Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I work with young people and we are always trying to get them to set big goals--but develop small steps by which to reach them. In that spirit, I searched for a task for myself--something big that I would need to pursue with diligence and determination. In looking for appropriate reading for these 16-24 year-olds, I came across a fusty old list of "great" children's literature. That became my quest--to read every one of the 500 or so books on the list, which ranged from The Pokey Little Puppy to Dickens' Bleak House. Here's my review of Count of Monte Cristo. (After reading Rob Roy, I only have about 149 books to go.)

I am grieved to have completed this book. For the past 10 weeks or so, I’ve had this group of friends who live in Paris who have shared their lives with me. The Count and his friends and enemies have been worthy companions, redeemed, damned, struggling, showing the best and worst. The plot has been used many times—a wrongly imprisoned man survives great deprivation and, after his release, exacts revenge against those who wronged him. Along the way, Count does wonderfully generous things and hideously gruesome things. He ferrets out the most secret details of people’s lives and then fashions them into inescapable nets.

Much of the first third of the book explores a landscape contrast—prison vs. ocean. The cold confinement of the isolated prison cell was claustrophobic. But the scenes of sailing on the ocean contained huge possibilities and freedom. This contrast struck me. I was also ensnared by the Count’s huge treasure—diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, metals, rich objects. It is a pirate’s treasure times 1,000. He snapped his fingers and his needs were met. Everything larger than life.

I was surprised by how dislikable the Count approached being. Dumas walked a very fine line to keep the Count a hero, rather than a great villain. The more he revenged, the more he expressed remorse, to the point that he let his last victim go, just go. He could see that his revenges had what we would, today, call collateral damage or unintended consequences. So I ended up seeing the book as more about love than about hate, and more about transformation than about stasis. In the end the Count opened himself to love, a most unexpected outcome for him, which he as well as the reader felt as a surprise.

The plethora (hate that word) of secondary characters seemed a plague at first, but each one ended up having a part to play, either as an actor or a narrator. Much of the plot was revealed through gossip among the young men of the city. The most touching story was the love story of Maximilian and Valentine. Maximilian was the son of the one man who fought to get the Count released from prison. Valentine was the daughter of one of the Count’s most reviled enemies. There is a long subplot of poisoning which the Count started but which had such serious repercussions that it began the Count’s change of heart regarding revenge. The instigator of the evil act is responsible for all of its consequences, no matter how far removed he might be from them. The Count encouraged one character’s interest in poisoning, which ended up killing 5 people, although, slyly, Valentine was not really dead. The reuniting of the two lovers is sweet and satisfying, leaving the book feeling finished.

I loved this book. Its soap opera qualities kept my attention, and I certainly was engaged in the Count’s quest for revenge. But the book was more than its potboiler devices. The final statement of the book is “Wait…and hope,” the Count’s advice for young and old alike who suffer through adversity. “Wait…and hope.” The Count and his lover literally (and literarily) sail off into the sunset. I wish them well.