The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The may actually be the best book I’ve ever read. I challenge anyone to point me to a better one.
This has it all in a plot that is entirely complete. If you’re not familiar with the plot, a young sailor named Edmond Dantes is set to be married to Mercedes, a woman he dearly loves. One the eve of his wedding, at the contrivance of four others, Edmond is arrested and thrown in prison on falsified charges of being a Bonapartist. (This takes place in the tumultuous period of the French Revolutions when there was a king, then Napoleon, then a king, then Napoleon, then a republic). He spends the next 15 years in a dungeon where he meets another prison most think is insane. The other prisoner tells Dante of a vast fortune hidden on a tiny rock of an island in the Mediterannean called Monte Cristo. The other prisoner dies, Dante makes a harrowing escape, retrieves the treasure, purchases the island, and becomes its Count. The rest of the book details how he uses his vast fortune to exact revenge on those who falsly accused him, sent him to prison, allowed his father to die a horrible death, and stole his beloved Mercedes (she married one of the four conspirators when she thought Edmond was no longer alive). That revenge is complete and total.
There is just so much in the book that no summary can do it justice. But then, at 1500 pages (it’s said that Dumas was paid by the word), one might expect there to be a lot here. Yet there is surprisingly little padding, everything written is relevant. One of the remarkable things about the story is that much of it is told in dialog rather than prose. The characters are fully developed.
At the end, stop to think back to the beginning of the book. It’s startling to think just how much has happened and how far the characters have travelled. Only one other book has done that for me (Shogun by James Clavell).
So, okay. Winter is here. It’s time to read big books. Read this one. I’m really sorry I haven’t read this before, because this is one I will be reading many times again in the future.
January 10th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
At 1500 pages, I’m afraid Henry will have graduated high school by the time I finish that. Of course, assuming I’m not crushed/smothered to death while trying to read it in bed.
Pity, as it sounds awesome. I’m always down for the revenge plot. Perhaps there will come plans for a 200 disc Book-on-CD one day?
January 10th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
How well does this online version match the one you read?
January 10th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Books on tape. Or MP3’s anyway.
Only $55.
Or download for either $10 or $32. I listened to the sample, though, and it sounds like it would take some getting used to. Oh wait, it says “Part 1″.
The BPL has it on tape. (25 tapes)
It reads pretty quickly, though. There is lots of dialog which goes quickly, and there are 117 chapters, so you can pick it up and do a chapter in not too much time.
I do wish it would come in a couple of volumes, though. It’s almost 3 inches thick, and won’t fit in your pocket, and it’d be tough to carry on the subway, etc.
The online versions seem to be pretty much the same as the one I had. It doesn’t say who translated this one, but most of them I’ve seen are nearly the same. I note the one you linked to starts “ON THE 24th of February, 1810″ and all the others say 1815.
Guttenberg has one too. I read this one along with the Audible.com mp3 and they’re not exactly the same, but nothing of any consequence.
Text: I doubt if he would have asked anything from anyone, except from Heaven.
Audible: I doubt if he would have asked anything from anyone, except God.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:33 am
My local library network appears to have it on CD… “35 sound discs (ca. 75 min. each) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.”
Yeah, me likey them newfangled “sound discs”. (35 of them!?)
I placed a hold on it. Meanwhile, I grabbed the Gutenberg version and printed it to a PDF. Perhaps I’ll have enough downtime this tax season to read it at my desk.