Bienvenue à Marseille | 2025 The Count of Monte Christo, read-a-long

[AgualusasLover]

Following the success of the continuing Dickensalongs, Fallen Women and various other classics, please join The Count of Monte Christo read-a-long, kicking off on 1 January 2025.

The ultimate tale of revenge, with swashbuckling, chicanery and bare faced lies - The Count of Monte Christo has it all.

Editions: most important point is an unabridged version, coming in at just over 1,200 pages. This thread discusses the various translations – the Penguin Classics, trans by Robin Buss is very popular and the one I am reading but what you have already is likely fine and the nuances of translation are always fun to discuss.

What’s the best translation of The Count of Monte Cristo? • We Love Translations

I’ve been thinking about the best way to read-a-long. There have been red-alongs by the day, in chunks and every which way.

I think we have two options:

There are 118 chapter and my proposal is we do one a day, starting on 1 January, 2025. (W&P and all the Fallen Women books worked well this way)

We could also convene weekly e.g. no spoilers until Sunday and read it as it was released, in 18 parts c.65 pages per week. (I remember The Woman in White worked well this way and so do the Dickensalongs)

For now, I have assumed a chapter a day as it has served us well so far, if the majority strongly object, I have put placeholders in my copy breaking it down and can update in readiness for January.

Schmoop very handily has chapter by chapter breakdowns. Here is the Intro https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/count-of-monte-cristo/

MN meet up in Marseille 2025!

By the way, on the motif of men supposedly dying for love, Alain Chartier's 15th century poem 'La Belle Dame sans merci" is a fascinating and quite humorous take on that theme. The male lover tells the lady he will die if she doesn't love him, and his death will be all her fault. She tells him in no uncertain terms that if he is silly enough to die for love, the responsibility will be entirely his own. 😂Which just shows that even in the Middle Ages, women conceivably found this kind of emotional blackmail annoying!

Yes, the 'moi' twist was brilliant, Fuzzy! And you're right about the Count never having met Noirtier; I hadn't thought of that.

Gosh! I was remembering that a friend of mine went out with this guy who suggested he couldn't live without her if she broke up with him, the creep. It's a kind of consistent male behavioural characteristic! Good on those women from the Middle Ages calling it out!

I also liked the fact that Noirtier sorted things out without the Count’s involvement. He’s a great character! And seems like a properly good man - the one really dodgy thing we knew about him turns out to have been not dodgy at all by the standards of the time, as killing someone in a duel was perfectly ok, I think?

I think duels were illegal even in Louis XIII (that’s BBC Musketeers research, so not robust).

The idea of protecting honour and whatnot goes on for longer I think.

Oh in that case he’s still a criminal then! But an honourable one at least 😂

The whole duelling thing is crazy. It was basically banned everywhere because hot-headed young men were killing each other far too often - see Romeo and Juliet.

Yet it clearly carried on, and had its own very strict rules and code of honour! If you wounded someone in a duel then honour was satisfied, the loser would be patched up and everyone would move on. If you killed your opponent you had to cover it up, and possibly flee the country. I seem to remember there was a duel in Nicholas Nickelby, and that was the 1830s or 40s, and the killers friends had to get him out of the country.

Barnstorming chapter though. I love the last sentence which describes Villefort storming out before he is tempted to finish off what is left of his father.

Yes, that's right. It was in 'Nicholas Nickleby'. I remember being surprised that duelling was still a thing then. Crazy stuff! An honourable criminal indeed :)

And there’s the Pierre v Dolokhov duel in W&P.. about 1810 or so in the story?
I think there’s a duel in Eugene Onegin too. Onegin always got on my nerves tbh..

On Noirtier - the detail I loved was that his epée was in his CANE! How cool is that! I think we see the cane in the chapter where Villefort goes to his father’s lodgings in Paris, but we don’t know it’s a murder weapon, we just think he’s a rather dapper chap! You have to be pretty fit and nimble to fight a duel so the cane was either purely decorative or a ruse…

Yes that's right. I remember he had a cane and he was a dapper chap.

I had to look it up to remember the duel scene in W+P. I had forgotten it!

Inadvertent incest klaxon today! 😲 Ick. I guess it’ll end up with the big reveal just at the perfect moment to really drop Danglars in it - looking forward to that! And it sounds like Eugénie will be quite happy with her best mate Louise so won’t be bothered by it 😄

Am really enjoying Noitier - such a great character with his magic eyes.

Slightly uneasily wondering though - there’s such a theme of poetic justice in the book - could his paralysis have been written as his divine punishment for the duel/previous misdeeds?

I'd like to know if the grandparents died/were killed? They seemed to have the same condition as the Abbe, or at least that is how the description sounded. Any thoughts?

Valentine's grandmother dying so soon after she stated she would like Valentine to marry quickly made me think.

Well, the doctor tells Villefort that he thinks the grandmother was poisoned, although he stresses this was not necessarily deliberate. Granny reported seeing a white figure in her room. We know Madame de Villefort has a keen interest in poisons, but how could she have got to the grandfather, and what would be her motive? 🤔

I think Madame de Saint Meran was definitely poisoned… but not sure about her husband, as he died on the road from Marseille.

It seems that Mme de Saint Méran was poisoned, although you would wonder why anyone would harm her.

I'm trying to work out the relationships here. M. Danglars is married to M. de Villefort's daughter. (Is that right?!) Their daughter is Eugénie. Mme Danglars had an affair with Villefort. Their son is Benedetto/Andrea. So, what's the relationship between Eugénie and Benedetto? Sorry to be dim but it's melting my brain.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh Danglars’ wife isn’t Villefort’s daughter, but is the person who Villefort was having an affair with (which resulted in Benedetto, AKA Andrea Cavalcanti). So Eugenie is Benedetto’s half-sister - they have the same mum.

Ahh...thank you DuPain. That's* *where I was getting mixed up. Yup, that's awkward!

What a tangled web.....!

I have no idea what chapter I am meant to be up to - any enlightenment gratefully received. I think for once I am roughly on track having just read "The Accusation".

I'm on 'Lemonade' today, TimeforaGandT.

What a tangled web indeed. I really got myself tangled up in knots.

I'm feeling sorry for Albert and Franz that they are being impacted by the sins of their fathers, in a manner of speaking.

I thought it was Correspondence from Janina today so the chapter behind @FuzzyCaoraDhubh .

The Promise was Monday
The Villefort Family Vault was Tuesday
A Signed Statement was Wednesday
Progress of M. Cavalcanti the Younger was Thursday
Haydée was Friday
We Hear From Yanina today
(Chapter headings from Shmoop, slightly different in the Robin Buss translation).

Then tomorrow (Sunday) off before Lemonade.

so I forgot to post this week

Monday - was The Promise
Tuesday - The Villefort Family Vault
Wednesday - The Judicial Enquiry
Thursday - The Progress of the younger Cavalcanti
Friday - Haydee
Saturday - A Correspondent Writes from Janina
Sunday - rest

Next week, from 31st

Monday - Lemonade
Tuesday - The Accusation
Wednesday - The Retired Baker’s Room
Thursday - Breaking and Entering
Friday - The Hand of God
Saturday - Beauchamp
Sunday - rest

Thank you all for the updates - unbelievably I am actually ahead.

Fuzzy I am not feeling too sorry for Albert and Franz as it's not a love-match for either of them and they will probably both be quite relieved to escape from the engagements (even if they do suffer slightly bruised egos).

I'm feeling sorry for Albert because of the duel. Hope he doesn't die.

Same! Hopefully not.