The Count is interesting really because he seems to be this all knowing, powerful, terrifying entity when in reality he’s fragile, then cracked and by the end he’s completely shattered. Thanks for the review I needed it today.🥰
I just finished the book and am now searching the interwebs for closure 😂. I find peace with this commentary! Now a subscriber, I like how you intelligently describe the book.
I loved it, was sad when it ended, as I felt the heaviness of his heart, but also the redemption of forgiveness was beautifully represented by the pure white sail on the sea. I appreciated so much how real the world created was, and loved the Haydee character too, mysterious though she remained... overall a total page turner drama. The english wasn't the most poetic, lacking the grace and elegance of War and Peace.. But amazing still is the magic of a real world created in pages! Same, Jane Eyre is my allll time absolute favourite on every level... pure genius xxx
Dumas was inspired by the poisoning plot in the Annals of Tacitus. He even makes reference to the poisoner Locusta. Agrippina poisoned Emperor Claudius so that his son, Nero, inherited the Empire. Heloise acted like Agrippina so that her son would inherit the entire family fortune. And the count provided her with the necessary poison to carry out her project. The orientalism in the book was borrowed from the Arabian Nights and the history of Cleopatra. Possibly Dumas, reading a lot of history, avoids many literary absurdities, such as the protagonist discovering that he has a son and they form a happy family together or the girl who falls in love with her enemy's son. Possibly Dumas reading the history of Alexander the Great and his troubled relationship with his father and even the history of Brutus and Caesar caused Dumas to never write that Albert was the count's son, the count with him and Mercedes formed a happy family. Reading the history of the queen Boudicca in the Annals of Tacitus, she, to avenge the abuse and torture suffered by the Romans, wanted to take revenge indiscriminately on all Romans. After everything that happened with Haydee, it is unlikely that she would fall in love with her enemy's son. More likely she will be taken over by an uncontrollable hate like Boudicca. And the History of Julius caersae Cleopatra may have influenced the relationship between the count and Haydee. Where they both become allies against Fernand and then lovers.
Some Adaptations from Novels and Stories: 1. Jane Eyre (1983) 2. Les Misérables (1998) 3. The Great Gatsby (1974) 4. Wuthering Heights (1992) 5. Anna Karenina (1997) 6. The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) 7. Pride and Prejudice (1995) 8. Moby Dick (1956) 9. Sense and Sensibility (1995) 10. A Farewell to Arms (1932) 11. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) 12. Of Mice and Men (1992) 13. War & Peace (1972-1973) 14. The Three Musketeers (1993) 15. The Brothers Karamazov (1958) 16. Crime and Punishment (1998 TV Movie) 17. Oliver Twist (2005) 18. East of Eden (1955) 19. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 20. Cannery Row (1982) 21. Treasure Island (1950) 22. Lord of the Flies (1963) 23. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) 24. The Invisible Man (1933) 25. Howards End (1992) 26. All Quiet on the Western Front (1979 TV Movie) 27. Gulliver's Travels (1996) 28. The Man in the Iron Mask (I) (1998) 29. Beowulf (2007) 30. Fellini Satyricon (1969) 31. The Decameron (1971) 32. Taras Bulba (1962) 33. A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) 34. The Age of Innocence (1993) 35. The Bostonians (1984) 36. Catch-22 (1970) 37. A Christmas Carol (1999 TV Movie) 38. The Citadel (1938) 39. David Copperfield (1999-2000) 40. Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) 41. Daisy Miller (1974) 42. The Killers (1964) 43. The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) 44. Great Expectations (2011-2012) 46. House of Usher (1960) 47. Doctor Zhivago (1965) 48. Notes from Underground (1995) 49. The Plague (1992) 50. 1984 (1984) 51. The Hunger Games films 52. Harry Potter films 53. Sleepy Hollow 54. The Count of Monte Cristo 55. The Secret Garden 56. The Shawshank Redemption 57. The Green Mile 58. The Maze Runner films 59. Christine 60. It part 1 and 2 61. Salem's Lot 62. Carrie 63. The Running Man 64. The Green Knight 65. The Odyssey 66. Sherlock Holmes (2009) 67. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) 68. Excalibur ( 1981 film) 69. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory 70. Frankenstein (1931 film) 71. The Dark Half ( 1993 film) 72. Little Women (1994 film) 73. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 film)
With regards to the length of the book, most of Dumas' books were published serially. That is, they were published a few chapters at a time in periodic journals. The more chapters one writes, the more paychecks one receives. Personally, I love Monte Cristo and it certainly drags at times. However, I feel that most of the side stories eventually come full circle and tie themselves off nicely. Definitely near the top of my Dumas list. If you want a book with limitless side stories that seem to drag on forever, try Le Vicomte de Bragelonne! 😉 That being said, Monte Cristo is fantastic. And for those who are willing to brave some of Dumas' longer works, Joseph Balsamo (approximately 2000 pages) is just the beginning of a long series of "Marie Antoinette Romances" which will keep you busy for quite a while. I recommend anyone with an interest in french literature to seek out his many other great works. Thanks for the review ✌️
Haha, oh I know. If I was writing serially, I’d milk it too 🤣 Oh man, I draw the line with Dickens when it comes with subplots 🤣 I do plan to read some of Dumas other works, but I don’t think I’ll be don’t 2000 pages 🙈 Thanks for watching!!
They say that vengeance is a dish best served cold, but the part between Dantes prison suffering and the actual act of justice is so long, you almost forget how much he suffered, so all the misery he causes the other characters in the end seems like a huge overkill.
To me, their suffering, which was their own doing, was justice being served. These people didn’t just wrong Dantes, they wronged many in their lifetimes of cruelty that aided their rise to prominence. Dantes just set the stage for them to self destruct and answer for their crimes.
I just found your channel and I’m so glad I did!! I’m always looking for someone who likes to read more of the classics and not just the new romance /YA. Keep up the good work!!🙌🏼👍🏼
Not yet! I’m hoping to do a video on how I annotate sometime in 2023! Yep! Those pictures are of my book journal and quotes/how I outline for my book reviews ☺️
Enjoyed your fun review of this hugely entertaining classic. I just finished it myself. I've never read so many pages so fast. The plot is amazing, though I did have that same 'wrap it up' feeling toward the end.
An interesting cross comparison is to "Les Miserables" - another 19th century French novel about a guy (Jean Valjean) who spends a long time in jail. Since Valjean spent the entire Napoleonic era in jail, he emerges in 1815 as a political "newborn" that cannot be accused of suspicious sympathies - so he is able to reinvent himself within French society. Edmond Dantes goes to jail right at the time Valjean is released and returns as the Count right when Valjean dies.
I finished reading Monte Cristo last week, and throughout the book I caught myself thinking about Valjean most of the time!! I'm glad someone recognizes the strings connecting both books! While I enjoyed Monte Cristo and loved the books, Les Mis will stay on my favorites list up there with Jane Eyre and The Tale of Two Cities .. haven't read a Tolstoy yet, but he's on my tbr
Just started reading The Count of Monte Cristo. So far I’m liking the episodic style. Thanks for giving me interesting things to think about as I read!
hiii thank you so much for this thought out review 💖 i was debating on whether or not to read it, and this helped a lot. you inspired me so i’m going to be starting it soon 🤭. (also you are very stunning 🥹)
Six weeks is certainly a triumph. I finished it tonight and it took me four years. (A lot of that time the book sat while I got distracted by other books, though.)
I agree that Haydee is an interesting character that I would like to hear more about. I was pulling for Albert and Haydee to somehow end up together. I was also hoping that Albert was secretly the Count's son and Mercedes was just waiting to reveal that fact. On a side note, the story of Luigi Vampa and Cucumetto was so fascinating to me. I was so intrigued by the Carlini and Rita love story. I felt stabbed in the heart when I realized Cucumetto was an absolute monster. Overall, Edmond Dantes will always be a hero of mine. How he hoped, how he waited. Brilliant story in my opinion.
Someone needs to write a Haydee spin off 😂 yes it is a brilliant story with some many elements and I love how the various plots in the story appeal to so many people for different reasons.
Dumas besides reading Shakespeare, Ovid, The Arabian Nights, Homer, Lord Byron, he read history books like Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, which offers solid inspirations for him. Dumas, despite belonging to romanticism in literature, reading history may have prevented him from committing certain absurdist droatism. Even if Albert was the Count's son, it is unlikely that they would be united. Marcus Junius Brutus, his mother Servilia was Julius Caesar's lover, some ancient sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being Brutus' true father. But even so, Brutus joined Pompey's army against Caesar, who amnestied him and he later participated in the conspiracy against Caesar. Reading the history of the queen Boudicca in the Annals of Tacitus, she, to avenge the abuse and torture suffered by the Romans, wanted to take revenge indiscriminately on all Romans. After everything that happened with Haydee, it is unlikely that she would fall in love with her enemy's son. More likely she will be taken over by an uncontrollable hate like Boudicca. Haydee and the Count were great allies like Julius Caesra and Cleopatra and both became lovers. In addition to the charm and imposingness of the Count of Caesar, both the Count and Caesar had obsessions in common with Haydee and Cleopatra, all of which created a great closeness and they ended up becoming lovers. And Plutarch's biography of Julus Caesar was one of the inspirations for the count and Haydee.
I just found your channel and looking forward to viewing your other videos and future content. I read the book and plan to re-read it as my nightstand read. Enjoy the book, and what I find even more fascinating is he used his father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, as his inspiration. I read The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss a few months back for a book discussion which is a biography about his father. His father's contributions are little known; Reiss writes in the introduction his experience of finding the research writing the book. I couldn't help to think that Dumas wrote his novel as a way to keep his father in the minds of readers and, in a way, he can have some justice using a literary device that his father didn't have during his life.
Thank you!! Ah! I didn’t know that- that’s so interesting! I do plan to read some more Dumas in the future. This is good to know - thank you for sharing 🙌🏼
Loved hearing your thoughts on this, and I would totally agree with you overall! I enjoyed my time and have no regrets reading it, but a bit more editing would have been nice.
Another great review! I've had this on my tbr for a minute. Maybe I'll tackle next year. I know you have war and peace on your tbr for the year, I started that one last year and got about 450 pages and just never finished it. No fault of the book, I was enjoying it and plan to return. I think because it was the first huge book I attempted I just ran out of steam. Im excited to hear your thoughts on that one too!
Thank you! I think this would also be fun as an audiobook. Yea, that's why I'm tackling W&P at the end of the year for I can binge read it during holiday breaks. I think long books like that, for me, it's better to not space out the reading too much, or else it can get tedious.
I gave it a 3 when I read it this summer but after the fact I want to reread it and I think it should be a 4. At the time I was feeling it was taking too long (that's on me)... and I wanted..... can't say due to spoilers. (Deals with Mercedes) Great review and thoughts!!
I finished this recently too!! Always very thoughtful. I loooved the first half so much and felt a bit let down by that interminable “secondary” revenge thing with the poison in the house and all that. I was just like fuuuuhhh. Took a bit of the wind out of the sails for me.
Yessss! I agree - I also think that the first half is the best and at around 75% in particular I was ready for it to end. It got a bit tedious and long winded.
I'm surprised by this take. In my view it starts off at a full gallop but then slows down considerably. It is not until the back half when it picks up again. Dumas constructs bombs in the first half. In the second half he blows them up. The blowing up is fun.
I agree that his live interest should have been more fleshed out. Perhaps a bit of male author ignoring female characters as underwhelming and unimportant and only there as a play piece for male characters. I'll give Dumas a pass due to his era but not current authors who play that card. I read this book years ago and now I think I may reread it
Well, the central protagonist in Crime and Punishment has been fated (by the author) to commit a crime which (reasonably) repulses him. After which he feels as if his mission in life is complete, and he need not ever do anything again. Dantes, OTOH, needs little coaxing from Dumas to work his wild schemes, which he not only seems to enjoy but for which he's rewarded. So, one character is an extremely dynamic person of action dropped down into a weirdly contorted milieu of contrived co-incidence: the other is forced to suppress his free-will and act in a strange but generally realistic world.
Yea, they definitely loose comparisons for me. There was just a hint of enough that something clicked in my brain. Though, Raskolnikov didn't entirely think he was in the wrong either. He's like "I did what I did" haha
No one reviews books like you 😂 specially classics. He got haters! 😂 BooThang! Now I want to read it. On another note, I love what you said about human justice, so right. Keep it up and would love a tag but I get it. You busy.
I didn't care for this woman's review at all. She goes off on tangents political, religious, social and paints Monte Cristo as semi-mad. She tells us about the sweater she made as an homage to the French sailor's clothes. WHO CARES. Between her critique and tossing her hair, her review, in my opinion left a little to be desired. My compliments to her though, my hats off, kudos for her reading list. She is a prodigious reader, rare in these days of watching the movie and skipping the book.
“This woman” - my name is right there. 😂 My reviewing styling is not for everyone and everyone interacts, responds with and breaks down what they read differently - I’m just one drop in a pond of many - but thanks for watching! And yes, the hair gets on my own nerves LOL.
Thanks for this. Dumas never crossed my eyeballs' path, but I know a bit about his father. Anyhow, I recently bumped into Ester Anderson (in a movie, that is). You might dig her filmmaking career, if you can track them down... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Anderson_(Jamaican_actress)#Filmmaking_career
The Count is interesting really because he seems to be this all knowing, powerful, terrifying entity when in reality he’s fragile, then cracked and by the end he’s completely shattered. Thanks for the review I needed it today.🥰
YESSS! He really is quite fragile and he masks it (literally). He really is dynamic and interesting. And thank you!❤️
He is fragile in a sense but he's also immensely powerful and capable. He's not called a superior being repeatedly for nothing.
I just finished the book and am now searching the interwebs for closure 😂. I find peace with this commentary! Now a subscriber, I like how you intelligently describe the book.
lol yay!! I’m glad! Thank you so much!
I loved it, was sad when it ended, as I felt the heaviness of his heart, but also the redemption of forgiveness was beautifully represented by the pure white sail on the sea. I appreciated so much how real the world created was, and loved the Haydee character too, mysterious though she remained... overall a total page turner drama. The english wasn't the most poetic, lacking the grace and elegance of War and Peace.. But amazing still is the magic of a real world created in pages! Same, Jane Eyre is my allll time absolute favourite on every level... pure genius xxx
That’s a good point! This book does have a very real feeling world. Jane Eyre is the BEST! ❤️
😍
Dumas was inspired by the poisoning plot in the Annals of Tacitus. He even makes reference to the poisoner Locusta.
Agrippina poisoned Emperor Claudius so that his son, Nero, inherited the Empire.
Heloise acted like Agrippina so that her son would inherit the entire family fortune. And the count provided her with the necessary poison to carry out her project.
The orientalism in the book was borrowed from the Arabian Nights and the history of Cleopatra.
Possibly Dumas, reading a lot of history, avoids many literary absurdities, such as the protagonist discovering that he has a son and they form a happy family together or the girl who falls in love with her enemy's son.
Possibly Dumas reading the history of Alexander the Great and his troubled relationship with his father and even the history of Brutus and Caesar caused Dumas to never write that Albert was the count's son, the count with him and Mercedes formed a happy family.
Reading the history of the queen Boudicca in the Annals of Tacitus, she, to avenge the abuse and torture suffered by the Romans, wanted to take revenge indiscriminately on all Romans.
After everything that happened with Haydee, it is unlikely that she would fall in love with her enemy's son. More likely she will be taken over by an uncontrollable hate like Boudicca.
And the History of Julius caersae Cleopatra may have influenced the relationship between the count and Haydee. Where they both become allies against Fernand and then lovers.
Some Adaptations from Novels and Stories:
1. Jane Eyre (1983)
2. Les Misérables (1998)
3. The Great Gatsby (1974)
4. Wuthering Heights (1992)
5. Anna Karenina (1997)
6. The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)
7. Pride and Prejudice (1995)
8. Moby Dick (1956)
9. Sense and Sensibility (1995)
10. A Farewell to Arms (1932)
11. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
12. Of Mice and Men (1992)
13. War & Peace (1972-1973)
14. The Three Musketeers (1993)
15. The Brothers Karamazov (1958)
16. Crime and Punishment (1998 TV Movie)
17. Oliver Twist (2005)
18. East of Eden (1955)
19. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
20. Cannery Row (1982)
21. Treasure Island (1950)
22. Lord of the Flies (1963)
23. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
24. The Invisible Man (1933)
25. Howards End (1992)
26. All Quiet on the Western Front (1979 TV Movie)
27. Gulliver's Travels (1996)
28. The Man in the Iron Mask (I) (1998)
29. Beowulf (2007)
30. Fellini Satyricon (1969)
31. The Decameron (1971)
32. Taras Bulba (1962)
33. A Simple Twist of Fate (1994)
34. The Age of Innocence (1993)
35. The Bostonians (1984)
36. Catch-22 (1970)
37. A Christmas Carol (1999 TV Movie)
38. The Citadel (1938)
39. David Copperfield (1999-2000)
40. Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
41. Daisy Miller (1974)
42. The Killers (1964)
43. The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
44. Great Expectations (2011-2012)
46. House of Usher (1960)
47. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
48. Notes from Underground (1995)
49. The Plague (1992)
50. 1984 (1984)
51. The Hunger Games films
52. Harry Potter films
53. Sleepy Hollow
54. The Count of Monte Cristo
55. The Secret Garden
56. The Shawshank Redemption
57. The Green Mile
58. The Maze Runner films
59. Christine
60. It part 1 and 2
61. Salem's Lot
62. Carrie
63. The Running Man
64. The Green Knight
65. The Odyssey
66. Sherlock Holmes (2009)
67. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
68. Excalibur ( 1981 film)
69. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
70. Frankenstein (1931 film)
71. The Dark Half ( 1993 film)
72. Little Women (1994 film)
73. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 film)
With regards to the length of the book, most of Dumas' books were published serially. That is, they were published a few chapters at a time in periodic journals. The more chapters one writes, the more paychecks one receives.
Personally, I love Monte Cristo and it certainly drags at times. However, I feel that most of the side stories eventually come full circle and tie themselves off nicely. Definitely near the top of my Dumas list. If you want a book with limitless side stories that seem to drag on forever, try Le Vicomte de Bragelonne! 😉
That being said, Monte Cristo is fantastic. And for those who are willing to brave some of Dumas' longer works, Joseph Balsamo (approximately 2000 pages) is just the beginning of a long series of "Marie Antoinette Romances" which will keep you busy for quite a while. I recommend anyone with an interest in french literature to seek out his many other great works.
Thanks for the review ✌️
Haha, oh I know. If I was writing serially, I’d milk it too 🤣
Oh man, I draw the line with Dickens when it comes with subplots 🤣
I do plan to read some of Dumas other works, but I don’t think I’ll be don’t 2000 pages 🙈
Thanks for watching!!
Finished the book yesterday! I agree with your star rating and enjoyed your analysis.
Thank you!!
They say that vengeance is a dish best served cold, but the part between Dantes prison suffering and the actual act of justice is so long, you almost forget how much he suffered, so all the misery he causes the other characters in the end seems like a huge overkill.
To me, their suffering, which was their own doing, was justice being served. These people didn’t just wrong Dantes, they wronged many in their lifetimes of cruelty that aided their rise to prominence. Dantes just set the stage for them to self destruct and answer for their crimes.
I love you perspective and dialogue. I’m glad I found you. Thanks sis. I love hearing lovers of ideas talk about ideas.❤❤❤
Thank you so much!🙌🏼
I just found your channel and I’m so glad I did!! I’m always looking for someone who likes to read more of the classics and not just the new romance /YA. Keep up the good work!!🙌🏼👍🏼
Yaaay! Thank you and I’m glad you are enjoying my content! I do read a fair amount of contemporary lit, but the classics are my favorite!!
Do you have a video on how you annotate your books? Also, are those pics of your book journal with quotes written in them? I just love that!
Not yet! I’m hoping to do a video on how I annotate sometime in 2023! Yep! Those pictures are of my book journal and quotes/how I outline for my book reviews ☺️
I've read The Count four times and expect to do so again in the near future.
Enjoyed your fun review of this hugely entertaining classic. I just finished it myself. I've never read so many pages so fast. The plot is amazing, though I did have that same 'wrap it up' feeling toward the end.
Thank you! Haha yes! This is a fun read but Dumas is a bit long winded towards the end 😂
An interesting cross comparison is to "Les Miserables" - another 19th century French novel about a guy (Jean Valjean) who spends a long time in jail. Since Valjean spent the entire Napoleonic era in jail, he emerges in 1815 as a political "newborn" that cannot be accused of suspicious sympathies - so he is able to reinvent himself within French society. Edmond Dantes goes to jail right at the time Valjean is released and returns as the Count right when Valjean dies.
Les Mis is on my list to read! Hopefully next year!
I finished reading Monte Cristo last week, and throughout the book I caught myself thinking about Valjean most of the time!! I'm glad someone recognizes the strings connecting both books! While I enjoyed Monte Cristo and loved the books, Les Mis will stay on my favorites list up there with Jane Eyre and The Tale of Two Cities .. haven't read a Tolstoy yet, but he's on my tbr
@@mariahouchaimi5750 Dumas and Hugo were exact contemporaries! The latter certainly read "Count..." before writing LM.
Just started reading The Count of Monte Cristo. So far I’m liking the episodic style. Thanks for giving me interesting things to think about as I read!
It’s very episodic! And thank you for watching!
“Dumas, I’m gonna need you to rap it up!” 😆😂
He’s giving Dickens a run for his money 🤣
hiii thank you so much for this thought out review 💖 i was debating on whether or not to read it, and this helped a lot. you inspired me so i’m going to be starting it soon 🤭. (also you are very stunning 🥹)
Thank you for watching and I hope you love it! :)
Oh wow! Thank you so much!!
Six weeks is certainly a triumph. I finished it tonight and it took me four years. (A lot of that time the book sat while I got distracted by other books, though.)
I read this during the summer of 2021 and was able to plow through it 😅
I agree that Haydee is an interesting character that I would like to hear more about. I was pulling for Albert and Haydee to somehow end up together. I was also hoping that Albert was secretly the Count's son and Mercedes was just waiting to reveal that fact. On a side note, the story of Luigi Vampa and Cucumetto was so fascinating to me. I was so intrigued by the Carlini and Rita love story. I felt stabbed in the heart when I realized Cucumetto was an absolute monster. Overall, Edmond Dantes will always be a hero of mine. How he hoped, how he waited. Brilliant story in my opinion.
Someone needs to write a Haydee spin off 😂 yes it is a brilliant story with some many elements and I love how the various plots in the story appeal to so many people for different reasons.
Dumas besides reading Shakespeare, Ovid, The Arabian Nights, Homer, Lord Byron, he read history books like Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, which offers solid inspirations for him.
Dumas, despite belonging to romanticism in literature, reading history may have prevented him from committing certain absurdist droatism.
Even if Albert was the Count's son, it is unlikely that they would be united.
Marcus Junius Brutus, his mother Servilia was Julius Caesar's lover, some ancient sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being Brutus' true father. But even so, Brutus joined Pompey's army against Caesar, who amnestied him and he later participated in the conspiracy against Caesar.
Reading the history of the queen Boudicca in the Annals of Tacitus, she, to avenge the abuse and torture suffered by the Romans, wanted to take revenge indiscriminately on all Romans.
After everything that happened with Haydee, it is unlikely that she would fall in love with her enemy's son. More likely she will be taken over by an uncontrollable hate like Boudicca.
Haydee and the Count were great allies like Julius Caesra and Cleopatra and both became lovers. In addition to the charm and imposingness of the Count of Caesar, both the Count and Caesar had obsessions in common with Haydee and Cleopatra, all of which created a great closeness and they ended up becoming lovers.
And Plutarch's biography of Julus Caesar was one of the inspirations for the count and Haydee.
In one of the stage adaptations (which I believe Dumas wrote), Albert is in fact the son of Monte Cristo. The 2004 movie uses this reveal as well.
I just found your channel and looking forward to viewing your other videos and future content. I read the book and plan to re-read it as my nightstand read. Enjoy the book, and what I find even more fascinating is he used his father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, as his inspiration. I read The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss a few months back for a book discussion which is a biography about his father. His father's contributions are little known; Reiss writes in the introduction his experience of finding the research writing the book. I couldn't help to think that Dumas wrote his novel as a way to keep his father in the minds of readers and, in a way, he can have some justice using a literary device that his father didn't have during his life.
Thank you!! Ah! I didn’t know that- that’s so interesting! I do plan to read some more Dumas in the future. This is good to know - thank you for sharing 🙌🏼
I really enjoyed this. I'm glad you made the comparison to Raskolnikov, I hadn't thought about their similarities before.
Thank you!! I think if I hadn’t read Crime and Punishment a little under a year prior to this, I wouldn’t have made the connection!
Loved hearing your thoughts on this, and I would totally agree with you overall! I enjoyed my time and have no regrets reading it, but a bit more editing would have been nice.
Thank you! It's definitely a fun book, but clearly Dumas and Dickens has the same editor (or lack of one) LOL!
Another great review! I've had this on my tbr for a minute. Maybe I'll tackle next year. I know you have war and peace on your tbr for the year, I started that one last year and got about 450 pages and just never finished it. No fault of the book, I was enjoying it and plan to return. I think because it was the first huge book I attempted I just ran out of steam. Im excited to hear your thoughts on that one too!
Thank you! I think this would also be fun as an audiobook. Yea, that's why I'm tackling W&P at the end of the year for I can binge read it during holiday breaks. I think long books like that, for me, it's better to not space out the reading too much, or else it can get tedious.
And to think some people don't consider this high literature. Guess it's too popular?
Haha perhaps! Those book is a blast, those people are kill joys lol
I gave it a 3 when I read it this summer but after the fact I want to reread it and I think it should be a 4. At the time I was feeling it was taking too long (that's on me)... and I wanted..... can't say due to spoilers. (Deals with Mercedes)
Great review and thoughts!!
Haha yea I was low key hoping for that too, but ALAS! haha. And thank you!
I finished this recently too!! Always very thoughtful. I loooved the first half so much and felt a bit let down by that interminable “secondary” revenge thing with the poison in the house and all that. I was just like fuuuuhhh. Took a bit of the wind out of the sails for me.
Yessss! I agree - I also think that the first half is the best and at around 75% in particular I was ready for it to end. It got a bit tedious and long winded.
@@alanaestelle2076 yes, completely and absolutely
I'm surprised by this take. In my view it starts off at a full gallop but then slows down considerably. It is not until the back half when it picks up again.
Dumas constructs bombs in the first half. In the second half he blows them up. The blowing up is fun.
Oh gosh, just about to start this!
You’re in for a ride! 🤣🙌🏼
But please do a best of 2022 of course once the year is over.
FOR SURE!! Definitely on the list!!!
Can’t Wait!
I agree that his live interest should have been more fleshed out. Perhaps a bit of male author ignoring female characters as underwhelming and unimportant and only there as a play piece for male characters. I'll give Dumas a pass due to his era but not current authors who play that card.
I read this book years ago and now I think I may reread it
I wonder if, since this book was also serialized, if he focused in on characters that readers at the time cared about the most.
good but... all story, no insight.
if you like revenge, the best work of revenge is the film I Saw the Devil (2010)
Ooooh thanks for the rec!!’
Awesome review!
Thank you!!
I actually want to read this book!
You should! It's such a riot!!
Well, the central protagonist in Crime and Punishment has been fated (by the author) to commit a crime which (reasonably) repulses him. After which he feels as if his mission in life is complete, and he need not ever do anything again. Dantes, OTOH, needs little coaxing from Dumas to work his wild schemes, which he not only seems to enjoy but for which he's rewarded. So, one character is an extremely dynamic person of action dropped down into a weirdly contorted milieu of contrived co-incidence: the other is forced to suppress his free-will and act in a strange but generally realistic world.
Yea, they definitely loose comparisons for me. There was just a hint of enough that something clicked in my brain. Though, Raskolnikov didn't entirely think he was in the wrong either. He's like "I did what I did" haha
@@alanaestelle2076 Possibly free-will sometimes means not acting. A character rebelling against the author's commands is more of a 20th cent. feature.
Excellent video.
Thank you!
No one reviews books like you 😂 specially classics. He got haters! 😂 BooThang! Now I want to read it. On another note, I love what you said about human justice, so right. Keep it up and would love a tag but I get it. You busy.
Hahah! Thank you Irene! I was in rare form😂 I definitely have the tag planned!
💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽
🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
#justicefordantes😂
LOL! My boy Dantes has been WRONGED!
I didn't care for this woman's review at all. She goes off on tangents political, religious, social and paints
Monte Cristo as semi-mad. She tells us about the sweater she made as an homage to the French sailor's
clothes. WHO CARES. Between her critique and tossing her hair,
her review, in my opinion left a little
to be desired. My compliments to her though, my hats off, kudos for her reading list. She is a prodigious
reader, rare in these days of watching the movie and skipping the book.
“This woman” - my name is right there. 😂
My reviewing styling is not for everyone and everyone interacts, responds with and breaks down what they read differently - I’m just one drop in a pond of many - but thanks for watching! And yes, the hair gets on my own nerves LOL.
Thanks for this. Dumas never crossed my eyeballs' path, but I know a bit about his father. Anyhow, I recently bumped into Ester Anderson (in a movie, that is). You might dig her filmmaking career, if you can track them down... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Anderson_(Jamaican_actress)#Filmmaking_career
Dumas is a comedian! Thanks for the rec!