Review: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Falsely accused of treason, Edmond Dantes is imprisoned in the infamous Chateau d'If.  There he meets the Abbe Faria, who educates him and tells him of the legendary treasure of Monte Cristo.  After a daring (and somewhat foolhardy) escape, Edmond finds the treasure, re-invents himself as the fabulously wealthy Count of Monte Cristo, and seeks revenge on those who betrayed him.

Published: 1844-46
Pages: 1,264 (Harper Perennial, 2008)
Read: 20/8/12 - 6/9/12
Challenge(s): Project Fill in the Gaps

First line: "On the 24th of February, 1815, the lookout of Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples."

Review: I have a couple of confessions to make regarding my reading of this book:

1) Although I've owned a copy for years, I only started reading it recently because I'm hooked on Revenge and had heard that the series was loosely based on this novel.
2) A lot of my ideas about the plot were formed by a trailer I saw years ago for a movie adaptation of the book.  Most of these were completely wrong (which I'm glad about, because the trailer made the story look dire and also pretty much told the entire plot in three minutes).
3) I am ridiculously proud of myself for finishing this book.  Given my usual habit of getting distracted and putting books down to pick them up again years later (if ever), the fact that I stuck with this despite its length makes me feel like I'm owed some sort of prize. 

Now that those are out of the way: I really enjoyed this book.  Despite its somewhat intimidating size and the smallness of the text, it's incredibly easy to read - I'd suddenly find that I'd read over a hundred pages and it was a lot later than I thought.  The plot, though convoluted and complex, keeps you reading, especially when Edmond is the Count and wreaking his revenge and you're not quite sure exactly what he's doing or how the vengeance is going to play out.  There are a lot of characters, all with their own agendas and secrets, which all come into play, and despite the sheer number of plot strands everything is wrapped up at the end - possibly a little too neatly but given the juggling act Alexandre Dumas pulled off this is fine.

My main gripe would be that, at the beginning, Edmond is a prat.  The reader is meant to feel sympathy for him - and I did when everything started going wrong - but at first he's a slightly arrogant, thoughtless prat and, while I didn't want him to end up falsely imprisoned for over a decade, I did want someone to at least tell him off a little.  This lack of sympathy continues, to an extent, while he's in prison and after his escape, mostly because the Count is constantly set up as an almost supernatual, utterly inscrutable being.  One of my favourite "oh, you're just messing with the reader now, Dumas" parts of the entire book is how often the Count disguises himself and gets away with it, the height of this being when he is three 'different' men on the same day to the same investigator.  He's up there with Sherlock Holmes in terms of how well he can disguise himself, and it gets more than a little ridiculous.

This, naturally, follows over into no one who knew him before he went to prison recognizing him (with one logical exception).  The people he's seeking vengeance upon invite him to their homes, ask his advice, and blindly accept that this dude has popped up out of nowhere at exactly the same time that their lives start falling apart.  This is often spoken of as divine providence - and the Count sees himself as an agent of God - but it does raise the question of how justified his actions are: yes, he suffered terribly, but he pushes things to such an extent that there are suicides, murders, madness and the near obliteration of an entire family.  And, while Dumas does deal with the downside of this, it's never clear whether he condemns or condones the Count's actions - though, most likely, the latter, while leaving it uncertain for the reader.

Personally, I think it's all a bit overkill, and the ending is a tiny bit too neat.  There are also several moments when I wanted to shout "just tell each other what's going on!" at a few of the characters, and towards the end there's part where the Count really should have just told Morrel what he was up to, it would have stopped a lot of problems.  Yet, despite my ambivalence towards the central figure - and to most of the characters, if I'm honest - I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.  It's not a swashbuckling yarn as I expected, and there are times when I thought Dumas was being more than a bit ridiculous with what the Count could achieve, but it was fantastically readable and fun for all that.

My Final Thoughts: Not the most sensible of books, but it doesn't have to be.  Continuity errors abound, the characters frequently fail to recognise someone they knew well unless it's convenient for Dumas, and the outcome of all of the plotting and conniving is, potentially, not worth it.  But, for all that I can see plenty of faults with the book, I'm glad I read it and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun (if long) read.

50 Words or Less: Enjoyable read, worth the time it took to plough through it, but a bit messy and full of moments of incredulity.  Less swashbuckling than expected but lots of plotting and manipulating, which keeps you guessing (which is why I've mentioned as few actual plot details as possible in this review).

Rating: 9/10 

Review: Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes

Published: 1857
Pages: 307 (Penguin, 2004)
Read: 4/6/12 - 6/6/12
Challenge(s): Project Fill in the Gaps
Also part of: A Victorian Celebration

Synopsis: Tom Brown attends Rugby, deals with a bully who goes on to have his own spin off, cheats at Greek, drinks beer, plays cricket and rugby, and generally grows into a thoroughly good chap (albeit one with alarming Victorian facial hair).

First line: "The Browns have become illustrious by the pen of Thackeray and the pencil of Doyle within the memory of the young gentlemen who are now matriculating at the universities."

Review: I have to admit, I started reading this with a couple of fixed opinions - that the book would contain all those elements which later became cliche in boys' school stories, and that it would be a slog to get through.  Both were proved wrong.

This really isn't a difficult read at all, for all that the first three chapters are an ode to England that reminded of the Fry and Laurie sketch in which they end up yelling "England! England!" like they're stuck on repeat.  Yet even this part is readable, harking back to a simpler time in which 'folk' ways dominated.  It sets the tone for the book, which is very much about the wonders of England and what the right kind of male characters can do for the country.

As for its position as one of the first (if not the first) school story: there are many elements that I'd say are familiar from later school stories - the sports, the bullies, the need to behave correctly not only for the sake of the school but for later life - but a lot of the more outlandish elements are missing*.  This is more about charting the development of one boy rather than the activities of an entire school, which is borne out by the book featuring so much of Tom's early childhood as well as his time at Rugby.  That this is also evident in the highly Christian ethos of the book - something which does feature heavily in a lot of later school stories, for boys and girls - suggests that this novel is about as instructing as much as entertaining.

Not that it isn't entertaining, if only for the differences between considerations then and now, my favourite being that it's not all right for an eighteen-year-old boy to drink gin (it's never named but that's what the bad drink has to be), but it's perfectly fine for eleven-year-olds to drink a lot of beer while enjoying an all-house-singsong.  And while there aren't all the pranks that are so frequent in later books of the genre, there is the Least Sensible Rugby Match Of All Time:

1) The entire school plays, that's approximately three hundred boys aged between eleven and nineteen.
2) It's school-house vs. the rest of the school, so about sixty boys vs. over two hundred.
3) It's best of three goals, and it's considered miraculous that a goal is scored in the first hour.
4) The match is split over three consecutive Saturdays.
5) The rules are explained in such a way that Quidditch seems like an easy sport.  I'm not a rugby expert, but I can follow a match; even so, I was thinking "what the hell are you saying, Hall, that makes no sense whatsoever!"
6) An eleven-year-old attempts to tackle a much older boy and simply bounces off.
7) Tom ends up at the bottom of a pile up and is only saved from crushing by the fifth former on top of him bearing most of the weight of the boys above.  Still, at least they all think he's a plucky youngster for diving on the ball.

In fact, if I took anything away from this book it's that rugby used to be incredibly chaotic and confusing - and that Thomas Hughes loved it enough to turn Chapter Five into propaganda for the sport (and for school-house, which is fairly obviously his old house). 

I would recommend this book, especially for anyone wanting to read Victorian literature that's more light-hearted than a lot of the tomes that were produced.  The message of marvellous imperial Christian England (never Britain, it's all England) does grate somewhat, but within the context of the times is less wearing than it could be.  For a school story fan, it's fascinating to see where a lot of elements originate, and I found myself thinking most of Elsie J. Oxenham's books, which attempt to view issues such as death through a similar prism of faith.  A fun read, and a good start to my reading for A Victorian Celebration.

Rating: 8/10

* For example, no one is left lying grey and motionless and apparently dead, which is something which always livens up the latter third of a school story.

Challenge Updates: The whole damn lot of them

This year, I signed up for a few challenges: 1st in a Series, 2nd in a Series, Victorian Literature and the A to Z Title challenge.  I've completed 1st and 2nd, done the bare minimum of Victorian reading (5 out of 5-9) and have only Z to go on the title challenge (Dr Zhivago).  So, time for some updates because I have read a lot of books this year and have so far only managed to review 4/113 - that's 3.5% which is rubbish.

I'm not going to list what I've read for each challenge, as that is on the Challenge page, but I am going to make a few plans and hope that by sharing them I actually complete them (seriously, me and Emma Woodhouse have far too much in common when it comes to book related plans).

1) Complete the A to Z challenge.  Dr Zhivago is scaring me a little because a) it's my first ever Russian novel, and b) I've tried to read Anna Karenina and oh good Lord the names.  Why must everyone have so many different names?  It is confusing for the reader.  This is what is worrying me the most, I think, that I'll get so confused I'll give up.  I must not give up.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1848)
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1857)
Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853)

There are also libraries I can raid, possibly to find shorter Victorian novels.

3) Review at least half of the books I read for these challenges.  Some of them crossover - so far I have read 55 individual books for these challenges, and have reviewed 3 of them (Ash, Sisters Red and Treasure Island).  I borrowed quite a few of them from the library, or don't have them in my current flat, so I'll be doing those which I actually have with me so I can reread/check facts before reviewing.

4) My final, ongoing challenge is Project Fill in the Gaps.  I've read 16 from the list this year, taking my overall title to 29/100.  I'd like to get to 30.  Some of the books I read for other challenges overlap with this one, and the Victorian novels listed above fit on it, so I should be able to complete this.  Review target: half of the books I've read this year.

So, not too much to be getting on with there.

Review: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Published: 1881
Pages: 266
Series: N/A
Read: 3rd February 2011
Challenge(s): Victorian Literature Challenge & Project Fill in the Gaps
Reason I Read It: It's on my Fill in the Gaps list.

Synopsis: Young Jim Hawkins has to deal with drunkards, mutineers, idiots who are fortunately on the other side, idiots who are unfortunately on his side, treachery, rum, skeletons and rum as he looks for treasure on Treasure Island - and all because his mother refused to be done out of money, even when pirates were trying to break into their home.

First Line: "Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17—, and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof."

Review: I have to admit, most of my pre-reading knowledge of this story comes from the Muppets, which meant that as I read I was a) expecting things from the plot which, obviously, weren't going to happen; and b) imagining Tim Curry as Long John Silver which, having recently watched the end of Criminal Minds series 5, was not necessarily a Good Thing.  Though trying to remember which Muppets were which characters did lend a certain something to the proceedings, especially as Ben Gunn = Miss Piggy adds a whole new level to the novel.

Of Stevenson's other books, I've read Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde, and this is closer to the former.  I think I prefer Kidnapped, though it has been a while since I read it all the way through and half the fun of that book is how utterly crazy Alan Breck Stewart is.  Long John comes close to being as entertaining, but didn't quite get there; the other pirates all fall under the heading of "could you people be any dafter, this is ridiculous, please stop running around like drunken sheep".  None of the characters really drew me in, and Jim was a bit annoying as he was retelling the story from an adult's point of view and justifying some pretty silly moves.  I know that they ultimately helped the good guys and that he's a boy (query: how old is he meant to be?) but there were times when I was shaking my head.  I think that may be my main issue with the novel: people doing silly things even when they've been told not to - like the squire broadcasting that they're off on a treasure hunting cruise to everyone in Bristol, or during a mad dash escape when the heroes decide to stop and check if they've killed an enemy, then stand around congratulating themselves rather than, I don't know, heading for safety.

There were also times when the story dragged a little.  There are some seriously awesome set pieces - especially the fight on the ship during "My Sea Adventure"* - but other times when things are slowed right down when what you really want is more swashbuckling fun.  Some of this might be due to all the nautical speak, although I don't get bored by that in Master and Commander or Antonia Forest.  Of course, this might just be me.  I was in this for a madcap dash round the island, complete with pirates and rum (oh so much rum in this book), and this wasn't entirely what I got.  I kept reading, though, because the fantastically creepy bits - Blind Pew, the pirates coming back to The Admiral Benbow, the skeleton compass - far outweigh the slightly dull bits where I skimmed to get to the next brilliant bit.  And, as I recall, there are bits in Kidnapped when I skimmed (the bit on the island - ah, it's an island thing).

All in all, Treasure Island is fun, and for a Victorian novel it's very readable.  The heroes don't always make easy choices, not everything goes their way despite a lot of luck of overhearing things on Jim's part, and there are pirates.  Also, Dr Livesey has parmesan in his snuff box.

Rating: 6/10


* This would be me not spoiling that bit, because it is amazing.

Reading Round Up: Project Fill in the Gaps

As I mention here, I actually started Project Fill in the Gaps in June.  At first it was manual, this crazed list in the back of my reading notebook, but now I've actually taken it to the proper site I thought I'd do quick reviews of the books I read before September - these will be quick because I read them some months ago and only have my copy of Looking for Alaska with me (and that's been forced on lent to a friend).

Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
I'd started reading this as a teenager when I first discovered Pratchett but didn't get very far.  Rereading, I thought I'd find it the same struggle now as I did then - was I wrong.  While I didn't enjoy it as much as some of his other early Discworld (like Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards!) it's still a great read.  I can't really talk about it without spoiling, but once again there are all sorts of arguments about human nature going on in a novel that, on the face of it, is merely a piss take of Ancient Egypt complete with walking mummies.

Eric - Terry Pratchett
Have to confess: I'm not the biggest fan of Rincewind, so I really wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy Eric.  It is a slight read (because of it's start as, I believe, a graphic novel) and is basically a reworking of Faust.  Eric himself isn't meant to be likeable and he really, really isn't.  The concept of be careful what you wish for is taken to its logical conclusion.  There were some great bits that were basically The Iliad: If Everyone Had Been Sensible and Listened to Odysseus's Sneaky Ideas From Day One, and the ending is dark and bleak (especially for the villain) but it's definitely a very slight tale for all that.

Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
Another that I'd tried and failed to finish when younger.  Introduces Lu-Tze, who is so instrumental in two of my favourite later Discworlds, and takes a look at fanatical religion.  Again, the villain's fate is very bleak, which is fitting as the villain is one of the scariest/creepiest in the Discworld series - there's something about madmen acting for the best reasons which is very Pratchett and very scary.  Again, not going to knock any of my favourites off my list but I enjoyed it (that sounds like damning with faint praise but isn't).

Skellig - David Almond
On the list because it's one of those books which is always highly praised and which I thought I ought to read.  I enjoyed it more because I thought I should than because it gripped me - does that make sense?  The ideas, style, writing, everything is there and while I do give it 4 stars I'm still not sure how much I actually liked/enjoyed it from a purely Reading Is Fun sense.  This is very muddled, and possibly makes me sound like I hated it; I think the best way to describe it is that I probably would have loved it if I'd read it 10-15 years ago, but now I was reading it from a different perspective of "oh, this is a good bit of writing" which may have detracted.

Looking for Alaska - John Green
Having said that about Skellig above, I was also viewing Looking for Alaska as "oh, this is a good bit of writing" but I was also loving it the whole way through.  The book made me cry, that should be enough to show how much I became invested in the characters.  And I read this and his other two novels (An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns) over three consecutive days, wandering round the house with my nose stuck in them, making coffee one handed*.  Possibly my favourite of the Project so far, I again can't really talk about it without spoiling so will just close with: read it, for it is awesome.

*Less of a disaster than might be supposed.

Project Fill in the Gaps

100 books in 5 years.  Fill the list with books you either should have read ages ago in your role as totally educated, intelligent, literary person - or, as I also did, to fill in those gaps of favourite authors' bibliographies.

The list was compiled in June 2010, which is why the Discworld series only goes as far as Unseen Academicals.  I gave myself till the end of the fifth calendar year to complete this, with a 25% margin of error, so I have to read at least 75 books from the list by 31/12/2015.  Easy.

Success: 13/100 (at time of writing this post - for further updates see the Fill in the Gaps page).

The list is below the cut: