Bienvenue à Paris - The Count of Monte Christo, thread 2

Finished! I really enjoyed it and thought the last few chapters were great, especially as @FuzzyCaoraDhubh says the trip back to the Chateau d'If.

Yes I think Wedn as @FuzzyCaoraDhubh says

September sounds good, back to school and all that…

I think the last chapter will be on Wednesday, so we should be able to discuss it after that.

Sounds great, thanks Agualusa. Could we have a date after which it's ok to discuss the ending of this one?

That would be great to make a list of suggestions thanks, I'm good with either a July or September start.

I think that Villefort and Fernand both had explicable personal reasons for their actions, Fernand because he was in love with Mercedes, Villefort to protect his father (and his own reputation!).

Danglars on the other hand is just eaten up with envy of Dantes, being the golden boy of their boss.

Caderousse is an odd one - he's a bit flaky at the beginning but he sort of keeps an eye out for Dantes père after Edmond disappears, he doesn't really go bad until he decides to kill that diamond merchant.

I’ve fallen behind as I’ve got a new job starting in a few weeks so consequently my actual job has gone bananas.

I think we are at the point where:

• we’ve finished
• or we are ploughing on to the finish line
• some adaptation watching

I will make a list of suggestions for next read and we can agree timeline, I get the feeling we would all like a bit of a rest.

A couple of options I think

• start next read in July, giving a bit of time to decide, source and plan plus indulge in other things
• take the summer off and start back September

I think that Danglars is the chief baddie because the nefarious scheme was his idea. Villefort facilitated it. I'm going to wait until Monday to find out what happens to Danglars!

Ohh I hadn’t thought of Danglars being imprisoned for 14 years Fuzzy. That would have been cruel! I thought earlier on that Valentine was being set up to be locked up for the poisoning crimes she didn’t commit so was glad that didn’t happen.

interesting Danglars was last - so presumably top billing as chief baddie? I think I’d have thought Villefort was, though l suppose his actions against Dantès weren’t personal as such.

Yes Danglars’ Italian was properly funny 😄 And I agree it was good to revisit the chateau d’If and Vampa - good closure!

I think I missed Peppino and his chickpeas! I must go back and look it up.
Agree that Vampa is quite the character.
Danglars is one smug git, isn't he.

I really enjoyed Vampa! I see he was reading about Alexander this time! He deserves his own mini series too!
Agree Danglars could be played for laughs - that bit was brilliant! Pepino was v funny too - a gourmand with his chickpeas!

I hadn't anticipated that the Count would go back to his cell at Chateau d'If and relive his experiences there with the sympathetic guide as a listener. I thought that was very well done although I did some eye-rolling at how it was important for him as a superior being to banish any doubts or have guilty thoughts about the death of a child. But it was good to go back to the cell as the story is coming to an end.

Similarly, I enjoyed the return to the bandits in Rome since the middle section of the book takes place here. Poor Danglars! Did anyone else think that he might end up in Luigi Vampa's guest suite for fourteen years? The smattering of Italian that Danglars was using from Eugénie's Italian arias was very funny, particularly when he addressed the coachman as 'caro mio'. That really was funny!

I couldn't stop myself from reading ahead, and I wasn't disappointed. I anticipated that it would end differently, but I can understand this finale, and it is rather fitting.

Finishing TCOMC has allowed me to enjoy reading a heavier book. Taking part in this read along has been beneficial for some explanations and highlights of intricacies that I had previously missed. But I have to say that this type of fiction would be preferable for me to read alone at some point.

Has there been any more thought about the next book for a read-along? I'm keen to start the next one. 😁

Hmm @CornishLizard sounds good!

I see there is a new TV series coming out - French, lots of original plot left in - apparently they say they want to develop « strong female characters » - but they have left out Eugénie! Bloody typical. All words, they won’t really have strong women. 🙄

@MotherOfCatBoy Black Count was really interesting especially alongside TCOMC, as the superhuman CoMC bears a strong resemblance to the author’s father. I didn’t race through it and the middle military history section was a bit of a slog, but it was really interesting. The liberation of Haydée is particularly poignant knowing that one side of the family were enslaved a couple of generations previously. Before joining the army, the father also lived the high life in Paris on credit for a time, reminiscent of Albert and Franz earlier on in the book. So a really interesting companion piece but it’s perhaps left me less critical of the fictional Count than I would otherwise have been!

A bit of relief from all the revenging today but more of the impact on the people the Count views as innocent.

On the children's inheritence it's mixed. Valentine is considered good like her mother, and Alfred is good like his mother. But Edouard and Benedetto are bad like their parents. Eugénie is by far the most interesting child though, she's more lively and interesting than Valentine. I wonder what the French thought of her in the 19th century, in the contemporary English translation her lesbianism was excised and only restored in the 1990s.

Maybe that's part of the point, that you can pour so much emotion and energy into pursuing revenge, and then the revenge when it finally happens is strangely unsatisfying

I agree, I think this is exactly the point Dumas is making. He gets his revenge, but then what? Does it bring any real satisfaction?

I’ve finished the book now - looking forward to discussing it once everyone has read to the end!

Very interesting post Cornish!

Yes, cassandre! I think so. It was way over the top. Very Greek tragedy. I think the death of the child was upsetting. He was an awful little shit monster but he was innocent in all of this. The themes of predestiny, blood lines and the sins of the father were to the fore again.

Villefort losing his reason was upsetting too. He lost his reputation, his family and his mind. I think the Count came across as a bit of a meddler. Villefort thought it was the hand of God up to the final moment which reinforced the Count as God persona, but I think he fell off his pedestal. He got it wrong or did he over achieve? He's too good at it now. Did I read it right that he wants to go and save Danglars now?

That’s interesting @CornishLizard - is the
biography a good read? His family history is wild!

Yes to angels and villains - the count clearly didn’t mean harm to come to Edward, but the ground was prepared so we thoroughly disliked him!

In ‘The Black Count’, Tom Reiss’ biography of the author Dumas’ military general father, a lot is said about memory. Our Dumas prided himself on his memory and treasured his own memories of his father (who died when he was 4). Earlier, Haydée recounted events from her early childhood that she remembers with great clarity. Mercèdes is the only one who has recognised Dantès.

The villains that the Count is revenging himself on have forgotten Dantès, their own actions in condemning him haven’t haunted them. Perhaps the failure to remember is part of their moral failure?

On a different topic, I found it a little comical (because implausible?) that Benedetto so cheerfully describes himself to the court in the previous chapter as a bad egg. His aplomb is a wonderful thing to see 😁. Essentially he says, I could have been virtuous like my adoptive parents, but no, I became a villain! Hey, at least he's embraced his own nefarious personality.

It really is a novel where the characters are either angels or villains, generally speaking.

And even though the Count is upset to realise that he has indirectly caused the death of a child, the child has been set up as a dreadful little brat (villain in-the-making) and so his death doesn't seem as awful as it might have seemed otherwise.