NOOO, not that Monte Cristo. This one.
Or as some of you may remember:
As I read on a T-shirt and thought was VERY fitting: Never judge a book by its movie. The Jim Caviezel version is NOT the same as the book. It's a good movie, they just.....changed things to make it spicier.
For instance, I do not see Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, the author, writing anything about premarital sex and women getting knocked up. Totally made up for the movie.
The book is the story of revenge and redemption. Our protagonist, Edmond, is 19, just became captain of his own ship in the 1830's and has the love of the beautiful Mercedes. But, one man jealous of Edmond's good fortune and another man, yearning for Mercedes, plot to destroy Edmond. They set him up as a traitor to his country. Just when you think he is about to be let free, a third man, a lawyer, commits Edmond to prison to hide the truth of the crime; that the lawyer's father is involved.
Innocent Edmond spends years in this horrid prison. He is about to kill himself when he meets a most spectacular man. An Abbe who has been digging a tunnel for years & years, only to dig in the wrong direction and end up in Edmond's cell. The two strike up a friendship. This old priest teaches Edmond everything he knows; literature, science, languages. Years and years pass and the old man dies. Edmond uses the dead man's shroud as his escape from the prison island, with a map to riches. The old priest was thought to be mad by the prison guards, because he kept mentioning riches he had hidden. Sure enough, on the small little island of Monte Cristo, Edmond finds his riches.
Nine years and MANY intricate details, plots and plans later, he emerges as The Count of Monte Cristo, to exact revenge on the 3 men who kept him incarcerated.
The machinations Edmond went through, YEARS of this, were a lot to take in. Dumas put a lot of detail in the book, and various characters. Sometimes, I got lost with who was who. I read a whole chapter with "bad guy # 1" in my head, only to realize it was "bad guy # 2." I suggest jotting down who is who at the beginning, just to keep the story straight. It does *not* end up like the movie.
The book was exciting though and I found it a quick read because of the intricate details.
Another one to cross of my list of Classics. C'est l'ouevre d'un bon auteur.
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