The Count of Monte Cristo

My novel that I am currently reading is The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. The novel was written two hundred years ago, and is set in post-Napoleonic France. The story started out slowly, laying out exposition about how great a person Edmond Dantes, the protagonist, is, and how many of his peers are jealous of his good fortune, only for Dantes to be sent to prison. Dantes promptly breaks out of prison, discovers an enormous fortune, and adopts the identity of The Count of Monte Cristo. All of this, the back of the book could tell you.

The story centers around Dantes, but it seems more like there are two main characters. Edmond Dantes is naive and believes the best of everyone, quick but not educated. Then, after the events listed above, he is practically replaced. Instead, the mysterious, powerful, wise Count has taken his role. No one recognizes him, and he is practically a new character. On one hand, this is a welcome relief from the slightly two-dimensional character of Dantes, but one almost feels Dumas is setting up a plot twist. At the same time, the story is, if not full of action, at least constantly moving, with plenty of murders, vendettas, bandits, kidnappings, and intrigue to keep the plot going.

The author's characterization of people, relying on sharp contrasts and descriptions through dialogue, creates very interesting characters. On one hand, one can name a character and immediately think of a defining characteristic. Yet the characters rarely move beyond that. Even our protagonist, Dantes, is infrequently characterized beyond what he begins as, and when he becomes the Count, it feels like a tectonic shift, character-wise.

Easily, I can compare this book to Les Miserables, another story which I read last year. On the surface, both are quite similar. Both concern a Frenchman in the early 19th century who is injustly imprisoned, and both have an inordinately long length. If one compares the two, there are significant differences. Les Miserables was essentially a character-driven story, its plot consisting of the emotional conflicts of its protagonists and antagonists, and the actions by which these conflicts were displayed. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very different novel, in that it, for better or for worse, tells much less about a character, even as the characters do more. Comparing Edmond Dantes and Jean Valjean is ridiculous; they begin similarly, but soon diverge into completely different plotllines.

For a creative project, since very few guidelines have been given at this point, I am still slightly lost. Still I think it would be interesting to write a piece of music consisting of themes for the main characters. I have already composed enough music to believe that I could accomplish this, and given my lack of artistic abilities, it would be the highest quality product I could produce. In order to make the piece more understandable, I would include annotations so that a listener could understand when the piece changes.


Thanks for reading
                             -Sherwin