Edmond Dantes, a sailor, returns home to Marseilles with the cargo he was assigned to retrieve and news of the death of that ship's captain. After making his report to the boss of the shipping company he is promoted to captain because of his loyalty and perserverance and joins his fiance to plan their wedding. On his wedding day he is arrested and falsely accused as a traitorous Napoleonic conspirator and sent to the Isle Chateau D'If where he is to remain imprisoned for the rest of his life and suffer unrelenting torture. In this prison after seven years and almost giving up hope, he meets Abbe Faria who is also sentenced to be incarcerated on the Isle forever. Faria is quite old but is digging a tunnel to the sea where he plans to escape. The Abbe sees that Dantes' depression is the real prison, not the lack of …
Edmond Dantes, a sailor, returns home to Marseilles with the cargo he was assigned to retrieve and news of the death of that ship's captain. After making his report to the boss of the shipping company he is promoted to captain because of his loyalty and perserverance and joins his fiance to plan their wedding. On his wedding day he is arrested and falsely accused as a traitorous Napoleonic conspirator and sent to the Isle Chateau D'If where he is to remain imprisoned for the rest of his life and suffer unrelenting torture. In this prison after seven years and almost giving up hope, he meets Abbe Faria who is also sentenced to be incarcerated on the Isle forever. Faria is quite old but is digging a tunnel to the sea where he plans to escape. The Abbe sees that Dantes' depression is the real prison, not the lack of nourishing food and strengthening activity, so Faria begins to teach Dantes languages, politics, law, mathematics, science, and fencing. Faria becomes a father figure to Dantes. But after 14 years the Abbe has a terrible accident while tunnelling and will soon die because of it. He tells Dantes how to escape and gives him the location of a great treasure. Dantes slips through the guards' fingers, finds the treasure which makes him as rich as a country, and calls himself The Count of Monte Cristo to conceal his true identity. But Dantes has spent his 14 years in prison devising the ruination of those "friends" who abandoned him to devastation. He believes that happiness must be fed by great suffering, therefore he constructs a Godlike deportment to win the trust and confidence of the long-lost acquaintances so that his revenge will be complete and their downfall will be downright termination. When the last target is felled, The Count of Monte Cristo goes away quickly and leaves this message: "Wait and hope."Please Note: This book is easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.
Review of 'The Count of Monte Cristo' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The seminal revenge novel, with themes of redemption and justice.
Wow, it's freakin' long. Took months to read all 117 chapters. Oddly though, pretty well paced. At no point was I bored with it, which is not something that can be said for novels of a significantly shorter length.
Understandable how this has never been well transferred to either the small or big screen. The intertwining plots and motivations are so multitudinous, that it requires a notebook just to keep track of all that's going on. Very much enjoyed the conclusion, care was taken to wrap up all the story lines and unlike many novels I've read recently, the ending is heart-warming.
