The Count of Monte Cristo,
by Alexandre Dumas
Nook Book copy, originally published 1845
A few weeks late, but here it finally is: my epic rant (could be a lot worse) on the epic word count that is The Count of Monte Cristo:
Once upon a time, in ye olde
Napoleonic France, there was a young sailor named Edmund Dantes. Everything was turning up Edmund: his hawt girlfriend Mercedes said she’d
marry him with two days notice, he was earning enough to take cake of his pop,
and he was up for a big promotion to be captain on his boat. But poor, silly Captain Oblivious, with
his one-track mind (did I mention Mercedes was hawt?) failed to see that he was
making a lot of dudes jealous. Dudes
like Mercedes’ cousin Ferdinand, who creepily wants a piece, and Danglars
(Danglers in my reading), who can’t stand that a teenage boy is more successful
than him. Conspiring with
Edmunds drunk tailor neighbor Caderousse, Danglers proves how low he dangles
when he more or less manipulates Ferdinand into mailing an anonymous letter
stating that Edmund was making nice with Napoleon (currently locked away on an
island – kind of a theme in this book/French history).
Since the monarchists hate Napoleon
and his crazy expansionist ideas, Edmund is arrested at his rehearsal dinner or
something like it, and continues to have crappy luck: his judge?
Villefort. Like Danglers,
his name kind of tells us that he’s vile.
Villefort is an unabashed social climber who has daddy issues and has
taken another family name so as not to be associated with his Napoleon
supporting daddy, Noirtier. Which
means when he reads the “evidence” against Edmund, he freaks the eff out
because he’s afraid it’ll link him to his daddy. So he a) tricks Edmund’s boss into creating false evidence
that winds up being used to indict Edmund, and then b) he locks up Edmund in a crappy
18th century prison on an island in the harbor and throws away the
key. You know, as you do.
So now that we know the system is corrupt, Captain Obvious
(Edmund) is locked away to rot in solitary for years and years and years. Thus commences about 400 pages of
quivering, gnashing of teeth, moaning, etc. You know, being pissed you’re in prison. He does the usual stuff, like try to
kill himself, and then after like five or so years of this decides to plan his
revenge. About this time he
realizes he can totally hear his wallmate up to something. Turns out this something is building a
series of secret tunnels. You
know, as you do in a prison escape plot.
Edmund and his new buddy, the Abbe, make friends; the Abbe teaches
Edmund like six languages and explains to him what anyone else would have
picked up on: Edmund got thrown under the bus. Poor, silly Edmund.
Luckily, when he gets angry, he gets smart. The Abbe is assumed to be crazy because he claims to have a
billion and five dollars in like, Roman coins hidden somewhere. Edmund, being Edmund, is the only one
to believe him, but only after there are lots of long speeches about how they
are now besties and like father and son, and oh, I will adopt you and make you
my heir with my words. So then the
Abbe gets sick and dies. Edmund
finally shows a glimmer of individual intelligence and switches places with his
body to escape.
