“Ideas don’t die, sometimes they sleep and then wake up stronger than before.”
A well-known book, its fame is directly proportional to the number of people who have actually read it from cover to cover. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that prompted us to re-read this classic.
The protagonist is Edmond Dantès, a very young sailor who is unjustly imprisoned on the eve of his promotion to captain of a ship and his wedding to his beloved Mercedes; a victim primarily of human envy. Fourteen years of detention in the dungeons of the Château d’If will bring him into contact with another prisoner, the Abbé Faria, who somehow becomes his tutor and gives him the keys to a real treasure. Once he escapes from prison and takes possession of the treasure, Dantès can carry out his plan of revenge against those who betrayed him.
Is this how Dumas père’s work is summarized? No, because knowing the plot alone doesn’t do justice to the emotions it captures: filial love, gratitude, betrayal, abuse, stubbornness, and the sense of good above all else. An unfiltered instruction manual on human nature, perfect like few others.
Born as a serial novel (published between 1844 and 1846), a classic for its time, the text’s structure reflects its strengths (such as the perfect socio-historical overview of the period) and its weaknesses, as evidenced by the text’s many inconsistencies. Personally, we greatly appreciated the author’s knowledge of the places he describes, the geographical distances and territories not only in France but also in Italy, right down to the descriptions of the Roman countryside and Ciociaria, which suggest that the author actually lived in those places for many years.
We recommend reading it, or rereading it, first when young to understand human souls before entering adulthood, and then as adults, to appreciate some of the nuances that only the wisdom of years can make visible to the eyes.
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Alexandre Dumas, Il conte di Montecristo, Rizzoli, Milano, 2013
Original edition: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Journal des débats, Paris, 1844 -1846