This is what life, and therefore the novel, should be. This exact thing. If it weren't for...air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and modern medicine, I would fervently wish to live in this time period. Dumas covers pretty much all relevant themes: love, hate, loss, God, revenge, war, forgiveness, honor. And you never feel like you're trudging through an epic. That's the one problem I had with War and Peace; the historical bits seem so out of place. But Dumas weaves history in so perfectly. The characters are deeply developed, as are the themes. This is actually a very Christian book, with a very Christian message...similar to War and Peace, and not just because it's long. ( )

The Count of Monte Cristo is the tale of Edmond Dantès, a young man facing a bright future. Even though he is barely twenty, the young sailor is looking forward to rapid promotion in his job and a joyous marriage to the love of his life. Unfortunately Edmond has rivals for each and these men conspire to get him out of the way. Through their actions, Edmond is falsely accused of conspiracy and imprisoned. Years pass and life passes Edmond by. Eventually people assume that he is dead. The truth however, is that Edmond eventually escapes imprisonment and finds the means in which to prepare an elaborate revenge. Upon a second reading, it occurred to me that this really is a big, fat, honkin' melodrama that really doesn't offer deep insights into the human condition. But, oh, what fun! I truly enjoyed the story, though it was a bit disillusioning to discover that Batman, the Shadow and Captain Christopher Pike weren't quite as original as I thought.
--J. ( )

This is one of my most favorite books! Edmond Dantes, a young sailor from Marseilles is betrayed by his "friend" Fernand Mondego and is incarcerated (with his under handed help) in Chateau d'If, a cruel prison not fit for animals. While there, Edmond makes friends with Abbe Farrira who mentors him, teaches him and helps him thrive against the harshness of the prison. It is a story that makes one see survival is possible against the harshest of circumstances. His prison friend Abbe dies in prison, but before his death, he tells Edmond where to find a vast treasure. Edmond makes a successful daring escape, recovers the treasure and sets on a course of revenge only to realize in the end what is most important. ( )

Wonderful story of betrayal, determination and revenge. I was surprised by the ending.

Absolutely loved this book. It is very different from the movie version I saw.

A masterpiece of revenge, adventure and destiny; if it were to be compared to a painting it would be sort that despite filling a whole wall managed to contain as much detail per inch as a good painting of ordinary dimensions. The eleven hundred plus pages that make up this novel are not superfluous, and like the expansive fresco it is difficult to appreciate the brilliance of the whole and the individual brush stroke equally and at the same time, the problem being that if one is engrossed in each page as it comes, it becomes easy to lose track of the pages left behind, and due to character names changing, diligence must be applied to appreciate the significance of events that play out decades after their cause.
I have read novels recently, and over the years, that despite being excellent otherwise, simply do not satisfy, I am left wondering why things were not resolved, not put right, and questioning the point of any of it, but here I could not help but feeling almost complete satisfaction. The wrongdoers are made to regret their actions, those wronged return to happiness, justice and noble sentiments abound. Aside from that, the novel contains plenty of the things that make a story exciting: smugglers, ships, duels, murders, betrayal, buried treasure, poison, plots, love, and hatred – all the classic ingredients. ( )