The Count of Monte Cristo

Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo. (New York: Modern Library, 2002.)1462 pp.

Reviewed by Mark Twain, Los Osos High School, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

This book, as one might assume from the title, is the story of the Count of Monte Cristo, following his story to just before the sequence of events that led to him becoming the Count to just after he made the decision to leave the Civilization that made him what he was. This, is the story of Edmond Dantes.

Dantes at onset was a man of remarkably amicable temperament, believing no one to be his enemy, and blessed with good fortune and skilled in the art of sailing, with enormous aptitude in other areas as his later characterization as the Count would show. However, despite his massive potential, he lacked certain wisdom that can be acquired only through experience, and the blow, when it fell, took him completely by surprise, his own naivete being his downfall. It was, ironically, his very good fortune that proved to be his undoing, as it prompted the jjealousies of his rivals in work and in love, who together conspired a plan to destroy him, framing Dantes as an imperialist by evidence of a letter he was asked to deliver by the Emperor from the Isle of Elba. The case became even more entangled when the magistrate, a royalist, discovered that the letter was addressed to his imperialist father, the discovery of which would ruin his career, and so Dantes was sentenced to imprisonment in the Chateau d'lf, where he meets the Abbe Faria, who provided to him the wisdom he lacked for want of experience, who sharpened his potential into acute ability. Faria, suffering from a mortal illness, bequeathed to him a glorious treasure passed down through generations of Italian nobles, and his death from the illness provided the chance for Dantes to make his escape, taking his friend's place in the body sack, and being carried out in place of the Abbe.

And now, after some decades reprive, during which his enemies were free to live and to prosper, Edmond Dantes returns, armed with his fortune and his knowledge gained from his exile from Civilization, for revenge.