Finished reading the count of monte cristo and really need to discuss it with someone.
Would you change anything about it? I would change Haydee’s ending. I would’ve preferred if the count and her relationship remained chaste and she paired with Albert instead.
It would fit the theme of “should sins of the father go to the son?” that is prevalent in the novel. Haydee loving Albert for his virtues even though his father killed her father would have been nice.
I also want to discuss vampirism in the novel. The count is described as “vampiristic” by more than one character. Besides the physical appearance, there are other vampire characteristics about him. His superhuman strength, his lack of eating and sleeping, the way Mercedes at the end says he still looks young while she has grown older. I also loved the way he watched over Valentine in the classic “vampire watching over a sleeping woman” pose.
by TonyMontana546
10 Comments
I’d give him a jet pack but no fuel
You should check out The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo, by Matthew Baugh.
But I’m voting for jet pack.
The ah ah aaaaahs after every number
Well I have never read a book with so many improbable circumstances. Not too fond of childish superhero fantasies either. Furthermore, the length of the book is not really needed (but I would never read the abridged version).
The age gap, so yeah, the Haydée-Edmond pairing. He should have stayed a father figure. Just as off-putting as Barbara Gordon going for Bruce instead of Dick.
Not sure if Franz or Albert would be the better choice, Albert is brave and honest but brash and proud, while Franz is more easy-going and knows how to ask for help. With Albert there’d always be their fathers between them somehow, but with Franz, he had his own tragedy and with him Haydée would be able to grieve and heal, instead of keep fighting her demons.
The only thing I would change is that the second half gets a bit rambling. It could use some editing and streamlining there. Dumas, of course, was publishing in a serialized manner, and getting paid by the word. When a work was very successful, there was an incentive to keep it going for as long as the audience would bear.
The first half is perfect, though.
(By the way, that doesn’t mean I’m endorsing abridged editions. Sure, it could have used some editing, but done back then, with the writer’s involvement, not just done by some hack in some publishing house who only cares about getting the page-count down in order to save costs and get paid a few peanuts. I prefer the longer version that Dumas actually wrote, even if it gets a bit rambling).
Almost everything. Wish I never read it.
I would make it so that every copy came with the eponymous sandwich.
I would add more bacon.
I am reading it right now for the first time unabridged, and I wish it was more focused on the count. Every side character taking up tons of space where count is ancillary to the story and not the focus feels really slogfesty. I want the count’s story. I don’t care about most of the rest of the cast. I think without differing point of views and seeing the truth instead of just having the counts take on it all hurts the novel.
It is a product of its time and I am loving a lot of it, but when you go 50 pages without Edmund being around I am just like why.