Thoughts on The Count of Monte Cristo

I may at some point write a short essay on a certain aspect or scene in this book (e.g. Dumas’ expert use of subtext in dialogue—UGH he’s so talented like how will I ever write that good); for now, I’ll just say yes, it’s one of those classics worthy of the label. However, I felt different upon finishing it than I did upon finishing The Brothers Karamazov or The Lord of the Rings. After each of those, I felt spiritually enlightened, was fairly sure I had ascended to another level in the nine stages of the spiritual life, and could possibly interpret dreams. The Brothers Karamazov was nearly as mystical as it was an excellent work of literary art. And no book ever has nor will do what LOTR did (it basically generated the fantasy genre, which now no book can do—and only rarely does a book create a genre, or even a subgenre). I’ve prayed rosaries through both those works. But CMC is, for all its interwoven subplots, more simple: it is a great story. Whereas LOTR endeavoured to be a mythology for England, and The Brothers Karamazov—although only intended as exposition for another book which Dostoevsky didn’t live to write—is basically the fiction version of an Orthodox mystical text, CMC seems like the fruit of Dumas’ thinking, ‘What if these terrible misfortunes happened to a good-natured man, and then these subsequent and great fortunes—what would happen? What would he do? And what would then happen?’* As had been told me before I read it, it is not—unlike the 2002 film version—a revenge story. It is a story about Divine Providence, humility, and hope. I don’t know that I’ve read another book which does such an excellent job expressing nuance in human affairs, particularly moral ones, while resting on a firmly Christian morality. That is to say, every character makes realistic, understandable, often pitiable choices, sometimes deliberately based on their moral understanding; yet none but God, the most active person in the whole story, does so without erring. The reader is free to judge, encouraged to empathise, and taught to hope without presumption or despair. While the themes are perhaps less varied than those of The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, or maybe LOTR, that is simply because all it endeavours to do is tell a good story about a man and his sorrows and hopes, relating a few deep themes. At least, that’s how it appeared to me. I don’t mean there aren’t many layers or themes one might notice (‘theme is pretty vague)—I mean I don’t think Dumas meant to deeply explore more than a few, and the story is much more of a plot-driven story than the character-driven Brokers Karamazov or Anna Karenina, or the mythological LOTR. 

Nonetheless, Dumas inserts many of his own little observations into the text, from distinguishing French versus Italian culture to commenting on how the conscience works, and how it might be thwarted. Below are some of my favourite quotes. All of the writing, however, is exquisite and lovely. 

‘The abbe smiled. “Alas, my boy,” said he, “human knowledge is confined within very narrow limits; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will know as much as I do myself. Now, it will scarcely require two years for me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess.”

“Two years!” exclaimed Dantes; “do you really believe I can acquire all these things in so short a time?”

“Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other.”

“But cannot one learn philosophy?”

“Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into heaven.”’

‘Moral wounds have this peculiarity – they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.’

‘For all evils there are two remedies – time and silence.’

A note on the translation/format. I listened to the audiobook as narrated by Bill Homewood. He is certainly one of the best narrators I’ve listened to, and I especially appreciated his pronouncing the names and place names with a French accent. I also bought a hard copy of the Penguin classics edition, since Robin Buss’ translation was said by Google (may it live forever) to be the best one. It may be so—my one month of self-taught French is of little help on the question. But I compared some of my favourite lines and found that I preferred the audiobook translation (I don’t know who translated it). The language was prettier and more lovely at times. For example, take this line, one of those quoted above, from the Robin Buss translation: ‘Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy. . . . Philosophy cannot be taught. Philosophy is the union of all acquired knowledge and the genius that applies it: philosophy is the shining cloud upon which Christ set His foot to go up into heaven.’ (p. 169) I simply find these sentences less pleasing and the syntax less poetic. 

I know on one occasion the Robin Buss translation expects you to understand a reference to Rousseau—though there is a footnote that explains it (the hard copy has several helpful footnotes)—while the version I listened to translated the heart of the message instead of the exact words. But I think the audiobook had similar allusions elsewhere that you were expected to know. It doesn’t bother me when books make allusions I don’t know—it just shows me what people, or at least the author, had read at the time it was written. 

There is a great difference (at least to me, seeing only the English) in a particular line at the end. In the audiobook, it reads: ‘I love you as my life. . . .’ In the Buss translation, it reads, ‘I love you as one loves life, and loves God. . . .’ I dislike the latter, since to me the speaker’s love seems idolatrous, that is disordered, when it is supposed to be admirable. But it does seem more accurate, since on gutenberg.org the French reads, ‘Je t’aime comme on aime sa vie, comme on aime son Dieu. . . .’ Perhaps I am just reading it in a scrupulous light? Perhaps the translator of which version I listened to accounted for the fact that in the same sentence the speaker refers to the beloved as one wonderful among ‘created beings’ (‘des êtres créés’—the phrase ‘created beings’ occurs in both English translations). So perhaps the audiobook’s translator omitted the phrase about God since he knew modern readers would misunderstand it. Or maybe it was supposed to be more figurative, whereas I read things literally, and the translator omitted it for the same reason. One of the reasons I love books like this is that they help me combat my scrupulosity. Characters acquire virtue so humanly, so gradually. While prayer (i.e. meditation and eventually contemplation) is necessary for the theological virtues to grow, I think some people used to practise it without knowing it—by spending time alone with the Alone, and thinking on the things that mattered by reflecting, introspecting, and resolving with the help of Grace to do better (so St. Thérèse de Lisieux first learned to meditate). Moreover, anyone can acquire the cardinal virtues. I attempt these virtues, but I overthink, and thus appreciate the simplicity of characters like Haydée. So, this weakness of mine owned, perhaps I am misreading the aforementioned line with a scrupulous mind. It’s an important and beautiful part of the book, so I would like that love to be pure and not disordered. However, given that at least three characters in the book (this line’s speaker included) say they would die if they lost their love, I guess it is quite possible that the speaker does love their beau as one ‘loves God,’ that is in a disordered way. I remain unsure, but still prefer the translation I listened to. Either way, this isn’t a critique of the book, because as I have said, I love that the protagonists are striving for virtue, yet so humanly, that is weakly and imperfectly. And in the end, it is clear in Dumas’ work that Divine Providence works supremely and uninhibitedly through weakness—even moral weakness. 

*My dad was telling me that the story of Alexandre Dumas’ own father was part of the inspiration for the book.