The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (Book Review by IMCPL Patron)

Posted by Reader's Connection

November 10, 2009

For much of my life, a question has troubled me: What would the TV episodes of Mission: Impossible have been like if they had been written by gossip columnists and lasted two days? If you, too have wondered about that, read The Count of Monte Cristo.

The opening sections of the novel aren’t bad. I’m not giving away anything that isn’t on the liner notes if I tell you that sailor Edmond Dantès is betrayed by some scallywags and is jailed at the horrible Château d’If.

He eventually escapes, ascends into high society, and initiates a mechanism of revenge so complex that it runs for hundreds of pages, even in an abridged edition. This is the gossip-columnist part, and I’m weary of it. I have fifty pages to go. The book originally appeared in serial form in Le Journal des Débats, and I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it as a serial. Really, I’d rather be eating a cereal.

I think James Joyce loved this thing, and he knew more about literature than I do. I should get off my horse. A couple of Amazon.com reviewers make the point that you should only read The Count in an unabridged edition, and I’m reading the Barnes & Noble abridgement, so that may be part of my problem.

Both of these reviewers are singing the praises of the 1,102-page Penguin Classics edition which is translated by Robin Buss; and one of the reviewers writes, The abridged version is VERY confusing! The full text fills over 1200 pages, and pruning it to 600 leaves a lot of plot on the cutting room floor. Suddenly, arriving at dinner are 4 new characters; it’s very tiring to try to keep up with the hole-ridden story of the abridged versions. And you know where the holes are? Publishers “clean up” the book by omitting the affairs, illegitimate children, homosexuality, infanticide, hashish trips, etc.

I’ll admit that I was missing some connections in the story, but I thought I’d been nodding off. The library doesn’t seem to own the Penguin Classics edition, though one of the school libraries does. The library owns the Modern Library edition which fences with your senses for 1,462 pages. I’m going to read one of those unabridged versions right after Napoleon conquers South Bend.

No, enough stupid wisecracks. What did I enjoy about the book? The imprisonment in and escape from the Château d’If work well. The way Valentine communicates with her paralyzed grandfather (read the book) is winning. And . . . that’s all?

Another Penguin Classic enthusiast writes, Dumas has a wonderful grasp of human nature and a talent for rendering all the follies of man in delightful, snappy prose. I immediately recognized people that I know (yes, even myself) in his vivid characters, which made the book all the more engaging to me.

These characters don’t remind me of human beings at all, which means either that I’m living on the wrong planet or that I need to read the whole thing. Yargghh.

–Chester

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