with the Abbe’s questioning, figures out who betrayed him and why.

After fourteen years they are making progress on their tunnel when the Abbe has a seizure and dies. Edmond moves the body of Faria to his cell, covered in blankets and puts himself in the shroud meant for Faria. He thinks he’ll be buried somewhere on the island and be able to dig himself out but instead, weighted by a cannonball, he is thrown off the cliff into the waves below. Luckily, he has a knife and can cut himself out of the shroud, breaking the surface and making his way toward the nearest spot of land. After encountering smugglers and thinking of a plausible story, he joins the band long enough to locate Monte Cristo and finds the treasure, which is indeed enough riches to make him immensely wealthy.

Between the well-rounded education from Faria and the fortune that is now his, Edmond starts a new life for himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. During the next ten years he not only establishes a new life and lifestyle for himself as the Count but tracks down what has happened to his betrayers. During these years he adopts various aliases aside from the Count: Sinbad the Sailor, a wealthy British philanthropist named Lord Wilmore, a chief clerk from a British banking firm., and Abbe Busoni, a priest.

Under the various aliases he is able to track down what happened to his betrayers. His fiancé, Mercedes, worn down by Fernand’s persistence and convinced that Edmond was dead, married Fernand and had a child, Albert, now grown, and befriended by the Count. Fernand achieved a high rank in the army, and bought a title of Count for himself. Denglars became a wealthy banker, and Villefort became a chief prosecutor, now with a grown daughter, Valentine, and taking care of his aged father, the Bonapartist, who has had a stroke and can only communicate through a series of eye blinks.

Unlike my earlier impression of this book, there are no swashbuckling sword fights like any that characterized ‘The Three Musketeers’. The Count doesn’t kill anyone. He becomes a self-appointed Agent of Karma, finding people and evidence from these people’s past lives and sins, manipulating these events so that the public knowledge of their misdeeds is what dooms them. Edmond Dantes becomes a virtual superhero, traveling massive distances at lightning speeds, changing swiftly from one disguise to another.

The Count does seem to possess godlike powers. It seems he has also acquired a knowledge of various poisons and dosages, so that he can administer enough of a drug to make it appear that the person is dead, whereas he can resurrect her later. I suppose Dumas thought that Shakespeare got away with something like it in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, why shouldn’t he?

As I said, unlike earlier impressions, this is not the kind of adventure novel with swordplay. What it does have is a serial poisoner, a lesbian couple, cross dressing, hashish hallucination, and many other aspects that render it not suitable for children. The Robin Buss translation is very straightforward, flowing and fast moving. Much like ‘War and Peace’, which is also very readable, the main hurdle which is worth surmounting is its intimidating length and its varied gallery of characters and aliases.

With each triumph over one of his conspirators, the Count reveals his true identity as Edmond Dantes. He wants his victims to know that Dantes not only did not die but that he was able to administer justice in the end. Where the Count’s god-like powers end is in not being able to control the actions of peripheral characters so that innocent people die. His single-minded obsession grows beyond his control.

What Dumas has written is an epic melodrama, probably more akin to a great opera than one of the other great French 19th century novels written by authors such as Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola. Those authors created stories that were more relatable to the average reader, one that led a life less dramatic than most of the characters in ‘The Count of Monte Cristo. Yet even the most ordinary reader sometimes wants to live vicariously through big lives with grand gestures. It is for this reader that Dumas has written.