The Count of Monte Cristo Review

Finally it is over. The 1243 page tale of Edmond Dantes and his life, originally written by Alexandre Dumas and translated by Robin Buss. I have been immersed in this experience everyday for the past month, and it definitely has been the most educational and entertaining piece that I have read in my life.

I do not even know where to start in describing how perfect the book is. The description of characters, historical context, pace of the story, portraying of emotions, everything is balanced out by Dumas in this masterpiece. Every page out of the 1243 pages has its significance, and contributes to the illustration of the sorrow and revengeful tale of Dantes.

What I believe to be one of the factors that makes this book as enjoyable like no other is its numerous characters, each with their unique personality and effects. The characters are strongly inter winded with each other, and the reader continuously discovers links between two characters that seemed they had no connections what so ever. The Count of Monte Cristo uses these subtle connections to torment the four men who were responsible for his imprisonment. While it seems like there are too many characters to remember at first, the length of the book provides for the reader to encounter with the character multiple times, allowing a chart to be created within the reader's mind of all the characters and their connections to the others.

The historical context also adds to the experience. Dumas includes ample amounts of cultural and historical context within the story, which takes place in the 1800s in mainly Italy and France (Paris). The references that he includes ranges from plays, artists, political situations, Napoleon government, and any other important historical detail/reference. In the edition that I read (Penguin Classics), Buss provides footnotes and explanations of these contexts, which significantly enhances the experience of the story as a whole. This story not only entertains the reader, but also educates the reader in historical philosophy, arts, and the government.

While the book is the longest book that I have ever read (1243 pages, not including the 31 page note section), I did not feel bored at any point of this book. Dumas does an excellent job of jumping prescriptive and scenarios, providing multiple context of the same situation, seen from different characters. The amount of detail that Dumas includes also allows for the reader to portray each of the characters and some specific scenes, such as Dantes in prison and later as the Count of Monte Cristo in the royal social life of Paris. He keeps the story moving, through encounters or death, and leaves questions to be answered, which compels the reader to keep reading, eager to find the answers to the mysteries.

Last but not least, the method that Dumas portrays the emotions of the various characters, especially the Count of Monte Cristo, makes the story worthwhile to read in a psychological context. Through descriptions or quote, the diction that Dumas uses creates a tone which is obvious to the reader, which is used to enhance the personalities of the characters. The reader entertains themselves by hypothesizing who is linked to who in fraud and malicious ways through how the characters react to the actions and speeches of the Count fo Monte Cristo.

Phew, I want to keep writing more about how awesome this book is, but unfortunately I have to go work on my research poster. So if you were too lazy to read the wall of text above, here is a one sentence version. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a masterpiece, and everyone should read it.

P.S. - Don't let the length of the book discourage you! As I mentioned, the story is interesting, and the vocabulary is not too difficult. If anyone is interested in reading it, I will gladly lend you my copy!

Is outlining really needed?

I honestly do not know what to blog about this week. I just blogged about The Road in last week's blog, so repeating a topic is not good. Also, my next week's blog will be about The Count of Monte Cristo as a whole, so I will not be able to write about it this week. So, this week, for the first time, I will actually be using one of Mr. Mullin's blog suggestions.

I have never been a fan of prewriting. It seemed to me like a waste of valuable time which could be used to work on the actual piece that will be graded. For that reason, I used a similar tactic as the one described in the posted article, which is to write the actual piece, then go back and create the outline. This guaranteed exact matching of the content, and it was also easy/efficient. I practiced this method basically from 4th grade all the way up to this year.

Just like all the rest of us, I wrote essays in such intervals that I have never written before. I had to produce quality writing while I also had to do it at a decent pace.

With my writing style, I jumped straight into writing the responses for the various prompts that the colleges give us. Even though I manged to squeeze out an essay at the end, I did not like it at all or it went on a tangent of the prompt so it was useless. So, this resulted me in scrapping the idea and actually brainstorming ideas before getting to work on the writing. I was actually OUTLINING before I started work on the essay. This allowed me to get my thoughts together, and I was able to produce essays that I thought were some of my best writings.

While outlining did help me, I want to make a disclaimer. I believe that detailed outlines restrict the writing, and prevents it from improvement. The type of outlining that I like is just a list of phrases and ideas that I will use in the paper. This will allow me to combine/formulate the ideas and phrases in whatever order and method I see best fit, allowing me to create the best writing possible.

So, in conclusion, I do believe prewriting helps, but for me, only as a list of phrases and ideas that will be used in the writing.

The Road: Reflection up to this point

In class the other day, we were discussing the parts that we enjoyed about the Road and other parts where we thought it deducted from the book. While I am not done with the book, I thought I would give my opinion on where I stand regarding how much the book is enjoyable.
For me, the book is a mixture of appealing points and loathing factors. One of the main factors that I believe adds to the appeal of the book is how much detail the author includes. He explains in detail the troubles that they come across and the terrain that they see, allowing the reader to feel like as if he was accompanying the man and the boy on their journey. While he does include alot of detail, he keeps the story bare bone and gives ample amounts for the imagination of the reader. This allows each reader to interpret the story differently, giving multiple meanings to the book.
The factor that I believe which deducts from the story the most is the pace of the story. To me, it seems like its the same plot over and over again of finding food, travelling south, and then running our of food and finding new food again. I understand that this story development is necessary due to the structure of the story and the effect of the novel, but for me this made the story feel repetitive and not as enjoyable.
Overall, while the book is enjoyable, it is not as exciting and enjoyable to read as The Count of Monte Cristo (yes, I did mention this book last blog but I felt the need to mention it again, it is A GREAT BOOK). However, I have heard promising things about the ending of The Road so I am looking forward to see what will happen to the man and the boy.

The Count of Monte Cristo: Thoughts so far

While I am enjoying reading The Road in class, my blog would be boring by writing about it just like everyone else. So, I thought of writing about another topic: The Count of Monte Cristo.

I am currently reading this masterpiece by the French author Alexandre Dumas. The story is about Edmond Dantes, a young sailor who was about to be appointed to be the ships captain at the age of 19 and marry the girl that he loved. However, jealous people around him forges a letter that gets Dantes imprisoned in prison. He learns the truth and escapes, acquires a fortune at the Island of Monte Cristo, then use that gained fortune to seek revenge for the people responsible for his time spent in prison.

This book is possibly one of the books that I have ever read in my entire life. One of the main contributing factors to this such enjoyable experience is the details included in the story. Dumas succeeds in explaining every necessary detail, allowing for the reader to fully understand the historical and cultural context of the time. It might seem like he is including stories of random characters here and there (I thought this at first), it all makes sense as you keep reading the novel.

The plot, along with the pace of the story, enhances the experience of the novel. While there are sub-stories tailored into his writing, the main story of Dantes and his revenge moves at a quick pace. His 14 years of prison is extremely thoughtful and interesting to read, to learn what he discovers by spending the time there and also interacting with the Abbe. Once he escapes prison, he is still has to overcome many challenges to reach his treasure, making the story entertaining to read.

The experience of The Count of Monte Cristo has been both an entertaining and an educating one. While the book is 1250 pages, I do not regret choosing the book.

P.S. I do actually slightly regret choosing this book, since this book is so entertaining that I did not read "the Road" in depth, resulting in me performing poorly on the quiz.