
The Count of Monte Cristo
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On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond Dantès is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape and extraordinary revenge.
Of all the "masked avengers" and "caped crusaders" in literature, The Count of Monte Cristo is at once the most daring and the most vulnerable. Alexandre Dumas (père), master storyteller, takes us on a journey of adventure, romance, intrigue, and ultimately, redemption.
- Listening Length52 hours and 41 minutes
- Audible release dateAugust 4, 2011
- LanguageEnglish
- ASINB005GG1APM
- VersionUnabridged
- Program TypeAudiobook
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Product details
Listening Length | 52 hours and 41 minutes |
---|---|
Author | Alexandre Dumas |
Narrator | Bill Homewood |
Whispersync for Voice | Ready |
Audible.com Release Date | August 04, 2011 |
Publisher | Naxos AudioBooks |
Program Type | Audiobook |
Version | Unabridged |
Language | English |
ASIN | B005GG1APM |
Best Sellers Rank | #5,208 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #1 in 19th Century Literary Criticism (Books) #3 in French Literary Criticism (Books) #5 in European Literature (Audible Books & Originals) |
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Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2020
Top reviews from the United States
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Here are a couple of my favorite "translations" from French to English:
PRICEY - as in "Hello my pricey Father"...word that should have been used: TREASURED
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or USA as in "I'm having a party at my United States of America home in the South of France."...word that should have been used: COUNTRY
CANDY - as in "She had such a candy face."...word that should have been used: SWEET
HOMOSEXUAL - "All of the ladies at the party were happy and homosexual."....word that should have been used: GAY
INTERNATIONAL - "What in the international is going on?"...word that should have been used: WORLD
PHOTOGRAPH - "Why do you photograph such a gloomy future."...word that should have been used: PICTURE
DOMESTIC - "Welcome to my domestic"...word that should have been used: HOME
...and so many more!
Once again...so BAD! Penguin Reader should be embarrassed!...but, if you are up for a challenge and possibly a laugh...go for it.

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2020
Here are a couple of my favorite "translations" from French to English:
PRICEY - as in "Hello my pricey Father"...word that should have been used: TREASURED
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA or USA as in "I'm having a party at my United States of America home in the South of France."...word that should have been used: COUNTRY
CANDY - as in "She had such a candy face."...word that should have been used: SWEET
HOMOSEXUAL - "All of the ladies at the party were happy and homosexual."....word that should have been used: GAY
INTERNATIONAL - "What in the international is going on?"...word that should have been used: WORLD
PHOTOGRAPH - "Why do you photograph such a gloomy future."...word that should have been used: PICTURE
DOMESTIC - "Welcome to my domestic"...word that should have been used: HOME
...and so many more!
Once again...so BAD! Penguin Reader should be embarrassed!...but, if you are up for a challenge and possibly a laugh...go for it.


Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2017







Additionally, this guy has terrible accents. He tries to give different voices to the different characters and it really just sounds like he's having a stroke.
If I had read this and then seen the movie, I'm certain my enjoyment of it would have been ruined due to the knowledge of the original story; I'm glad it was the other way around as it was easier to rid my mind early of the on-screen imagery and get lost in this elaborate tale of the true Count of Monte Cristo.
I didn’t start skimming until the last 5%, after all the long plots of revenge had come to a tumultuous head. At face value, this revenge story seems like one I’ve seen before in countless Hollywood action films where the hero gets stabbed in the back and thrown to the wolves, only to return leading the pack. Yet, it’s not quite that way. This story really had a stark level of uniqueness to it, especially some of those prison scenes. Without any excessive torture or horror shots, Dumas captured Dantes’ terrible situation in gripping detail. I really have to hand it to him again.
Yet, that being said, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recommend this book to anyone. It’s a long journey, not to be taken lightly, and the payoff is bitter sweet at best. It leaves you wondering at what point does revenge turn a hero into a villain.
What a very wonderful and captivating adventure in Rome and Paris in the 1800s.
Thank you, Alexandre
Top reviews from other countries

There's no need to cherry pick examples so I'll simply take the first paragraph. See for yourself. Here is what this version offers:
"One the twenty fourth of February, 1815, the appearance-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the 3-grasp, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As standard, a pilot do away with without delay, and rounding the Chateau d'If, were given on board the vessel among Cape Morgiou and Rion island."
Compare this to the penguin classics version of the first paragraph:
"On February 24, 1815, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the arrival of the three-master Pharaon, coming from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples. As usual, a coastal pilot immediately left the port, sailed hard by the Chateau d'If, and boarded the ship between the Cap de Morgiou and the island of Riou."
Do what you will with those examples.


Chapter 117, The Fifth of October, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
As you may remember, I made a decision a little while ago to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of classical literature by actually reading some. I know. Such a rebel. This was, as ever, in the hopes that I would recognise obscure quotes and oblique references in the course of the sorts of run-of-the-mill, intellectual conversations I plan to have as I approach my middle years. I am not entirely without understanding. Thanks to a childhood in the nineteen-eighties, I am an aficionado of film, television and pop culture. All of which have, in their way, exposed my brain to all manner of literary giants with sneaky jokes and asides. So as much as I might recognise a quote and even know where it’s from, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve read the book. Hence this quest.
All of this is really just to introduce myself. Apologies for that.
I remembered a film I’d watched years ago and felt certain it was based on something literarily magnificent but I couldn’t remember the title, the author or anyone who’d appeared in the adaptation I barely recalled. So far, so good. I had a vague recollection of the plot, so I headed on over to Google.
“Book Frenchman convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, escapes from prison and claims vengeance.”
And good old Google came back with: “The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.”
Pretty certain I already knew that, at least deep down where I need not produce proof, I went straight to Amazon.
I found the ebook advertised with a price of practically nothing and a page count of 486. I know how fast I read. Although, no doubt, a sophisticated story, translated from the original French (I would struggle to read a menu in the original French - it’s something I plan to work on next year), with possibly loftier language than might be found in the more modern novel, I reckoned I could finish it in four or five days. A promising start to 2022 and a thundering classic to tick off my list - I was well pleased.
As an ebook, of course, the number of times you tap to turn that page doesn’t necessarily correlate with the number of pages in the physical book. This is due to print size, screen size and technological whatnot I can’t begin to understand. But I was surprised, after twelve or so taps of the screen, to find myself still at 0%.
Back to Google: How many pages in The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged)?
Oh, Amazon. How my heart shook. Even at 0%, I was loving the story - vast and operatic and sitting-in-the-firelight as it is - but 486 pages it is not. Not even close, actually.
Of course, there are probably a good number of English translations out there, but I suspect they’re all in ballpark of each other for length and according to Google, that’s 1297 pages long. My 4-5 day read had suddenly swelled into two weeks, without interruption, which is asking a lot in a house full of dogs.
It’s lucky I’m not the only person in the house because I’ve barely looked up from my phone in the past fortnight. My eyes have become bloodshot and watery, caused solely (I suspect) by the hours spent staring at the screen. I have thought of little else.
So, the story follows Edmond Dantes, a successful young sailor and the beloved of the beautiful and adored Mercedes. When popular Edmond returns home from the sea with the promise of promotion and engagement, he cannot know that three villains are plotting against him, planning to rob him of his destiny and throw him in a dungeon, alone, forsaken and forgotten.
And so, when, many years later, two of the baddies are wildly successful, living the high life in the upper echelons of society, and their co-conspirator, encouraging manipulator, is still a small rather pitiful figure, the villains are falling over themselves to meet the deathly pale but fabulously wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.
But after fourteen years imprisonment, and another ten seeking answers, treasure and himself, has Edmond left it too late to claim his revenge? And, if he gets it, will it really balance the scales?
For the most part, I felt like I was sitting in a wingback chair, by the fireside, being told the story by an avuncular (as we can see from the cover) high-cheekbones Frenchman with a bottle of brandy catching the light from the flames. The command over story and character exhibited by the author was powerful and assured.
There were some irritating moments. Spectacles, such as Paris at night, and various other majestic sights, were alluded to with expressions like - 'those who have seen [whatever it might be] will already know how glorious a sight it is’ - but those of us who haven’t are left waiting for a description that doesn’t come. There were a fair number of instances of feelings and impressions which were “impossible to describe” - which felt a little bit like a cop out.
People who don’t care for the opera often complain that there’ll be a bad guy on some nefarious rampage and it’ll turn out that it’s the town mayor, wearing a hat. The audience knows exactly who he is but his wife doesn’t, and that makes the suspension of disbelief more than a little tricky. Although I got a sense of that from time to time, the sub-plots and characterisations were so rich as to distract me from it almost immediately.
Although I found the character of Valentine just a little but too sweet for my tastes, I’m pretty sure Eugenie Danglars is my kind of girl. Avoiding marriage to run off with a lady musician sounds about right to me.
Unfortunately, this translation uses the word ‘his’ in place of ‘has’ a fair number of times, a couple of instances of ‘be’ that should have been ‘he’ - but I think I’ve found the origin of the phrase “folded his arms over his chest”, a phrase that seems favoured by USA Today Bestselling, and other American, authors (8% in, Chapter 11, The Corsican Ogre, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas).
An incredible story, beautifully told, but make sure you have a couple of weeks free from drama to read it.

Edmond Dantes is young, idealistic, honest and has the world at his feet. A sailor, he returns from a trip having taken over from the captain who died en route. Set to inherit the captaincy, an impressive feat for one so young, Dantes has agreed to deliver a letter, granting his old captains dying wish. However, unaware of the incendiary nature of the letter, he unwittingly opens the door for his enemies to strike.
Dantes finds himself unjustly imprisoned, the proverbial key thrown away, and in the depths of despair he meets another prisoner who transforms his life. When Dantes eventually finds his way out of prison, we meet him in several guises, including as the titular Count, a hugely wealthy, altruistic and mysterious foreigner who makes an impression on all of those he meets. As time passes, we see Monte Cristo/Dantes plans take shape, but there are unexpected consequences that he must live with.
The book is rather long, but it is well worth it. There is a wide cast of characters created with depth, the locations and events are beautifully described, and the themes of justice, hope and despair are evident throughout. There are occasional clichéd moments where the good characters are portrayed as saints, but that's my only quibble. The historical background is nicely woven in, giving a sense of purpose and reason as to why the story unfolds as it does.
Overall, I cannot recommend this enough - 100% worth your time. I saved this for a holiday, starting it on a long flight, and then dipping in when there was time to relax on the beach. Absolutely a classic.

The book is set in France during the post-Napoleonic era. It is a very long book (took me months to read it!) so careful reading and concentration is needed to get your head round the events on how Dantes comes to be incarcerated into Chateau D'If, and also to understand the significance of Napolean's exile. On the face of it, as the story unfolds, certain parts of it may appear to be frustrating, even far-fetched (I couldn't believe how Dantes came to be thrown in jail in the first place when there was no clear evidence against him, but I suppose back then they didn't bother about such trivialities), and some of the dialogue is very long and drawn out, bordering on the tedious. I found myself having to re-read paragraphs I didn't quite understand or which I missed the point of. I'm not sure if that was because much had been lost in translation or if Dumas wanted everything to be explained. There are also a lot of characters in the book to contend with.
That said, for me personally it's the theme of revenge that gives the book five stars: injustice to despair, from despair to hope, from hope to vengence. Nothing could be more satisfying than that.