If there is one novel that I would want to call an example of what can be called ‘The Novel’, it is The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a monumental novel, a novel par excellence, an extraordinary accomplishment, a tour-de-force. Wiki tells us that at the time of its publication, the novel was a rage across Europe, the veritable talk of the town. People waited eagerly for the serial and devoured this classic tale of vengeance and retribution. Gabriel Marquez calls it his favorite novel.
I have completed my first reading of an unabridged version of this novel. I was familiar with the story, having read several precise versions earlier and also watched movies based on the novel. But this reading of the complete version reveals to me the scale and canvas of this novel, the brilliance of Alexandre Dumas as he orchestrates the characters, the setting, the drama, the dialogue, the intense thrill and excitement that permeates every page of this novel.
Edmond Dantes, aka the Count of Monte Cristo, aka Lord Wilmore, aka Abbé Busoni, sums up human wisdom in two words: ‘wait and hope’. For a person who plummets to the caverns of abject misery and rises to the heights of dreadful revenge, who has seen the intoxicating mirth of fleeting happiness at the time of his betrothal to his beloved Mercedes and the heartrending despondency in the ballistic precincts of the Château d’If, Dantes has seen it all. His life is a kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions; he can be a benevolent angel doling out rewards and riches and also a tyrannical judge inflicting retribution with Satanic wrath. But is he not human? No and yes. Fate and destiny have hardened him, stonewalling the effusion of mercy from his heart. But the love of youth, sincere passion from Haydee, Morrel, Noirtier, Valentine, Emmanuel, Julia and his trusted servants rekindle the warmth and mercy iced by years of dark vengeance.
One feels for Edmond Dantes when he is incriminated and suffers by the intrigue of his friends. His years of suffering inside the Château d’If, a prison from which there is no return, is the point at which he decides that the vilifiers should suffer. His inheritance of the treasure marked by Abbé Faria is the novel’s biggest turning point. From thence he assumes the power that he needs to make his villains suffer. Just like the God Father, he can make them suffer by making an offer which they cannot refuse. In the avatar of the Count, he is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent savior and wrecking angel. In a way, it is a novel of suffering, as the outcome of a foul deed results in many more, coming back to haunt the perpetrators.
“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.”
A medieval novel: the novel bridges the medieval and the modern. It has the free-flowing spirit of adventure and wonder that resonates with the medieval and also the beginning of events which are characteristically modern, like the Telegraph, the Railways and the founding of the United States. The mention of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Jacobins and the Royalists adds a historical perspective to the novel. There is a multitude of characters in the novel, created and groomed with deftness and vigour. The setting is Marseilles, Paris and Rome and the Island of Monte Cristo, and Dumas portrays the whims, fancies, manners and etiquette of these cities, examining their preoccupation with wealth, money and riches. Indeed, it is with the help of money and by exploiting their innate greed that Dantes is able to wreck Caderousse, Fernand and Danglars. Villefort is crushed because of his vanity and predilection towards status, rank, position and hierarchical precedence.
The revenge of the Count of Monte Cristo is not blatant or direct. He can wait for years — he waits for ten years after his escape from prison — to carry out his iron will. When he strikes, he strikes at their heart, stripping them of their dignity, status, fame and existence. Count Morcerf, Fernand, kills himself; Villefort, after the death of Madame Villefort and his son, becomes a lunatic; Danglars, broke and bankrupt, becomes decrepit and devastated. His task has been accomplished and Edmond Dantes sails away with Haydee.
Justice has been served. As it is said, those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. As the Count of Monte Cristo vanishes into the high seas, leaving Valentine and Morrel behind, the reader stands transfixed by the magnetic power of this polyphonic novel.