LMP 39 : Le comte de Monte-Cristo

Dear friends, it's been a few years since I've spoken to you about books in a more or less regular way, with enthusiasm, but... But well, sometimes I have a moment of silence. And at those moments, I look at the whole of this work and I wonder... What did it bring me? Does my work deserve to be reviewed? Is it only interesting? And above all, did I not waste a few billion hours in the abysses of time, precious hours, that I see fly away to never return? This question worries me. And then, I remember the motivation I felt at the start of each project, of this... Oh, but I want to make this book known to the world! Of the satisfaction of forgetting a certain thrill at the moment of clicking on the publish button. But above all, I tell myself that this time is not really gone, in fact. It is recorded, right there, in the form of a small audiovisual creation. Why am I telling you all this? Well... Because today we are going to talk about Monte Cristo, and that at the moment of starting the chronicle, I thought of all the wasted years of this poor Edmond. And the force of literature then operated. I thought about my own relation to time. We can therefore say that the tale of Monte Cristo worked on me even before I started telling you about it. Bravo, book! So, the tale of Monte Cristo is a book written in 1844, in the form of a feuilleton novel, by Alexandre Dumas, an author whom I had already mentioned all my admiration, and there are many battles of the countries. The book tells us the story of Edmond Dantes, a young sailor on the point of marrying the beautiful Mercedes. But it is without counting the jealousy of the town of Fernand de Mondego, the greed of Danglars and the ambitions of Gérard de Villefort. Following false accusations, Edmond is arrested on the day of his marriage and taken to a prison on the island of If. The years pass, and he ends up meeting Abbot Faria, with whom he will ambition the project of escaping from Cellule. Unfortunately, the Abbot will die before the realization of this nice project, not without revealing to Edmond the hiding place of an inestimable treasure on the island of Monte Cristo. Edmond flees, finds the treasure, and then becomes the Count of Monte Cristo, ready to take revenge on his enemies. A revenge that... I don't know, it bothers me a little. So, of course, at the reading of the first part, I feel a strong feeling of injustice in favor of Edmond, and I hope to see him find his enemies and make them pay for their lowness. But it is obviously my low instincts that are expressed here, and Edmond has long years to think about his revenge. A revenge that will be all the more slow and cruel. And in the second part of the book, my desire for revenge slowly nuisances me. I want the characters to suffer, then to pay, then for Monte Cristo to simply move on to something else. It is that, through their disagreements, I begin to have a certain empathy towards the opponents of Monte Cristo. And I think this empathy is produced by an effective combination of three elements that give all the personality to the book. First of all, well, it's long. Monte Cristo is more than a thousand pages, a thousand pages during which we follow our characters and the hatred we feel at the beginning towards my ego. It will tend to fade away. But not in the blink of an eye, no. It's really an eternal haze. The length of the reading directly influences our feelings towards the characters. Then, Monte Cristo is... rather sadistic. His plans of revenge go far and destroy little by little each of his opponents, leading them to madness, even to death. This sadistic aspect is also assumed through the regularly made distinction between Edmond Dantes, the honest sailor, and Monte Cristo, the heartless man. These moments are still reinforced during the discussions between Monte Cristo and Mercedes. This one is very troubled by what Edmond has become. In fact, if Edmond Dantes has all the traits to be a hero, the tale of Monte Cristo, by its dubious morality, is an anti-hero. So it is sometimes rather difficult to attach ourselves to him. Third and last point, a little special because it may be more personal. Monte Cristo has an almost divine power. He knows pretty much everything, his plans always go as he wishes, he always has an advance, he adapts to all situations. This status is even assumed by the book. Several times, Monte Cristo compares himself to God, and he justifies himself in this way. The justice of men being corrupted, since it sent him to crawl at the bottom of the Diff castle, he then makes himself the armed arm of divine justice to punish his enemies who have all benefited from a high social rank. Even though they are scoundrels. So here is a Monte Cristo who seems to be able to do everything thanks to his money, and to justify everything thanks to his status of victim. And me, I don't really like what is perfect, so I throw the little grain of sand that will derail the well-oiled wheels of this vengeful enterprise. Because in the meantime, Monte Cristo is never really put in danger. We never really try to counter it. And me, well, it frustrates me. And it may be my big reproach to the book. Everything is going too well for Monte Cristo, to the point that his second part lacks stakes. So of course, at some rare moments, he is vaguely put in difficulty, especially when he is confronted with Mercedes. But you have to wait for the last chapters to finally see the situation escape him, and that he puts his acts in question again. So it's still a little thin. These are, in my opinion, the three elements that make me feel empathy for Monte Cristo's opponents. And that's why I personally find the book quite fascinating. By making us follow this anti-hero, this adventure offers a lot of moments of discomfort. We don't know if we support or not the acts of the character. To see him do justice, we sometimes almost prefer injustice. So here is my interpretation. Monte Cristo constantly justifies his acts in the name of divine justice. However, this justice involves the misfortunes of other innocents. Monte Cristo shows us that although human justice is imperfect, because it sent it to the hole on the basis of false accusations, our personal conception of justice is ultimately also... well, human and imperfect. Impossible to fully master, and even less to draw intelligible outlines. In fact, Monte Cristo's justice, well, it's a revenge. Monte Cristo is therefore a book that plays with the concept of justice, while highlighting its boundaries. Justice itself can be unfair. The book shows us this on several occasions, and even at a meta level, since today, this classic is still known as the work of Alexandre Dumas, unjustly eclipsing the work of Auguste Maquet. That's how this book resonated in me, and I think it's still a very personal interpretation. Because I have trouble wanting to hurt people. I don't like that, evil, so I never really wish it on anyone. Except you, Danglars. You, I love you, but I hate you! You bastard!