Alexandre Dumas: “The Count of Monte Cristo”

Dear Monsieur Dumas,

It is the year 2010 today, nearly 166 years since you published The Count of Monte Cristo. Your contemporaries recognized it as the accomplishment it is, which is the least we can say for the treasures which have come to us from your period. It makes me immensely happy when a society understands a genius masterpiece in all its brilliance during the lifetime of its creator. Still, you would probably like to know that The Count of Monte Cristo, your labor of love and sweat, is cherished and recognized as a magnificent novel in the world to this day. It is even part of the reading requirement in most school education programs, albeit they sadly choose the abridged version much to your (and my) dismay. Not knowing any better when I was much younger, I too read the abridged version, which even in its brevity, left an indelible mark on me and a desire for return for more someday.

Yesterday, I closed the last “page” of the original version of the book – all 1312 pages devoured with the proper due respect that any masterpiece fully deserves. I read the book on what we call a Kindle. Man’s advancement has come a very long way since the 1850s and it is safe – although slightly sad while truly incredible – to say that we no longer live, work and play the way our ancestors did. This Kindle is an electronic (another fancy medium we invented) version of the book, void of all paper and cover but I assure you that the words – your words – which matter the most and above all things – have been notoriously preserved.

The words are what we need and crave the most. They satiate our deepest desire to see and hear our language written in its most eloquent form. The 19th century classical authors bestowed upon us the highest command of the language through their writing. They managed to describe even the most trite situations and most ordinary dialogues with an intensity and a vividness few writers of our time can surpass.

Sometimes the writing prose and ingenuous character depiction is more than enough to make us mark a book as classic and worship it indefinitely. Miss Jane Austen in my view belongs here, much as I admire her and love her novels as well as Mr. Henry James and Miss Edith Wharton and many others. Perhaps this focus away from an engaging and dramatic plot may be why a majority of our generation considers classics to be “dull” (gasp!). However, in immense gratitude to you, with The Count of Monte Cristo and its prevailing plot, you wash away all such excuses. The unforgettable tale of Edmond Dantes stays with those of us who know him and would enthrall all who read him in the future.

From the moment that you introduced the 18 year old tall slim and irrevocably honest Edmond Dantes with his dark hair and black eyes sailing into Marseille, I entered his world not to quit a second before the very end was reached. In this complex plot with no less than 27 major characters and a dozen other minor ones, you tested the strength of my memory and depth of my focus and no doubt, I may have let you down at times but never enough to quit the novel. For a while, my life was put on hold while the life of Edmond occupied every fabric of my imagination. The beginning, the betrayal, the cursed fate, the shattered dreams, the agony and anguish of that innocent sweet soul in that dark dungeon for 14 harrowing years. How did you have the heart to tell us such a cruel bitter tale? How could you make one single man endure so much agony?

They say good writing entertains and great writing transforms. Ironically, the greatest sections of this book to me, difficult as they were to read, are during Edmond’s captivity in that dungeon at Chateau d’If and his relationship with Abbe Faria. Those passages are the most exquisite of your writing even if they recount the most agonizing period of Edmond’s life. They were painfully difficult to read yet the unease lessened in knowing and anticipating the imminent revenge of Edmond. Today, I draw strength from the memory of Edmond’s undying yet swaying hope in my most ordinary tasks and my humble difficulties. Perhaps, this is the definition of transformation on some level.

After the miraculous escape, the discovery of the hidden treasure, and the generous and clandestine deeds to his friends, you take us forward 9 years and give us nearly no detail about Edmond’s life here. He emerges as the Sinbad the Sailor, Abbe Busoni, Lord Wilmore and the Count of Monte Cristo all in one. Edmond, for whom alone I was reading this book with baited breath, had disappeared, dissolved like sugar in water, not to be heard of again for another 700 odd pages. You rob the reader of Edmond’s day to day and hour by hour transformation from Number 34 to the magnificent man – an account of his life that I desperately wished to learn about, nearly as much as the one preceding it. The adventures of the new Edmond are slow for me as I adjust to this dramatic change in the plot and to the new characters and circumstances.

When the Count of Monte Cristo took vengeance on his ruthless enemies, I rejoiced, even if no punishment would have sufficed for the injustice he suffered. Yet you show us the point in his journey when he realizes he has gone too far and that he is not the hand of Providence on earth. In the end, you let him find peace and love and leave behind not only his entire treasure for good but also his wisdom to his beloved few to follow. The end was reeling and the entire book is a supreme achievement of your imagination in genius eloquence.

With you, Mr. Dumas, I went everywhere. I dreamt, I imagined, I cried, I shuddered, I rejoiced, I reflected, I was enthralled and entertained and yet through it all, I felt a world of compassion for only one character, the beloved Edmond Dantes.

In all my reading, I mark my favorite passages. The torture is how to choose, from over one hundred, only a select few to share. Will you forgive the brevity then as I share below these few sublime sections from the story:

Some of the passages which made me cry:

On Edmund contemplating suicide:
He could not do this, he whose past life was so short, whose present so melancholy, and his future so doubtful. Nineteen years of light to reflect upon in eternal darkness!

On the death of Abbe Faria, Dantes mourning over him:
Alone — he was alone again — again condemned to silence — again face to face with nothingness! Alone! — never again to see the face, never again to hear the voice of the only human being who united him to earth! “O my God, I have suffered enough surely! Have pity on me, and do for me what I am unable to do for myself.”

On his return visit to the dungeon as the Count:
On the other side of the dungeon he perceived an inscription, the white letters of which were still visible on the green wall. “`O God,’” he read, “`preserve my memory!’ Oh, yes,” he cried, “that was my only prayer at last; I no longer begged for liberty, but memory; I dreaded to become mad and forgetful. O God, thou hast preserved my memory; I thank thee, I thank thee!”

Morrel yelling at the grandfather Noirtier to tell Villefort about his love for Valentine:
“Tell them,” said Morrel in a hoarse voice, “tell them that I am her betrothed. Tell them she was my beloved, my noble girl, my only blessing in the world. Tell them — oh, tell them, that corpse belongs to me!” The young man overwhelmed by the weight of his anguish, fell heavily on his knees before the bed, which his fingers grasped with convulsive energy.

Some of the passages which made me think:

Dantes reflects on life as he learns from Abbe Faria:
But the sight of an old man clinging to life with so desperate a courage, gave a fresh turn to his ideas, and inspired him with new courage. Another, older and less strong than he, had attempted what he had not had sufficient resolution to undertake, and had failed only because of an error in calculation.

Dantes waiting to go to Monte Cristo for his treasure:
Thus Dantes, who but three months before had no desire but liberty, had now not liberty enough, and panted for wealth. The cause was not in Dantes, but in providence, who, while limiting the power of man, has filled him with boundless desires.

Edmond upon first again seeing Fernand, the man who stole his betrothed and condemned him:
He remain concealed in the shadow of the large velvet curtains, and read on the careworn and livid features of the count a whole history of secret griefs written in each wrinkle time had planted there.

Dumas on misfortune:
If one’s lot is cast among fools, it is necessary to study folly.

On controlling emotions when seeing Mercedes:
Having reached the summit of his vengeance by a long and tortuous path, he saw an abyss of doubt yawning before him. A man of the count’s temperament could not long indulge in that melancholy which can exist in common minds, but which destroys superior ones.

Reaffirming his revenge, quite rightfully, by a re-visit to his dungeon cell:
“Woe,” he cried, “to those who confined me in that wretched prison; and woe to those who forgot that I was there!”

Some of the passages which made me wonder:

As Abbe Faria realizes that their escape plan is crushed, Dantes reacts:
Dantes held down his head, that the other might not see how joy at the thought of having a companion outweighed the sympathy he felt for the failure of the abbe’s plans.

The Count on his opinion about the beheading in Rome:
“If a man had by unheard-of and excruciating tortures destroyed your father, your mother, your betrothed, — a being who, when torn from you, left a desolation, a wound that never closes, in your breast, — do you think the reparation that society gives you is sufficient when it interposes the knife of the guillotine between the base of the occiput and the trapezal muscles of the murderer, and allows him who has caused us years of moral sufferings to escape with a few moments of physical pain? Had I to avenge myself, it is not thus I would take revenge.”

Dumas on hatred and rage:
“Hatred is blind, rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”

Count to his servant, Bertuccio, who admitted to taking revenge for being wronged:
“Do not think so, Bertuccio,” replied the count; “for the wicked are not so easily disposed of. For all evils there are two remedies — time and silence.”

The notary astonished at grandfather’s Noirtier’s inability to speak:
“But to do this he must have spoken?” “He has done better than that — he has made himself understood.”

Madame Danglars to M. Villefort:
“No, my life has been passed in frivolity; I wish to forget it myself.”

Valentine worried that if she can see Morrel freely, this would happen:
“But, alas, I have heard it said that hearts inflamed by obstacles to their desire grew cold in time of security; I trust we shall never find it so in our experience!”

Dumas on the Count’s personality:
We know the Count’s vigorous and daring mind, denying anything to be impossible, with that energy which marks the great man. From his past life, from his resolution to shrink from nothing, the count had acquired an inconceivable relish for the contests in which he had engaged, sometimes against nature, that is to say, against God, and sometimes against the world, that is, against the devil.

The Count feeling sympathy for Vincent de Morcerf, the son of his betrothed and his enemy:
“Poor young man,” said Monte Cristo in a low voice; “it is then true that the sin of the father shall fall on the children to the third and fourth generation.”

Eugenie, talking to her father Mr. Danglars, before she runs off with her lesbian partner:
“Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life — for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes — I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone, and consequently perfectly free.”

The Count on giving hope and courage to Maximilian:
“It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud. The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising.”

Some of the passages which made me happy:

Edmond on first hearing from his dungeon the voice of Abbe Faria
He then gave up himself to his happiness. He would no longer be alone. He was, perhaps, about to regain his liberty; at the worst, he would have a companion, and captivity that is shared is but half captivity.

As Abbe Faria realizes that their escape plan is crushed, Dantes reflects:
Dantes held down his head, that the other might not see how joy at the thought of having a companion outweighed the sympathy he felt for the failure of the abbe’s plans.

Edmond upon finding his treasure:
This time he fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands convulsively, uttered a prayer intelligible to God alone.

Maximilien giving courage to his beloved Valentine:
“I have also a deep conviction that heaven would not have created two hearts, harmonizing as ours do, and almost miraculously brought us together, to separate us at last.”

The Count overwhelmed by what Mercedes had done in saving him after he promised that her son shall live:
As for Monte Cristo, his head was bent down, his arms were powerless. Bowing under the weight of twenty-four years’ reminiscences, … he thought of that courageous woman who had come to plead for her son’s life, to whom he had offered his, and who had now saved it by the revelation of a dreadful family secret, capable of destroying forever in that young man’s heart every feeling of filial piety. “Providence still,” murmured he; “now only am I fully convinced of being the emissary of God!”

The final confession the Count makes to Fernand when he reveals his true identity:
“Fernand,” cried he, “of my hundred names I need only tell you one, to overwhelm you! But you guess it now, do you not? — or, rather, you remember it? For, notwithstanding all my sorrows and my tortures, I show you to-day a face which the happiness of revenge makes young again — a face you must often have seen in your dreams since your marriage with Mercedes, my betrothed!” The general, with his head thrown back, hands extended, gaze fixed, looked silently at this dreadful apparition; then seeking the wall to support him, he glided along close to it until he reached the door, through which he went out backwards, uttering this single mournful, lamentable, distressing cry, — “Edmond Dantes!”

The Count of Monte Cristo writing his goodbye letter to Valentine and Maximilian:
“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, — `Wait and hope.’ Your friend, “Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo.”

I sign off here, Monsieur Dumas, as I thank you a thousand times over for giving me a treasure larger than that of Edmond Dantes, the novel and the story itself, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Farnoosh

Reading is the best pastime for an active mind! If you like to see the other book reviews, check the index of In Print.

Tagged as: book review, classic, courage, family, fiction, French literature, gratitude, life, strength, writing

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