Guess what, guys, gals, and those who don’t identify as either? B*tchin’ Books is back in action (Backstreet’s back, alright!). You know what that means. Every other week, I’ll be recommending a new book to you lovely humans. So, without further ado, here’s your book of the week: The Count of Monte Cristo.
Screw temperature, revenge is a dish best served when written by Alexandre Dumas (pronounced Du-MAH), a mixed-raced Frenchman who also wrote The Three Musketeers. Seriously, Game of Thrones has nothing on this one, folks. This is a story of countering a severe injustice with a cunning that takes an entire book to culminate. It’s essentially a comic book villain’s origin story, but set in France just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
This complete masterpiece of a suspense novel will give you grey hairs and have you screaming out loud in victory. It’s elevated without being unapproachable or unreadable, and it is never boring. The plot unfolds with beautiful imagery, hair-raising tension, and haunting character arcs, all of which make Dumas so amazing and so satisfying to read. Moreover, Dumas also blurs the line between good and evil, creating a fascinating grey area in which the story exists and leaving the reader wondering if giving people what they deserve is really something worthy of praise.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome, ‘Do your worst, for I will do mine!’ Then the fates will know you as we know you.”
The Count of Monte Cristo follows Edmond Dantès, a young sailor with the world on a string and success and marriage in his immediate future; however, when Dantès old shipmates become jealous, they frame him for association with Napoleon (a huge offense; remember, the book takes place immediately after Napoleon is ousted). Dantès’ perfect world goes up in smoke in a matter of days. In prison, Dantès meets a man from the cell next door (basically the OG Yoda) who tells Dantes that he’s been set up and secretly teaches him all the ways of deception and reinvention over the course of a decade as they plan to escape. He also confides in him the location of an unbelievable treasure. After Dantès unstructured escape, he locates the treasure and uses this absurd amount of moola to reinvent himself. And thus, the mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo is born—and he has revenge on his mind.
Alexandre Dumas weaves a brilliantly complicated plot of revenge and a brilliantly complicated character of Edmund Dantès, who begins as an honest, if naive boy and transitions into a cold and conniving man, the harbinger of an almost holy wrath. And all the while, his motivation moves more from seeking elaborate revenge on the three people who orchestrated his arrest toward punishing anyone who has done someone an injustice. In short, you do not want to piss this guy off. Struggling against the limits of human justice and of the human soul, the Count begins to lose whoever it was he became as he moves his plan forward, switching back and forth from the good man he once was to the emotionless revenant he is inching forever towards. Defining the implications of revenge, love, religion, and death, The Count of Monte Cristo questions if there is a limit to justice, and more importantly, if there is a limit to grace.
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”
Facts Worth Mentioning:
Dumas’s father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the son of an African slave and a French Nobleman, was first Black man to be general-in-chief of a French Army (that’s the equivalent of a four-star general) and the highest-ranking African man of all time in a European Army. This guy was even featured in the video game Assassin’s Creed: Unity.
Following in his father’s footsteps of Black excellence, Alexandre Dumas quickly became a prolific playwright and novelist despite a ton of racial discrimination. Despite this racism, his works are translated into just under 100 languages and he has become a household name worldwide. Dumas was and is held to the highest esteem in France. He is even buried in the Pantheon in Paris.
Oops, can’t hear those bigots over all this fame and money!