Rating: 
Summary: A Dish Best Served Cold
Review: The introduction to this excellent Modern Library edition says, "The long journey of Edmond Dantes is one that we should all take at some point in our lives." I couldn't agree more. This novel easily ranks among the greatest epics--The Odyssey, Don Quixote, Les Miserables, War & Peace and The Brothers Karamazov come to mind as works of comparable scope and moral grandeur.My only advice is: set aside some time. With 1500 pages, a complex web of characters (including many with shifting identities) and more than a few dispensible subplots, this unabridged edition is a challenge--albeit a rewarding one. The novel tackles all the great themes: war, revolution, love, power, money, justice, evil, God. But in a word, it's subject is REVENGE. A good-natured young man of exceptional promise, Edmond Dantes is betrayed by his erstwhile friends, unjustly imprisoned by an ambitious magistrate, and left for dead by the woman he loves. The first three hundred pages of the story are fast-paced and almost cinematic, from the wrenching scenes of betrayal and imprisonment, down to Dantes' miraculous escape and rebirth as a remarkable new man, the Count of Monte Cristo. The Count is part 007, part Stoic philosopher. He'll drop you in a duel, match wits with you in the salon, concoct potions from recipes in a dozen languages, be in three places at once, with three different identities, and exercise a kind of foresight and control over human events that we normally associate with gods and conspiracy theories. Oh yeah--and he's loaded, too. Dantes burns with a desire for revenge, but it's an entirely different sort than the Clint Eastwood/Charles Bronson variety. Instead of blasting his way into Paris with a semi-automatic (or less anachronistically, with a really big sword), Dantes methodically plots the downfall of his enemies using even more lethal weapons: the evil that lurks in their own hearts. All this takes a long time. There is a big drop off in intensity in the middle chunk of the novel, as Dumas transitions from the swashbuckling Napoleonic days to a more traditional European novel of manners set in the 1830s. A whole new set of characters are introduced. Later, we discover their relationship to Dantes' earlier antagonists--but for a time we are totally at sea. Meanwhile, Dumas launches various digressions that will occasionally cause the reader to wonder whether he was getting paid by the word (probably). But don't despair. The last half of the novel gathers steam like a freight train, as Count of Monte Cristo moves in for the kill. The suspense builds--not because we wonder whether Dantes will get his revenge, but whether he can avoid turning into a monster in the process. Ultimately, Dumas offers as sane and humane a message as you can hope for from 1500 pages of injustice and vengeance. In a novel where fortunes shift, names and titles are granted and extinguished, and identities are transformed on turns of luck, the old Stoic wisdom shines through. It's not what happens to you, good or bad, but how you respond to it, that determines true virtue in this world. One suspects this would be true even without an avenging Providence, even if Edmond Dantes' triumph were less complete.
Rating:
Summary: Instant Favorite Upon Reading
Review: This book is probably the fastest book I've ever read through. I checked out an old copy with near 1500 pages and read it in six days. I could not leave this book alone. I read straight through some less interesting classes in high school. This book deals with vengeance on so high a level, I had never before imagined anything like it. Dumas has great skill in description, and i enjoyed how he intertwined history into this classic fictional piece of literature. I recommend this book to all adventure seekers. I give this excellent novel five out of five stars! Try it, you'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: A tale for the centuries
Review: This is one of the greatest tales of revenge of all time. We owe to Dumas's skillful hand a narrative rivaling WAR AND PEACE, a vast collection of characters and tales within tales, all finally ancohered together upon the dreadful downfall of Edmond Dantes and his in some ways equally dreadful rebirth as that mysterious agent of justice, the Count of Monte Cristo. It is a fascinating story, providing thrills -- but not at the expense of shallowness -- and provoking thought -- but without affectation. My only piece of advice to the reader is to take a few notes on the characters, since they disappear and reappear, and sometimes are referred to by different names and titles. However, for what it is worth, I was able to follow the story closely enough to thoroughly enjoy it even without notes, and despite occasionally being forced to set the book down for a few weeks between chapters. Because of the size of the book, the Modern Library Classics edition is especially useful, having comparatively large and legible print, decent spacing between lines, and, most importantly, a flexible spine which allows it to be set open on a table without creasing or cracking.
Rating:
Summary: consider the translation!
Review: This particular translation was the most visible at a particular Border's (as well as on Amazon), and I almost bought it. However, I had time to kill, and so I read the first three pages from several other translations: it really made a difference. I opted for the Penguin Classics edition trans. by Robin Buss, which I found to be both clear and faithful. This frickin book is well over 1,000 pages, so it may be worth your while to sit down in the bookstore and investigate for a few minutes.
p.s. Look out for the sneaky abridged versions, too. I wish I could burn them. Just kidding.
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