Rating: 
Summary: They just don't make 'em like they used to
Review: If Edmond Dantes was a contemporary character he'd probably be running amok through France dismembering his enemies, uttering stupid one-liners ("Consider that a divorce, Fernand!"), carrying a big gun, sleeping with a reluctant-how'd-I-get-involved-in-this-great-big-mess-unbelievably-gorgeous-female-protagonist and heading out to his luxury, bullet-proof yacht never to be heard from again at the end of it all -- unless the gross is high enough to warrant a sequel.
Luckily, Dantes is not a contemporary character and in the quite capable hands of Dumas we have one of the most hell-bent on revenge characters ever born from the pages of literary fiction. The revenge is slow, coldly calculated and deliciously deviant. It is both refreshing and encouraging to read a story that is properly developed not just a book-waiting-for-a-movie-deal plot. If you're a fan of contemporary mysteries and thrillers, do yourself a favor and read this book. You'll never look at a 90-minute action flick quite the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Abridged version, buyer beware.
Review: This is the abridged version of the Dumas classic. Having not read the original yet, I can only compare it
to The Three Musketeers. Dumas' writing style loses energy in the abridging process. The reader ought to be aware that the story has been simplified and summarized.
If you want the true flavor of Dumas, order the unabridged
version.
Rating:
Summary: This book is an adventure classic!
Review: The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books. It has everything! I also think that the hero is one of the best ever. I love this book because it shares the philosophical views of the count and the clever ways he gains vengance on his enemies. The best part of the book though has to be that the count realizes that no matter how powerful and influential you are, you will always make mistakes, because no one is perfect
Rating:
Summary: Intrigue in 19th Century France
Review: This Alexander Dumas classic vies with his "Three Musketeers" in the genre of French adventure novels set in the eventful 19th century. Whereas "Three Musketeers" featured a quartet of swashbuckling heroes, "Monte Cristo" centers around one mysterious, seemingly omnipotent individual. The book opens in Marseilles, where the reader is introduced to the central characters as young men. A plot is laid and carried out against one of these men by his rival for the love of a woman. After the passage of 14 years, the lives of these characters slowly begin to converge once again as the victim of the conspiracy seeks his vengeance. The setting for his revenge, however, is a far different venue than the Mediterranean fishing community of Marseilles. His old enemies have become wealthy and powerful, and move in the highest circles of Paris society. The skeletons in their closets would now be the ruin of lofty reputations. Their families will become unknowing actors in the drama of vengeance that begins to unfold when the Count of Monte Cristo takes up residence in Paris. The victim of the conspiracy of hotheads in Marseilles was an unsophisticated provincial at the time. Upon his return, he is wealthy, subtle, and implacable. He embarks upon his quest for revenge with a well-planned, methodical campaign, marshalling resources that he has devoted years to organize. He uses a dozen or so people as his allies, some unknowingly, others willingly, but none are aware of his ultimate objectives. Yet, as complex and detailed as his plans are, he encounters complications that force him to choose how far to pursue his revenge. I was captivated by the dark and light contrasts of this story. The glitter and elegance and courtliness of French society of that day are set against the darkness of scandalous family secrets and destructive, coldblooded scheming. It's a combination that can't miss, particularly at the hand of a master writer like Dumas. This is a long book to plow through, but the further one gets, the more the threads of the plot come together to the final triumphs and defeats. As you reach the closing chapters, you may be reminded of a line from the movie "An Ideal Husband" -- "no man is rich enough to buy back his past."
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: This is honestly one of the greatest novels I have ever read. I absolutely loved this book. I could not put it down! This is a must read for anyone.When I first started into this novel, I had in my memory the 'movie' that was made for the big screen. So of course, I expected the book to be very similar to it. Well, I was very wrong! Other than Edmond Dantes being betrayed by his 'friends' and finding the treasure, this book takes on a different route.
Believe me, the book is much more superb. The way the Count exacts his revenge is astonishing. I cannot fathom how Dumas came up with such a scheme. At times, one cringes for the those who wronged the Count. This book made me laugh and cry. There are many poignant moments throughout the book that make you feel good. Anyone who says that Dumas is not up there with the 'classic' writers, does not know what they are talking about. This book is rich in dialogue, mystery, suspense and storyline. All in all, this is an amazing classic, and I recommend it to anyone wanting a good read.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT READ!!!!!
Review: I wish i hadn't read this book, so i could do it again for the first time. a thrilling, suspensful, satisfying, swashbuckling story - a great read!!
Rating:
Summary: Favorite Book
Review: The first time I read this book I was a sophmore in high school. Since then, I have reread it at least a dozen more times. This has to be the best book ever written. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the effort
Review: I found the thought of reading this book rather intimidating as it's 1077 pages long. Once reading however, it was compulsive enough to be worth the effort (I'm a slow reader). It holds an extremely clever plot which hooked me and made me admire the author and the book but...never quite managed to make me really believe in the Count as a man; this Godlike being formerly a young sailor, wrongly imprisoned, educated by a fellow-lag into this all-knowing, manipulative and omnipotent (but sentient) creation. I had to will the suspension of disbelief and managed it just enough to enjoy the book. I liked, or rather agreed with, the idealistic themes, the lack of truly good and bad main characters - the four of Dantes targets are all very human. Some of the secondary characters seemed too good to be true though but more depth to them may have resulted in a further few hundred pages!
Taken less seriously, if you just want to enjoy a book, it's a compulsive, fun read with not too many frustratingly long-drawn out parts- though there are some.
Rating:
Summary: Dish of Revenge, served Piping Cold
Review: Parisian bon vivant, drinker, womanizer and genius Alexandre Dumas has, in "The Count of Montecristo", given the world one of the greatest stories ever told.
It is a marvel of literary invention. Its literary scope and scale and historical sweep is nothing short of revolutionary, and for all of its grandeur and jaw-dropping perspective, it is unfailingly intimate, brutally so.
"The Count of Montecristo" is the story of young Edmond Dantes, a French sailor aboard the merchant-vessel Pharaon in 1815, who returns to the port of Marseilles with the glorious Catalan girl Mercedes waiting to be his bride, and with a promising future as the captain of the merchantman ahead of him.
Or so he thinks: for there is no poison so bitter, so brutal, or so deadly as envy. And as Old Scratch slithered forth as a serpent to poison even earthly paradise, so too Dantes is stalked by an envious trio of the sort that put Caesar in an early grave: the bitter and calculating Danglars, supercargo of the Pharaon; Danglars's drinking buddy Caderousse; and Mercedes's cousin Fernand, hopelessly in love with his cousin and aghast at her impending marriage to Dantes.
It is 1815; a time of shaky stability for France and Europe. The Ogre of Corsica has just been put down, exiled to Elba---but Bonapartist clubs assassinate Royalist generals in the capital, and the alleys of Marseilles are rife with whispers of Napoleon's return.
It is into this poisonous, heated, feverish atmosphere that this trio of serpents work their vindictive magic, and with the flick of a plume the happy Dantes, on the very day of his wedding and at his nuptial feast, finds himself surrounded by soldiers, held at bayonet point, and hauled before the implacable gaze of Justice. And fatality!---Justice consigns him to the wretched dungeons of the Chateau D'If, a heartless, impregnable rock off the coast of France---for the rest of his life.
To say anything more would be to give far too much away, but know this: "The Count of Montecristo" is both black book of revenge and horror tale: a consumptively engaging story of double Betrayal, Death, and Despair: a Man consigned to death and rot by his supposed friends and colleagues, buried beneath the Earth in a great black tomb, forgotten by his best beloved, lost to everything, left for the teeth of rat and Time.
And it is also a tale of Resurrection---and Revenge.
You'll want to get a copy of the unabridged version; Random House's The Modern Library edition (published in 1996) is a fine choice, and just so you can check (be warned: the shelves are full of sliced and diced pretenders) the unexpurgated version clocks in at a hefty 1462 pages. That means once you're through with it, you can use it to forestall a burglary or brain an assassin.
Never have 1500 pages moved so swiftly and deftly. A rumor, bandied around the streets of Paris in Dumas's day which resurfaced in Perez y Reverte's mesmerizing "Club Dumas", is that the jolly-faced Dumas signed a blood-contract with Satan, and in return for his soul he was given a diabolic gift to be prolific.
Diabolic or Angelic, there is no doubt that Dumas is pure genius: you marvel at the simultaneous breadth and depth and intimacy of "Count of Montecristo". There is no padding here; not one sentence is superfluous and every word tells. A paragraph sliced away here, a sentence taken out there, and the perfect, brutal, logical, coldly calculating structure would fall apart.
In the meantime, the reader is introduced to some of the most fascinating and memorable characters in history: the tragic, beautiful Mercedes; her dandyish son Albert; her husband, the stiff and martial Count Fernand de Mortcerf. We see, in his middle age, the ever-calculating banker Danglars and his miserable family, including the boyish, driven, devious and ultimately foolish Eugenie; the Prosecutor of the King, Villefort, and his fascinating family: the hopelessly innocent Valentine, the paralyzed, rabid old Jacobin M. de Noirtier, and the Prosector's young---and tragically greedy---trophy wife.
Beyond these characters, "Count of Montecristo" gives us even more, taking us deep into the lives of France's Rich & Famous---and villainous! We come face to face with the Old Ogre of Corsica himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. We pass the time in Latin and philosophy with the foppish, foolish, overly confident King Louis XVIII, who would rather count the angels on the head of a pin than martial his troops against the lively spectre of Bonapartism.
And I have but scratched the surface: this story is the very essence, the pure, undiluted blood, of swashbuckling fantasy. Here we have pirates and Roman brigands, the famous Italian banditti Luigi Vampa, stories within stories within stories, buried treasure on a deserted volcanic island rising up over the waves of the Tyrrhennian sea. We have mad monks, and midnight assignations, and foundlings and changelings and villainous [...] sons appearing out of the blue. We have plots, and poisonings, and murder, and villainy, and great heroism; we have connections to the marvellous, tragic downfall of the great Abyssinian hero Ali Pasha.
In short, we have a marvellous witch's brew of high treason and infamy, a Devil's Codex of revenge, retribution, and absolution. My flimsy prose is not worthy to provide adequate praise to this masterpiece: get a copy, close the curtains, have a bottle of your finest chianti at the ready, smoke some Montecristo cigars if you're a smoker (you should know that these, the finest the Dominican Republic offers, were inspired by this tale), turn off all the phones in the house---and transport yourself to a tale of betrayal, death, resurrection, villainy and revenge---served Piping Cold.
Rating:
Summary: Definetly a Classic
Review: Look, if you've seen the movie, it's a good adaptation, yet, as often with movies, it is diminished when compared to the book. THis is even more so with Monte Cristo, the book is quite long, but filled with intrigue, if you think Dantes could be cruel on the film, just read the book. Also, it has a less corny ending, which I appreciate.
Truth, the book is quite long, but it is completely absorbing, I just couldn't put it down, I finished it on 12 hours of straight non stop reading, just couldn't stop until the end. I most definetly recommend this book, and would consider it as a Must read for anyone who claims to be at least moderately knowledgeable.
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