TITLE:  The Count of Monte Cristo

AUTHOR:  Alexandre Dumas

TRANSLATOR:  Robin Buss

DATE PUBLISHED:  originally 1844

                                  (Penguin edition 2012)

FORMAT:  Hardcover

EDITION:  Penguin Classics (Clothbound),

                  complete and unabridged

ISBN-13:  9780141392462

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DESCRIPTION: 

"Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge.

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of the Château d’If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration.

A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution."

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REVIEW:

I don't have a very good relationship with classics.  Most I find long-winded and tedious.  However, the Count of Monte Cristo was rather enjoyable, not at all boring or overly verbose.  The unabridged Robin Buss translation was excellent.  This is a tale of revenge (the convoluted kind), but includes drama, intrigue, suspense, action, romance and some wonderful (and not so wonderful) characters.  An entertaining reading experience that whizzed by when you consider the book is 1200+ pages.

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NOTE:

Which English Edition of the Count of Monte Cristo Should I Read?

I really enjoyed this audiobook and the heartwarming stories it contained. I also really enjoyed the narration by the author, her amazing pronunciation in French made me super jealous. I loved her heartwarming and hilarious tales about her parents and her family; it made me wish I knew them in real life. 

I picked this audiobook at random, and I'm glad I did because it helped me disconnect from reality which, considerating the state of the world, is a welcome respite.

I enjoyed this book – it’s an entertaining memoir-in-essays by an Iranian-American author about her life, family, and navigating two cultures. Her book titles may be doing her a disservice by treating humor as her primary selling point; I would call this book amusing, humorous, and enjoyable but not laugh-out-loud funny. Of course humor is individual, and the stories are good enough to enjoy even if you don't find them hilarious.

There are a lot of good stories here. I enjoyed reading about the author’s childhood in Iran and the U.S., appreciated that she shared her disappointing and isolated first year in college (there is a lot of pressure on kids for this to be the best time of their life, but isn’t for everyone), chuckled at the misunderstandings when she began dating her husband, experienced schadenfreude reading about her worst day as a stay-at-home mom but admired her getting the TV out of the house, and was entertained by the ups and downs of life with her quirky relatives. Toward the end there were a couple of chapters that didn’t do much for me: one about her experience of giving a graduation speech essentially regurgitates the speech (complete with long paragraphs on why we should care for our teeth and read books), while another – a potentially great chapter about her meeting Kathryn Koon, who was held hostage in Iran in 1979 – fell flat, because neither the author nor Koon seems to have many feelings about this and so it becomes a chronicle of their road trip around Iowa and what visiting an Amish store is like. Also, the "gross foods in France" chapter is indeed gross.

Overall though, this is fun reading, easy to pick up for a chapter at a time when you’re busy. Nothing huge happens in it, but it’s an enjoyable window into the author’s life as an immigrant, mixing serious topics with humor.

Tous pour un, un pour tous.

Rimestando fantasia e verità nella coppa della menzogna temporale, non poteva che andar così.

Sono tre: Athos, Porthos e Aramis. Quando arriva il giovane e impulsivo guascone d’Artagnan, l’avventura prende vita in un evolversi rapido, rocambolesco, appassionante.

Dumas è così abile a usare la penna della leggerezza che non c’è trasalimento per le imprecisioni storiche, né raccapriccio per i sanguinosi duelli o per le feroci dipartite. Si occhieggia, invece, con sorriso compiaciuto, alle audaci “capatine”. E sfugge un risolino divertito guardando il noioso Luigi XIII controllare i fermagli di diamanti della sua sposa, e ancor più rivolgendo lo sguardo al diabolico cardinale.

Ah, gli amori, gli amori! I tradimenti, i tradimenti! Ah, gli intrighi, gli intrighi!

“Li si vedeva avanzare a braccetto, occupando tutta la larghezza della strada e avvicinandosi a ogni moschettiere che incontravano, tanto che alla fine la loro fu una marcia trionfale. Il cuore di d’Artagnan sguazzava nell’ebbrezza, mentre camminava fra Athos e Porthos abbracciandoli teneramente.”

E come quei parigini che dal 14 marzo al 14 luglio 1844 attesero ogni giorno l’uscita del giornale Le siècle per leggere incantati le avventure del cadetto di Guascogna e i tre moschettieri, anch’io non ho mancato al mio appuntamento quotidiano, Monsieur Dumas. Per la seconda volta.

Siete un geniaccio, ve l’ho già detto. Però, vogliamo fare i complimenti anche al buon Auguste Maquet? Li merita, vi pare?

E ogni volta mi chiedo se l’avete pagato.

Wow. This book is nothing like the movie, at least the one I watched with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeremy Irons. The end was so tragic and the actual prisoner in the iron mask was such a small part of the story. Seems to me it was the complete opposite in the movie. Huh. Go figure.

I'm glad I finally read this.