Count of Monte Cristo: Chapter 15

[osprey_archer]

You guys, The Count of Monte Cristo is the best book. It is jam-packed with epic and delicious melodrama and characters who feel things TO THE VERY DEPTHS OF THEIR SOULS, aside from the wicked Danglars who has no feelings at all, and the also wicked Villefort who has feelings but villainously represses them in favor of his ambition.

Everyone else, though, FEELINGS ALL OVER THE PLACE. Dantes' father went ahead and died of despair after Dantes' imprisonment; Dantes' ladylove Mercedes is drifting around the streets of Les Catalans like a wraith, although I'm not sure if she's still on wraith duty now that six years have passed.

And Dantes himself? BURIED IN AN ABYSS OF DESPAIR, more or less literally, as he's in solitary confinement in the dank dungeon beneath the Chateau d'If. After six years of this he decides to starve himself to death (I'm actually impressed he made it six whole years before coming to this resolution)... only to be saved by the sound of a tapping in the wall! Could it be...? Another prisoner??? A POSSIBLE FRIEND?

IT IS! "I'll love you like I loved my father," Dantes informs his new friend fervently, never mind he hasn't even exactly met the guy at this point. It's been six years since he's seen anyone but a jailer! He's prepared to love anyone else!

This book is a total trip. I am almost sorry that I committed myself to merely one chapter a night. But on the other hand, that will make it last longer, so I can bask in the feelings for months on end rather than gobbling them all up at once.

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

"I'll love you like I loved my father," Dantes informs his new friend fervently, never mind he hasn't even exactly met the guy at this point.

I love that! He's ready to love any human voice he hears, poor guy. :( Dantes was supposed to live a peaceful normal life with the people he loves and instead he's in a DUNGEON where there is no one else. Only now there's someone else!

Poor Mercedes. I hope she's all right.

I'm hoping the drunk friend of Danglars has a crisis of conscience and helps Dantes somehow, maybe after Dantes and his new friend make their DARING ESCAPE (powered by PURE LOVE).

It is truly the best book.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Dantes has so many FEELINGS and all he needs is a person to pour them onto. Hopefully the prisoner next door is ready for this.

I'm assuming that Mercedes has to be alive somewhere because surely Dantes will find her again at some point in the future? At which point he may be IN DISGUISE, and attempt to woo her, and maybe she will SPURN HIM because she is being forever true to the memory of her poor dead Dantes... Which would be very gratifying for Dantes in one sense but also very frustrating.

I am cynical and don't think that Caderrouse has enough conscience to help Dantes for any reason except maybe being threatened. But perhaps! Maybe if Dantes stumbled upon him in a drunken state, Caderrouse would break down and Confess Everything.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I am so glad this is as excellent as it is. I've got to read it one day!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

You should just us! evelyn_b is reading it as well; you should become part of the gang.

[thisbluespirit]

I am almost sorry that I committed myself to merely one chapter a night.

It will be tough. I don't think I could have done it! :-)

(Having read it last year, it's so great to see two other people having pretty much the same reaction to it.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I broke down and read two chapters last night. We had just returned to Dantes in his miserable dungeon! I couldn't just leave him there!

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

Yay I'm so glad you're enjoying it! It is a total trip.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It is RIDONKULUS. I can only imagine it gets even wilder after the dungeons.

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

The dungeons will come to seem like a model of restraint.

I mean, um. No pun intended.

[summercomfort]

Haha. I was pretty excited when you mentioned maybe-reading it. High-school-me absolutely loved it (so much better than 3 Musketeers and Man in the Iron Mask!) and I was worried when you were like "i dunno about starting yet another tome" because I was like "but the angst! The machinations! The random Christianity inserts! The almost-okay orientalism!"

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think after War and Peace I might have been put off by the mention of angst, but it turns out that The Count of Monte Cristo has a completely different kind of angst, the kind that is delicious rather than exhausting. No one waffling between Freemasonry and the libertine life here!

[summercomfort]

Ugh, yeah, I couldn't make it past the first few chapters of War and Peace, due too all the MISERY. But Count of Monte Cristo is melodrama, which is so so tasty!

[littlerhymes]

But the chapters are so little! Two a night can't hurt, right? :D

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Nooooo! I have made my resolution and I am sticking to it!

Partly because there are a couple of other people who are reading it too, and I don't want to be all "HEY GUYS I've just upped the chapter count on you!" What if they are super busy and could barely squeeze The Count of Monte Cristo into their schedule in the first place?