#i am thinking of that scene when the count was worried Maximillen would hurt himself but didn't want to knock on his door in fear of

[wutheringmights]

After what feels like forever (over a month), I have finally finished The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

This books has been hanging over my head ever since I was a kid, and I had always been too intimidated by the length to ever attempt to read it. But I have finally conquered my white whale and let me just say one thing: this book is amazing!

I have read a lot of classics in my time, but rarely have I found one that is this consistently entertaining and engaging. Are there places Dumas could have theoretically trimmed? Yes, but I don't want him to. This book feels perfect exactly the way it is.

The plot was fantastic, but it's really the characters that I fell in love with. The count is such a bastard, and between his antics and charm, he would drop lines filled with sheer rage and bitterness that would leave me speechless.

Ultimately, that's one of the things that I find the most valuable about reading classic novels. I love discovering the ways that pieces of art that are older than any family heirloom inside my home resonates with me on an emotional level. I love finding characters I relate to or characters I loathe. I love laughing at the jokes and recognizing the familiarity of a paragraph complaining about how bureaucracy does not work. I love feeling connected to the past and knowing the humans have always had rich lives, and that their experiences are familiar to me hundreds of years later.

That's part of the reason why some of the criticism I read while skimming Good Reads reviews felt disingenuous. Don't get me wrong-- I don't take Good Read reviews without a hefty dose of salt, and the rating for the COMC is extraordinarily positive. But readers who complain that the book is dated in terms of the count being a "Gary Sue" (yes, I actually read that) and the female characters being flat don't get the point of reading any classic.

Yes, the count is unstoppable. But that's the point. He's an angel of revenge who thinks himself equal to god. That's part of the story. Even if you ignored how that plays into the themes of revenge vs forgiveness, can you not take joy in how people long dead also delighted in reading about an absolute bastard of a man making other peoples' lives miserable?

As for the female characters being flat-- I'm not going to pretend that's not an issue. But it is a mistake to open any piece of classic literature and expect modern sensibilities to apply. Yes, you can criticize it, but it just seems like a worthless hill to die on.

I won't say that Dumas doesn't fumble his women characters (let's talk about Haydee some other time), but compared to a lot of other pieces of classic literature I have read, the women in COMOC are not really that bad. Go read some Dickens and then we can have a talk about the maiden/mother/crone issue.

Overall, 10/10 book. I am so glad that I finally read this. If there is any classic you should read, this is a great one to delve into.

Also, Franz totally fucked the count.