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Maximum Melodrama
Jun. 2nd, 2025 10:23 pmNov 2023 - Jan 2024
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, tr. David Coward – Oxford World's Classics, 2008
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This is an oddly structured book. The first 200-odd pages is an exciting adventure tale starring Edmond Dantès, a dashing midshipman promoted beyond his years for his heroic qualities, and featuring evil conspirators, lovers torn asunder, Napoleonic spies, family secrets, a prison break and an Arabian Nights-style quest for fabulous treasure. But then it bizarrely veers into social comedy set in Rome at carnival time, introducing two characters, Albert de Morcerf and Franz d'Epinay, who have nothing to do with what's happened previously, and featuring what is perhaps the most insouciant kidnapping by bandits in literature. The rest of the book (around 800 pages) remains firmly focused on the French upper classes, with the action transferring to post-Napoleonic Paris where Edmond hatches a set of improbable plots (in even more improbable disguises) to ensnare and bring down those who have wronged him.
Apparently this was an editorial decision. Dumas wrote the opener at the request of his publisher to explain Dantès' motivations, and it evidently got away from him. It's a shame because it is by far the most compelling part of the book.
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