"The Count of Monte-Cristo" by Alexander Dumas

Alright so I sometimes read classics, and this was the one that I picked up most recently. This book is a lot, there’s adventure and kidnappings and murder and mystery and all sorts of plot devices. What this means is that there’s a lot of characters to keep straight as well. And of course you have to remember things like who is related to who and who wants to marry who or you’ll be very confused the whole time. To top it off, there’s a time shift towards the beginning so you have to remember people from before this shift and after or you miss all of the count’s motivation here. So be forewarned about that, I had to sparknotes some characters a couple of times (which I haven’t done in years).

This is essentially a huge revenge story, which is why it’s important to know the Count’s motivation here, and he goes about his plans veeeeeery slowly. This is a guy who is in it for the long game. He doesn’t outright kill anyone or steal their fortune, what he does is manipulate the people around him and slowly draw a net around those that he wants to ruin. It’s kind of fascinating to watch, which is the whole point of this book.

Of course, the main symbol here is related to religion. Monte-Cristo equates to “Mount of Christ” and is the place where Edmond Dantes is able to assume the form of the Count, he is reborn as it were. The Count also does a whole ton of good for the people that he likes, such as the Morrels among others. He completely disappears at the end, but his second coming is foreshadowed when he tells Max and Valentine to wait and hope for him to return. This all seems rather contrived to me, since this is a guy on a revenge spree, but the way he does it is so “hands off” that many characters reference the force of God in their lives. So it could just be a statement about how gullible people are. Somehow I doubt it.

Anyways, this guy is so powerful he intervenes in what would have been another retelling of “Romeo and Juliet” but makes it so that the couple lives to tell the tale. Literally, these lovers only talk to each other through a fence (hi Pyramus and Thisbe), the girl fakes her death, and the guy is prepared to die. But not while the Count of Monte-Cristo is around! He helps the girl fake her death while disguised as a priest (hi Friar Lawrence) and then saves both her and the guy so that they can be happy and together in the end.

There’s a lot to this book that I didn’t touch on, but these are what I thought were the main points (maybe). Give it a read for yourself if you want something that’s long and has a lot of characters and can really suck you in if you let it. The adventure and intrigue is great, if nothing else.