![]() Politics, sex, economic status, and more determine the weight of a person’s opinion. Who is right and who is wrong? It depends who you ask, and when. It is that, but it also explores perspective in interesting ways. When I first read this book, I thought it was a fun revenge story. Reading a pro-Napoleon book is especially funny after War and Peace, which mocked him mercilessly. I knew he was divisive, but I thought that the general consensus was Napoleon=bad. Side note: it’s very weird to read a novel that’s so unabashedly pro-Napoleon. Fortunes are made and broken by these swift political swaps Villefort, arguably the smartest character in the novel aside from Monte Cristo, is one of the few who is able to manipulate the system enough to stay on top despite the regime. When Napoleon falls again a short time afterward, hopes of freeing Dantés-who is once again guilty-vanish. His friends, who are Bonapartists, apply for his freedom but are sidestepped by Villefort, one of Dantés’ enemies, who wants Dantés to stay in prison for personal reasons. What follows is a section of the novel that bored me somewhat when I first read it eight years ago but which fascinates me now: Napoleon briefly comes back into power and thus Dantés-who was arrested by royalists for plotting against them-transforms from traitor to patriot. He was doing so at the bequest of his dying captain, and would have been an accessory to Napoleon’s attempt at a takeover if he had not been intercepted and arrested. In short, Dantés collects a letter from the exiled Napoleon and intends to deliver it to a Bonapartist. That doesn’t change the fact that his enemies had him arrested for personal gain rather than a sense of justice, but it puts an interesting wrinkle in something that might otherwise been clean-cut good vs. ![]() He didn’t know what he was doing, and he was doing it out of respect to a dead man, but he definitely did it. The truth, though, is that Dantés 100% did what he was accused and arrested for. I had remembered Dantés as having been arrested for a crime he did not commit, and indeed many summaries describe the novel in those terms. One of the most interesting things about rereading The Count of Monte Cristo as an adult-rather than as a teenager-is that this time I was more able to follow the nuance of the political climate. When he emerges, Dantés takes on the persona of the wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo and vows vengeance on the men who put him in prison for their own gain and made their fortunes from his torment. On the day he seems poised for perfect happiness-he has been promised captaincy of his ship and is engaged to marry the love of his life-sailor Edmond Dantés is arrested for conspiracy and thrown into prison for fourteen years. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is one of my favorite classic novels, but I had only read it once, many years ago, so I figured it was overripe for a reread.
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