The almost irresistible lure and the devastating effects of revenge are the central themes of Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale of adventure, The Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monte Cristo appeared in serialized version over the course of about eighteen months in 1844 and 1845. In 117 chapters, (nearly 1500 pages) Dumas introduces a fascinating array of characters in a tumultuous combination of murder, intrigue, betrayal, duels, and death-defying adventure.
Synopsis
Edmund Dantes, a young soldier in the French army, is betrayed by his three best friends and sent to prison for many years, where he is driven to the brink of suicide. At a crucial moment, he meets the prisoner in the next cell, a strange man with great knowledge to teach him and a hidden treasure to leave him. Following his escape from prison, Dantes finds the treasure and returns to France, where he dwells like a Sultan, with slaves and servants to do his bidding. His arrival in Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo causes a sensation, and it is there that he begins to work his revenge on his three mortal enemies, one of whom is now married to his former fiancé.
As a result of his tutelage in the prison, the “Count” now possesses knowledge, wealth, strength and resourcefulness. He also believes that he is the agent of Providence, sent to mete out justice to those who have sinned, and he engages in an elaborate scheme to humiliate and ruin each of the men involved in the betrayal. In the end, however, he finds that revenge is a poison that infects all it touches. Not only his enemies, but their innocent children are victims of his retribution, and to his horror Dantes realizes too late that he is as much a victim of his own vengeance as he was a victim of the men who wronged him. He makes peace with his former lover and her son, and sails into the sunset with his devoted servant and a beautiful former slave at his side.
Did You Know?
For his plots Dumas preferred to begin with an idea (in this case, revenge) and find a historical incident that illustrated his theme. He read an account in a police record of a remarkable conspiracy between three friends to frame a fourth man, named Picaud, so that one of the three could marry his fiancé. The innocent Picaud spent seven years in prison, and there grew close to a cleric who left him a vast fortune of three million francs. After his release Picaud staged an elaborate revenge on those who had betrayed him that stretched over a period of twenty years. He was eventually kidnapped and murdered by one of the group, who recounted the whole story on his deathbed. Dumas took this true account as the storyline of The Count of Monte Cristo, preserving many of the main elements but reshaping the protagonist, Edmund Dantes, into a kind of superhero.
What Makes it Great?
A great book takes a great idea and gives us an opportunity to examine it in the lives of people like ourselves. Along with the excitement and adventure, we find ourselves wondering what we would do in a similar situation. It is in its tracing of the spiritual struggle of Dantes that the novel rises beyond a simple romantic adventure, and as he is faced at every turn with the impossibility of true revenge, we too are forced to question our own sense of justice. For example, Edmond’s rival has married the woman he loved, and they have a son. Should this son of his enemy be destroyed, breaking the heart of his beloved Mercedes? Dantes finds that he cannot exact vengeance on the guilty without harming the innocent. Revenge is never simple.
In the climactic scene where Dantes finally confronts Mercedes, she challenges his notion of justice by reminding him of the collateral damage attendant to revenge, and begs for the life of her son. He comes to the realization that his intricate plans may not have been inspired by God, as he had assumed. On the contrary, he admits, “Providence is now opposed to them when I most thought it would be propitious.” (889) As Dantes brings his plan to a close he attempts to mitigate the damage he has set in motion, and finds a place for mercy and forgiveness in his heart.
Another great facet of this novel is its pacing. The action moves so quickly that the book feels like a screenplay—it was cinematic long before there was any such thing as a cinema—and the action is visually exciting. The scenery changes; we move from great houses to deserted islands to terrifying prisons. There are sea voyages, duels, and even an encounter with the great Napoleon himself. It is no wonder that so many adaptations for film and television have been made of this work; it’s sheer physicality is irresistible.
In the figure of Edmund Dantes, Dumas created a folk hero whose popularity has never waned. As David Coward says, “Heroes do not come any taller. He is the stuff of adolescent dreams, and will retain his fascination while the boy’s heart beats in man.” Numerous film versions have been created, and The Count of Monte Cristo has been continuously in print and beloved in countless languages since its debut. Of Dumas’ unique ability to create characters that crossed national boundaries Victor Hugo said, “The name of Alexandre Dumas is more than French, it is European; and it is more than European, it is Universal.” William Thackeray wrote to a friend that he “began to read Monte Cristo at six one morning and never stopped until eleven at night.” George Bernard Shaw placed him in the same class with Dickens.
Though I love this book, I have a complaint to register about it. It really bugs me that, after all the high-sounding rhetoric about his undying devotion, Dantes manages to end up abandoning the “love of his life” for a younger woman! Mercedes, (now worn tired and gray with the cares of life) heads off to a convent to pray, and Dantes sails off into the sunset with his gorgeous young slave Haydee. I have never seen this rather disappointing ending used in any of the television or movie versions of the novel, so I was fairly shocked when I finally read the original. Dumas himself had a series of mistresses and one brief, unsuccessful marriage, and he seems content to see his hero find comfort with a sweet young thing rather than remain constant to his lifelong love. That said, there aren’t many books that will pull me out of bed for a few extra chapters late at night, but this was one that kept me up way past my bedtime. We love to watch Dantes get his revenge, and just when we become uncomfortable with where things are headed, he relents and shows mercy to the innocent. By following the path of revenge as far as it will take him, Monte Cristo shows us what a dangerous path it is for any of us to tread, and the reason why the scripture counsels, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”
Quotations taken from The Count of Monte Cristo. Modern Library Edition, New York. 2002.
Talk About It
The Count of Monte Cristo has been adapted for movies and TV mini series several times, but not one adaptation has ever remained completely faithful to the plot. This brings up the interesting topic of adaptation. How closely should an adaptation follow the plot of the novel? What are your favorite adaptations?
About the Author: Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802, the son of one of Napoleon’s most decorated generals. His father, Thomas, was the illegitimate son of a French nobleman and a Negro seamstress. A dissolute man, Thomas died when Alexandre was only four, leaving his wife to struggle through years of financial hardship. Unfortunately, his brilliant son repeated his example of promiscuity and debauchery. Young Dumas did have one great virtue—he was a tireless worker, writing up to fourteen hours a day. Determined to make his fortune as an author, he succeeded early on with several plays and accounts of his travels.
When newspapers began to serialize novels in the late 1830s, Dumas saw an opportunity and began to write his most famous works, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Though France has produced many great writers, none has been as widely read as Alexandre Dumas. Known for his historical novels of high adventure, Dumas often chose unusual, real characters for historical detail and changed their lives into exciting tales. He wrote over 300 plays, novels, travel books, and memoirs, and he was the most renowned author of his day (more familiar even than Victor Hugo).
In 1870, Dumas died a poor man, having squandered millions of francs on women and high living. He was cheerful to the end, however, and said of Death, “I shall tell her a
story, and she will be kind to me.” Dumas was buried where he was born, in Villers-Cotterêts. In 2002, French President Chirac led the ceremony to move his remains to the Panthéon of Paris, acknowledging that racism had existed then, and saying that a wrong had now been righted. Dumas was interred alongside such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.
Sources: Gorman, Herbert. The Incredible Marquis, Alexandre Dumas. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1929.
Hemmings, F.W.J. Alexandre Dumas, the King of Romance. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979.
Anchors Aweigh:
Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
There is no reason why I should love Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, twenty novels that follow the adventures of a sea captain and ship’s surgeon in Nelson’s navy in the beginning of the 1800’s. To begin with, I don’t sail. (My husband sails, and when he persuades me to spend an afternoon on his boat I gasp in horror every time it tips to one side or the other.) Before discovering O’Brian’s books, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a topsail and a tarpaulin. I have very little interest in ornithology, and even less interest in naval history. No, there is no reason why I should love them, except one. O’Brian writes a ripping good yarn. I have read every one of these twenty novels with the greatest delight, and I predict that you will too.
Synopsis
The Aubrey/Maturin series follows the exploits of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship’s surgeon, Steven Maturin. Together they sail the world in the attempt to defeat Napoleon’s navy, capture various enemy ships, carry out secret missions for the government (Steven is also a spy) and get themselves into all sorts of trouble with the women in their lives.
In this first novel the two meet at a concert, and Steven eventually signs on as the ship’s surgeon to Jack’s first assignment as a Post Captain. They are embroiled in war with Napoleon and we are introduced to life at sea, with its terrors and tedium equally portrayed through spare, beautiful prose. We learn more about Steven, who has a secret identity as a spy, and meet the women whose attractions draw them home, occasionally.
What Makes it Great?
These novels are great because of O’Brian’s infectious love of the sea and everything to do with ships and sailors, and his ability to bring us into that world. But above all these novels are great because of their endlessly interesting protagonists. If you have not yet made their acquaintance, it is my pleasure to introduce you to two of the most delightful characters in literature: Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin. As our story opens Aubrey, a beefy, florid, friendly sea captain, sits down next to Stephen Maturin, a wiry, eccentric, brilliant physician and ornithologist, at a concert. They immediately begin to annoy one another, and a relationship begins (over their one shared passion, music) that is always electric and engaging. In just a few spare, brilliant lines O’Brian brings these two unique individuals to life:
“ . . . They happened to be sitting next to one another. The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat . . . He was wearing his best uniform . . . and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the time, while his bright blue eyes . . . gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin.
“If you really must beat the measure sir, let me entreat you to do so in time and not a half beat ahead.”
“ . . . Only part of Jack’s mind paid attention, for the rest of it was anchored to the man at his side. A covert glance showed that he was a small, dark, white-faced creature in a rusty black coat—a civilian. It was difficult to tell his age, for not only had he that kind of face that does not give anything away, but he was wearing a wig, a grizzled wig, apparently made of wire, and quite devoid of powder. Ill-looking . . . to give himself such airs.” (13-14)
In Peril on the Sea
After their rather rocky start, these two become fast friends, and Jack persuades Stephen (an abysmal sailor) to go to sea as his ship’s surgeon. We’ll drop right into the middle of the action, in the teeth of a terrible storm, to get a taste of O’Brian’s descriptive powers, his humor, and sense of pacing:
Did You Know?
Two fans of the Aubrey/Maturin series created a cookbook with recipes for the dishes cooked on board the various vessels. The book is titled Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, and it offers recipes for such intriguing dishes as Skillygalee, Drowned Baby, Soused Hog’s Face, and Jam Roly-Poly. We are obviously on some new culinary ground here, and I haven’t had the courage yet to try any of the recipes!
“The seas mounted higher and higher: they were not the height of the great Atlantic rollers, but they were steeper, and in a way more wicked; their heads tore off streaming in front of them so as to race through the Sophie’s tops, and they were tall enough to becalm her as she lay there a-try, riding it out under a storm staysail. This was something she could do superbly well . . . She was a remarkably dry vessel too, observed Jack, as she climbed the creaming slope of a wave, slipped its roaring top neatly under her bows and traveled smoothly down into the hollow. He stood with an arm round a backstay, wearing a tarpaulin jacket and a pair of calico drawers: his streaming yellow hair, which he wore loose and long as a tribute to Lord Nelson, stood straight out behind him at the top of each wave and sank in the troughs between—a natural anemometer—and he watched the regular, dreamlike procession in the diffused light of the racing moon . . . ‘She is remarkably dry,’ he said to Stephen who, preferring to die in the open, had crept up on deck, had been made fast to a stanchion and who now stood, mute, sodden and appalled, behind him.” (164)
Though the technical terms can be very confusing, O’Brian refuses to talk down to us. He expects us to know our sailing and scientific jargon, and to be able to discern subtle emotional shifts in the characters with little more than a hint here and there. Reading him requires a bit of mental labor for the average landlubber, and perhaps even the use of a dictionary. (Be honest now, when is the last time you used the word anemometer in a sentence?) But he’s worth the effort. This is a fascinating period of history, when nations battled for the last open pieces of the planet in wooden ships laden with firepower. O’Brian captures the close, difficult life aboard ship while making us feel the pure excitement of it as well. Here, as the sailors lay siege to a fort using hand-held rockets, O’Brian combines technical detail with such stirring prose that we can literally feel their hearts pounding as the men wait for the order to attack:
“The bosun fixed the three-pronged grapnels to the to the ropes; the coxswain planted the rockets, struck a spark on the tinder and stood by cherishing it; against the tremendous din of the battery there was a little metallic clicking and the easing of belts; the strong panting lessened.
“Ready?” whispered Jack.
“Ready, sir,” whispered the officers.
He bent. The fuse hissed, and the rocket went away, and red trail and a high blue burst. “Come on,” he shouted, and his voice was drowned in a great roaring cheer.” Ooay, Ooay!”
Runnng, running. Dump down into the dry ditch, pistols snapping through the embrasures, men swarming up the ropes onto the parapet, shouting, shouting; a bubbling scream.” (249)
I love a book that takes me somewhere I will never be able to go myself, and O’Brian’s novels transport me into a world as different from my own as I could imagine. The picture of naval history we see here is, according to his many fans among historians, as close to what the seafaring life was really like as it is possible to achieve in fiction. When I put down one of these books I feel as if I have been on a voyage myself, and returned rich with treasure. Though I’ll never be much of a sailor, I love to go to sea with Patrick O’Brian.
Quotations taken from Master and Commander. Norton, London. 1999.
Talk About It
Patrick O’Brian’s double life raises the topic of the private lives of public men. How much does the private life of the author matter when it comes to his or her work? Do you like to know more, or
less, about an author’s life and motivations?
About the Author: Patrick O’Brian
Considering the breadth of nautical detail that illustrates these books, it is hard to believe O’Brian himself was not a sailor. He was not. Neither was he a physician, an ornithologist, nor (as he sometimes hinted to friends) a spy for the British. In reality, the author’s life was as interesting and mysterious as any of his characters.
Patrick O’Brian was born in England, and his name was Patrick Russ. He grew up a neglected child in a large family, spending hours alone with his books. During World War II, Russ left his wife and two children and disappeared entirely, only to emerge later in a new country under a new name, Patrick O’Brian. He remarried and lived quietly in the south of France, writing novels about the sea battles in the Napoleonic wars. Eventually, his growing fame caused some family members to reveal the truth about his origins, yet even then his concealment of his former life largely succeeded until after his death. O’Brian’s portrait of Steven Maturin is often considered to be based upon himself.
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