By the way, I have not read "The Count of Monte Cristo." It was my father's favorite book, or so he often said, often conjoined with the opinion that he hated "The Return of the Native." I have read "The Return of the Native" and 4 other Thomas Hardy novels. My son Chris recently read "The Count of Monte Cristo," though his main reading project is biographies of U.S. Presidents.
This post was inspired by a comment from Jaq on my previous post, which is about the decline of childhood reading. Jaq wrote: "Just bought The Count of Monte Christo [sic] through your link, and there it sits, like a cinder block on my coffee table, will I finish it? Now I guess I’ll have to, but it will hardly fit in my hip pocket the way I always sported one as a teenager. You can’t blame kids though, we are the ones who invented the crack, I mean smartphones."
And here's the latest photograph from a presidential biography sent to me by Chris. The scene is JFK's reception for black leaders on the 100-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation:
The book is "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" by Richard Reeves (commission earned)
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43 comments:
There is something vaguely ironic about TikTok addressing the reading of classical tomes like Monte Cristo. I just can't put my finger on it.
The fist adult book that I ever read at about 8, was The Wreck of the Mary Deare, by Hammond Innes. It was a thrilling adventure for a boy, the first time I experienced the magic of becoming completely immersed in the story, in my imagination. It set me up for a lifetime of reading.
I don't think I have ever heard a "behind the scenes" story or revelation about JFK that didn't show him to be a phony asshole.
Sorry I had a bad link for a few minutes. Fixed now
"It was nothing personal... but a photograph of a black man in the White House with his white [Swedish] woman could be a political disaster."
"I just want to make sure I don't end up kissing fucking Nat King Cole over here."
Were any of them eating a Monte Cristo sandwich while reading the Count of Monte Cristo?
If you think about it. :::: who were Emancipated?
Slaves or Holders
I am dubious any version of The Count ever fit in a jeans back pocket . . . although young eyes could read tiny print, I suppose: "will hardly fit in my hip pocket the way I always sported one as a teenager."
Is Emancipation <>. Enlightenment
revelation about JFK that didn't show him to be a phony asshole. ....
As double negative don't /phony assholes/ become genuinely good persons
I’ve read neither Cristo nor Native. I just watch TicToks and marvel at the creativity and invention of ordinary folks who now have completely sidestepped the Hollywood gatekeepers in producing and distributing entertainment.
- Krumhorn
Just to be clear, I didn’t get the idea from TikTok, I started to watch the movie, and as sometimes happens, I said to myself that this was too good to trust to a movie, stopped watching and ordered the book, already the first chapter is way better than the opening scene of the movie.
The movie was in French, (with subtitles) so they probably figured that there audience knew about the history that Dumas explicitly brings in, but it took a while to figure out why he was getting railroaded.
The last book that I read in a sitting was Kidnapped, on a rainy, windy day at a ski lodge, and I found the book on a shelf, and it even had a bookworm tunnel in the spine, but I am not believing that anyone is honestly reading TCoMC in a sitting, skimming it, maybe, but not engaging with the text.
From The Shawshank Redemption:
Heywood: "The Count of Monte Crisco..."
Floyd: "That's 'Cristo' you dumb shit."
Heywood: "...by Alexandree Dumb-ass. Dumb-ass."
Andy Dufresne: "Dumb-ass? 'Dumas'. You know what it's about? You'll like it, it's about a prison break."
Red: "We oughta file that under 'Educational' too, oughtn't we?"
I read Conrad's Youth over and over. Probably 100 times since I found it in the 70s. Plus a dozen or 2 listens to the Librivox audio book.
I usually read it in a single sitting. But it is not a very long book.
John Henry
I've never read it, but I've watched many versions and I love the story. It's a painful story. but... Revenge! I'd like to read it to find out the accuracy of filmed versions.
I also watch youtube videos with readers and their top 10 lists. The Count of Monte Cristo is often near the top.
The book is available for nearly nothing on Amazon Kindle. If you download it, make sure it is an unabridged version. It’s a wonderful book in any format.
Interesting the flip on inter racial marriage, in today's world.
It was taboo back then. Now, it's accepted but the left and some blacks are uncomfortable with it. icky whites.
Not really trivia, The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves at all. Not one.
It only applied to former states that were not, at the time, part of the US and over whom Lincoln and the federal govt had no authority.
Though they claimed to have authority.
It was just kabuki
John Henry
Peachy,
The ones who are REALLY uncomfortable with interracial marriage are black women. Most others have little problem with it.
John Henry
Lord Jim is a Conrad novel that I read and rolled my eyes at the ending, but it has stuck with me for a couple of decades, and I think about it often.
I read Heart of Darkness in HS and found it boring. In the 70s I read Typhoon in a boating magazine and got hooked. In general, I love his searfaring writing but when he comes ashore I find him boring. Some exceptions.
I recently listened to the entire Lord Jim on Librivox. I have listened to the first half several times but always lose interest when he come to the village. Ditto the book. 1st half is great, including the parts where he is ashore, second half bores me to tears.
Listening to the whole of Lord Jim did not change my opinion.
Boring as Heart of Darkness was in HS, I reread it in the 70s and It has become one of my favorite Conrads. One that I can read over and over.
John Henry
You never pick up a book at night and stay up all night reading it - only to regret it the next day? TCOMC is a great book, used to be standard reading for teenagers in my day. The French film version is closest to the novel in accuracy but the Richard Chamberlain version is not bad.
Dean Martin refused to go to Kennedy's inauguration because Sammy Davis Jr and Mai Britt were not invited notwithstanding that Davis had worked tirelessly to get Kennedy elected.
I guess JFK and Sammy didn't see Eye-to-eye.
Yes, Jackie was in favor of civil rights but she knew about MLK and didn't like him. She'd heard the FBI tapes of his "activities".
The Count of Monte Cristo is a fun read. I got through it College and enjoyed it. But IRC it took me a week. I have it in books on tape and will probably listen to it. Don't think I could ever sit down and read it again.
I never was able to read "War and Peace" straight through. I listened to it on audio. And realized its greatness. These old thick "classics" are easier for me to listen to then read.
Ann: You are lucky that your dad didn't name you Monte Cristo Althouse. See below.
Yes, Nebraska had a quarterback named Monte Christo, who played for the Cornhuskers from 1994 to 1998.
Here are the key details about his memorable Husker career:
The Walk-On Standout: Christo joined the team as a walk-on out of Kearney High School. In 1998, he became the first Nebraska walk-on quarterback to start a game in four years.
The Lit Name & Nickname: He was quite literally named after the classic Alexandre Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, because the book held a deep meaning for his father. Naturally, his coaches and teammates gave him the nickname "The Count."
His Big Moment: He mostly served as a reliable backup behind players like Scott Frost, Bobby Newcombe, and Eric Crouch. However, his defining career moment came on October 24, 1998, when he stepped in to rally Nebraska to a dramatic, come-from-behind victory against the Missouri Tigers. That performance earned him a start the following week against Texas
.Life After Football: After dealing with an array of injuries during his football career, Christo focused on his studies and successfully went into medicine. He currently works as an anesthesiologist in Omaha, Nebraska.
> rolled my eyes at the ending,
Too cheerful for you, eh? Kind of like Tess...
RC Ocean,
There are a couple good adaptations of War and Peace, I've watched several. The best is a 20 parter by BBC available on YouTube. I've watched it sevral times and it is always good. I keep it on my tablet for when nothing else amuses on a long flight.
I tried to read the book. I found it excellent but uneven. It would be going along great then Tolstoy would get into one of his philosophical moods and it would be like trudging through a desert. I got about halfway through then there was a long, 50-75 pages, of introspection and I just could not get through it.
John Henry
"Then she stood up ... and left in tears."
Good for Jackie. And given her husband's conduct more generally, she had more than that to cry about.
"Reading Count of Monte Cristo in One Sitting."
Sounds like a good way to get Deep Vein Thrombosis.
“Boring as Heart of Darkness was in HS, I reread it in the 70s and It has become one of my favorite Conrads. One that I can read over and over.”
Be careful which Conrads you read. There’s one in particular you don’t want hanging out of your hip pocket these days.
In the mid-80's when my now-husband and I were dating, we would read big books together. One of them was The Count of Monte Cristo. I had a copy published in the 1880's, so we treated it carefully! We watch all the movies together to this day. We also read Shogun by James Clavell and ended up going to Japan for three weeks for our honeymoon.
The Classic Comics version would fit in a hip pocket. As would Cliff Notes.
A few years ago I was a facing a longish stay in the hospital and I bought a The Count of Monte Cristo and began reading it. As I read it, I had the faint sensation of having read it before -- certain scenes were familiar. Then a good friend stopped by, saw the book next to my hospital bed, and proceeded with great excitement to review the entire plot -- no sensitivity to spoilers whatsoever, His wife kept telling him to stop, but he was as if seized by the moment, and covered the entire plot. I have never seen such wild enthusiasm for a book. I have waited to return to it till I have forgotten (perhaps for the second time) the plot as revealed by my friend.
There were two recent adaptations and they were both excellent. There was a French film and a PBS mini series. The French version takes some liberties with the plot, but they are perhaps an improvement. It's only three hours long. The PBS version is considerably longer and more faithful to the plot. I've never read the book, but, unlike some other classics, it looks good on screen........The plot sounds far fetched, but it's based on something that actually happened. There was a prisoner who was befriended by a fellow prisoner, a cleric who had hidden away a large fortune. That cleric died in prison but gave his friend and fellow prisoner the location of that fortune. When that prisoner finished his sentence, he got hold of the fortune and used the money to assume a fake identity and take revenge on the people who had had him unjustly imprisoned. It's a great plot, and some of it really happened.......Well, only parts of life are as good as an intricately plotted 19th century novel. One of the men the prisoner was plotting against, figured out what was happening and had the prisoner killed. Bummer. The Dumas version had a much better denouement than reality.
James Clavell ... He is Australian.
King Rat was revelation to me about culture clash between American and British POW survive strategy
Also explain current difficulties.
CoMC ---- an early import by All India TV broadcast in 1970s
Also I Love Lucy, Abbott and Costello
I listened to The Count of Monte Cristo on audiotapes after seeing the Hollywood version. The writer for the Hollywood version said he felt that he had improved the story, which made me want to find the source material. It was 36 hours to listen, as I recall, and the Hollywood version was rather dramatically unfaithful to the book, a pointless inversion of one of the primary revenges. The book by far surpasses all movies of it I've seen. I believe it was sold by chapters, like a soap opera, and I've always wondered if Dumas had the entire plot outlined from the beginning. The way he brought the threads of the tapestry together was genius.
The one book I stayed up much of a night reading was Shogun. But it was much too long to do in one sitting.
It's easy to crucify people for believing things in the past that reflected a now obsolete cultural consensus. Now that we are able to record and index every word, and every image, the "fun" of doing this will never stop.
I reread the "Count of Monte Cristo" earlier this year. I don't think I could have without my Kindle. I do love that book and "The Three Musketeers." One thing that struck me is the involvement of the French in Muslim politics and the bohemian lesbianism of one of the characters daughters, both of which I had forgotten.
I think assigning these books in middle school instead of David Copperfield and Silas Marner would make a bunch more boys into readers.
I was in my late 30s when I read Count of Monte Cristo. The ending unravels in the most delightful way. I remember staying up late on a work night because I couldn't stop. Great story.
"The Count of Monte Christo [sic]"
I've heard of the book for 60 years, but never knew how it was spelled. "Cristo" just seems too straightforward and obvious.
I got half-way through one of the recent film adaptations and then gave up. The prison stuff was more interesting to me than the extended revenge plot.
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