One of the most exciting and best-loved novels of all time, The Count of Monte Cristo is a timeless tale of endurance, courage, and revenge. Falsely accused of treason, the young sailor Edmond Dantès is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned on an island fortress. After years of solitary confinement in a cramped, dank dungeon, he befriends an Italian prisoner who, with his dying breath, reveals the location of a vast treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. Dantès stages a daring and dramatic escape, retrieves this fabulous fortune, and returns to France to exact revenge on his enemies, posing as the Count of Monte Cristo. Dantès pursues his vengeance to the bitter end, only then realizing that he himself is a victim of fate. This newly revised, unabridged translation is as unputdownable now as it was when the novel first appeared.
Author: Alexandre Dumas père
Genre: Adventure, Classics
Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 27, 2003)
Media type: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audio Book
Pages: 1312 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0140449266
Publication date: 1844–1846
Reader Review
ROBIN BUSS's TRANSLATION from PENGUIN CLASSICS
This review is for those who've already decided they want to read The Count of Monte Cristo (you won't regret it!), and don't know which version to get.
Short answer: see review title, duh!
The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book, and I've read several translations, both abridged and unabridged.
TRANSLATION
The Buss translation is the most modern, and reads most fluidly. A quick example comparing this translation with the one found on Project Gutenberg:
PG - His wife visited for him, and this was the received thing in the world, where the weighty and multifarious occupations of the magistrate were accepted as an excuse for what was really only calculated pride...
BUSS - His wife visited on his behalf; this was accepted in society, where it was attributed to the amount and gravity of the lawyer's business -- when it was, in reality, deliberate arrogance...
Buss's work reads like the book was written in English. The two or so times that the work is nearly untranslatable, Buss makes a footnote about it (eg, an insinuated insult using the formal "vous" instead of the familiar "tu"). Other translations just skip the subtlety. The most common translation out there (uncredited in my version) reads like a swamp. Trust me, get Buss.
ABRIDGED V UNABRIDGED
Abridged versions of this book rarely say "abridged." You can tell by the size: abridged is 500-700 pages, unabridged is 1200-1400 pages. Go for the unabridged.
The abridged version is VERY confusing! Pruning 1200 pages down to 600 leaves a lot of plot on the cutting room floor. Suddenly, arriving at dinner are 4 new characters; it's very tiring to try to keep up with the hole-ridden story of the abridged versions. And you know where the holes are? Publishers "clean up" the book by omitting the affairs, illegitimate children, homosexuality, hashish trips, etc.
As an added bonus in the Penguin Classics edition, there's a wonderful appendix bursting with footnotes to explain all the 19th century references, and a quick guide to the rise and fall of Napoleon (crucial to the politics in the story).
Hope this helps. Get the book and start reading!
- by J. Cooper
A gripping tale of love and revenge
Warning: Do NOT pick this book up and start it if you have something that you need to do in the next day or three. You won't be able to put the book down, or if you do, you'll move zombielike through your everyday tasks while your mind stays with the adventures of Edmund Dantes.
The Count of Monte Cristo is a delicious book, full of intrigue, great fight scenes, love, passion, and witty social satire. Dumas has a wonderful grasp of human nature and a talent for rendering all the follies of man in delightful, snappy prose. I immediately recognized people that I know (yes, even myself) in his vivid characters, which made the book all the more engaging to me.
Some people might be put off by the size of the book -- it's a pretty hefty volume -- and tempted to buy the abridged version. Don't! I've heard from people who've read both versions that the abridged version is a pathetic, washed out shadow of the full novel. At any rate, as thick and impossibly long as The Count of Monte Cristo may seem when you open it for the first time, you'll feel as though it's far too short by the time you get to the last page.
- by PurpleKat
The Good and The Bad
I can't decide whether I like this book or not. I suppose I should start with the bad, and finish off with the good.
The first thing that bothered me about this book was the improbability of the events. How an ignorant, naïve sailor could have become a powerful, knowledgable man with deep human understanding is beyond me. Admitedly, he did learn for many years from the Abbé Faria and later studied in the east, but I do not think that it could have turned him into the sudden enigma of the Count. The careers of most of the other characters, perhaps excepting Villefort, were improbable, too. For example, Fernand was a poor fisherman, and while he may have earned his fortune in the war, he could not have recieved enough knowledge and standing there to become a Peer of France.
I also found this book bothersome because of the romanticized and unrealistic descriptions Dumas wrote. I know you will have accused me of extreme realism and cynicism by now, but in my defense, I do like many Romantic novels. This particular Romantic novel was pushing it, however. For example, in the oficial document that tells how Franz's father was killed, he dedicates a paragraph to describing how dark and stormy the night was and how there was snow on the banks next to the river, although technically it was a legal testament. The everyday converstation between the characters is similarly stilted. The love affair between Maxemilien and Valentine was so teary, fake, and idealized, that I wanted to slap them by the end of the book.
And yet, despite all this, I cannot help but admire the book as a work of literature. The psychological twists and turns of this book are amazing. I love the way Edmond is convinced that he is an agent of Providence by doing justice, and how this "justice" goes out of control. I love the fact that the protagonist is in many ways an antagonist, and that this seemingly supper-human man can make mistakes. I always hated how the movies glamorized Edmond and his revenge. The book, instead, makes the revenge all the more profound because you feel a lot of sympathy for his victims.
This book also has a great deal of mystery, and it is fun to guess what is going on behind the scenes. As one person once told me, it is very much like a chess game, in which Edmond is laying out all the pieces but you can never be sure what move he is going to make next.
- by Mistlefoot
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