Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo

By Alexandre Dumas

Set against the turbulent years of the Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure story is one of the most widely read romantic novels of all time. In it the dashing young hero, Edmond Dantès, is betrayed by his enemies and thrown into a secret dungeon in the Chateau d'If — doomed to spend his life in a dank prison cell. The story of his long, intolerable years in captivity, his miraculous escape, and his carefully wrought revenge creates a dramatic tale of mystery and intrigue and paints a vision of France — a dazzling, dueling, exuberant France — that has become immortal.

This was the only book on the list that I've read before, because the prompt explicitly required it.  Although I have other, shorter, favorite books, I'd happened to have recently re-read those when the list came out, and I knew I'd have two weeks traveling that I could spend on a nice thick doorstopper.  I've read Count a few times already, and I was really looking forward to re-reading it.  Well, this time, I got five chapters in and had to put it away.  Even though I knew what was coming, and it wasn't a surprise in any way, for some reason the destruction of all of Edmond's hopes on his wedding day just really upset me.  I had to switch to Sherlock Holmes for a few days before I had the strength to continue.

I know this sounds incredibly snotty, but I do get new things out of it every time I re-read it.  Partly because it's so fucking long, there's probably like whole pages I've skipped and never noticed.  Last time I remember thinking that we spent a lot of time going over Benedetto's storyline, which I barely noticed this time around.  This reading had me way focused on the Count's bizarre belief that God was guiding him (because God loves REVENGE too? Actually it probably does) and this whole thing he had about people "deserving" happiness, depending on whether they had suffered a lot.  Also, my perennial gripe about how long we spend on Albert and Franz and the Rome saga, which I ALWAYS find boring and out of place, as a very long meander through a (frankly uninteresting) side character's perspective.  Come on, we have REVENGE waiting!

I also ended up re-watching the 2002 movie version, which does a yeoman's job compressing a thousand page book into a comprehensible two and a half hour movie, and ends up squashing the Haydee, Mercedes, and Albert stories, so Haydee disappears, Albert becomes the Count's biological son and Mercedes reunites with the Count, with all three sailing off into the sunset.  A dramatic departure, but on the extras the director is like, "I stand by that.  It's the only way the story even makes sense" and I kind of get where he's coming from.  As nice as it is to see the wicked punished, and as necessary as it may be for the Count to realize that the innocent by proximity, have also been punished in his mad schemes, it feels oddly unsatisfying for Mercedes (by all accounts a real stand up woman) to end her days poor and living off whatever money her son makes as a soldier (and what kind of future would the son of a now infamous traitor have in the army anyway?).  And the last scene we have with Mercedes we leave on a weird, uncertain note, basically - she won't accept help, so who knows how she'll live!

Maybe I'm softening in my old age.  Although maybe not, because I definitely forgot how Danglars' story ended and when I got to it, I was like, "This is it?! He keeps $50,000 livres and goes on his merry way?? This is bull#$%!" For real though, what the fuck.  Danglars basically engineered the whole damn thing, and he has no conscience, so appealing to one is a wasted effort.  I think the Count just ran out of steam there.  To be fair, Villefort's madness would leave a real bad taste in your mouth, but again, nothing that happened to these people was anything other than the result of their own evils, all brought home to roost. Yes, they could have lived undamaged lives if not for the Count, but simply because you are not caught being bad does not make you a good person.

 I also was paying much closer attention to the lesbian storyline this time around because last time I was kind of like, "Huh, that's kind of gay" and this time, I was like, "I'm pretty sure Dumas knew what the fuck he was doing with those two women."  If not, then, I mean, he's really good at writing lesbians accidentally.  

I read this while sailing around Greenland, which was great, because I had both plenty of time, and also (as a book I'd previously read) not so much invested in it that I wasn't able to do other things on the ship.  Honestly, I said I always get new things out of it each time I read it, but I keep re-reading it because I get the same things out of it too: entertainment, drama, REVENGE, guilt, sorrow, love, and epic-ness.  Whatever else Dumas may have been, he was a hell of a story-teller. 


07: A Re-read Of A Favorite Book

Treasure Island

Treasure  Island

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The classic adventure tale of buried treasure and pirates, young Jim Hawkins becomes involved in a search for the lost treasure of legendary pirate Captain Flint.  He sails to Treasure Island only to discover the ship's crew is planning to mutiny and kill their passengers after the treasure is found, and his life will depend not only on his own quick wits, but on the uncertain benevolence of Long John Silver, leader of the mutineers.

Despite this book being a classic in just about every sense of the word, I realized very early on that the only thing I knew about it was that the main character was a young child, and there was a bad pirate called Long John Silver who kinda, like, took the kid on an adventure??? In hindsight, I'm pretty sure most of my impressions were generated by Muppet Treasure Island (and like, Swiss Family Robinson, which also involves children and pirates) - which was somewhat problematic, since I've never even seen Muppet Treasure Island.   But I definitely got the idea this was a kids book.  I mean, it was a Disney movie! Uh, sure, like a pirate kids version of And Then There Were None.  As Jim says at end, of their fully staffed ship, only five people made it out alive.   Jim is almost murdered multiple times (although he fears the torture worse) and ends up shooting and killing another pirate.  I'm just saying, at no point did I have any idea of what to expect.

In fact, despite the popular idea that this is a kids book, perhaps because the narrator is a child, and it's short, honestly, it didn't feel very child-like.  I also struggled with the whole intro, in which we meet a variety of pirates whose relationship to each other was less important for Stevenson to describe, than the ominous signs and portents and chills which accompany their actions.  So, I guess I'm pretty sure that the pirate at the beginning was Flint's first mate (we never meet Flint, but everybody talks about him all the time) and had the treasure map, but just wanted... to retire in poverty?  It's unclear to me why he's just camped out at the hotel basically waiting for the other pirates to track him down, but you do you, as the kids say.

Then there's like, Blind Pew and his gang, who are somehow affiliated with Long John and his gang, although they never appear together in the book.  Or maybe they're competing pirate gangs?  All I know is, we meet a whole bunch of pirates in the first fifty pages that never appear again and aren't, actually, relevant to the main story.  Well, I guess they add spice.  And for some reason, Jim and his mom just give the map to the local squire? And then the squire decides Jim will be going on this trip and we never hear about his mother again (except that before they depart, Jim can spend one more night with her - like, was this childcare in the 1800s? Good lord).

And THEN! I was delighted to find out Long John Silver was hired as the cook! Amazing!  It makes the chain restaurant so much more apt!  Other things I was surprised by: the fact that Long John is both a mutineer and like, a triple agent! He actually is the only "good" pirate, even though he's the one that lead the mutiny. And they're more concerned about getting off the island alive than they are in looking for treasure (which does make sense).

Treasure Island has a lot of dialect, and also some like, 1880s sea-faring slang, which makes whole pages at times incomprehensible. In fact, I found the story better when there was less dialogue.  Its beginnings as an action serial are clear.

I will add just as a final note, that having just sailed on a masted schooner, I have no further insights on Treasure Island except to say that the experience is the opposite of restful, such that I had like, waking night terrors for four days following my sail, thinking that I was still rocking gently on the boat and also had no idea where I was.  Maybe that's just me. However, I can certainly understand the desire to mutiny, if only to claim better sleeping quarters.

I had a tough time with this prompt, since "celebrity" and "admire" don't really go hand in hand.  But in addition to the recommendation, I happened to have a very handsome set of adventure stories which I bought two years ago and never opened, so this was the perfect opportunity.

28: A Book Recommended By A Celebrity You Admire 
(Barack Obama)

Blackfish City

Blackfish City

By Sam J. Miller

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.

When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.



Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.

There's something I just really enjoyed about this book - the vibe, the feel of it, the concept, the execution, whatever it was, I was just rapt from page 1. There are four narrators (for a little while, sorry, Fill!) but it maintains relatively confusion free, everything eventually coming together to solve the mystery of the woman with the orca, and the Breaks disease. It feels fresh and new in a way a lot of dystopian fiction doesn't (at least, YA fiction).  Some of that may be because of the setting, which allows Miller to completely invent the city and its social structures and strictures.  It's also a pretty fun revenge story, and those are generally a good time.  I like a good revenge story in fiction.  It gives you all the feels from punishing wrongdoers without actually having a mental breakdown and like, going after every person who has ever cut you off in traffic.  Revenge in real life is not nearly as awesome. 

The other thing I appreciated about this was how dark it was without actually being depressing.  Fill is murdered, the polar bear dies and it's presumed that Kaev will descend into madness again, the city is a mess, and we kind of leave our characters in a boat, on uncertain waters, but you do feel like it's possible for things to be okay.  I would be interested in spending more time in Qaanaaq (or the rest of the world) but it seems like it would be hard to duplicate the tension and sense of impending collision that marks Blackfish City.  Part of the book's strength is each character's internal narration and the sense of loss and loneliness that each has, which is both explained and solved by the end of the book. 

There's a lot about current social issues - otherism, disease, economic injustice, climate change, gender/sexuality - that does feel timely (and pointed).  It's not really a very subtle book, but honestly, how far have we gotten with subtle? There's a lot going on, and the tone of the book does change from the beginning (more of that internal struggle and place-setting) and the end (action action action), but that really didn't bother me the way it did other reviewers. 

Maybe I'm letting the novelty of it count for too much, but it weirdly reminded me of another dystopic masterpiece, the ineffable 17776.  Particularly with the Memory Map of Qaanaaq, and the feeling that of a very lived-in world, even if we only focus on a few people in it.  We're all bound together, let's try not to sink this ship.


37: A Book With A Two-Word Title

The Liar's Club

The Liar's Club

By Mary Karr

A trenchant memoir of a troubled American childhood from the child's point of view describes growing up in a an East Texas refinery town, life in the midst of a turbulent family of drunks and liars, a schoolyard rape, and other dark secrets.

I give it a big old Eh, or maybe a Meh.  I really struggled with this prompt, and eventually went with this one as it was just on a top fifty list of memoirs, and I agree the writing is nice, but it felt hazy, without a consistent through line.  We just wandered from anecdote to anecdote without saying anything.

I think there are definitely better memoirs out there - The Glass Castle is one of my favorites - and maybe this one just wasn't what I was in the mood for.  You do have to slow down for this one, try to savor the writing, because it is really very well written.  Karr is a poet, literally, and her memoir is like poetry too: beautifully written, with words that sound meaningful, but when you string them together it's more about a feeling than a scene. It sounds nice, but makes no sense. The Liar's Club just meandered almost unbearably, especially in the first section.

And I guess what I'm also struggling with is this weird juxtaposition of calling the book The Liar's Club, and seeing how much mental space her father takes up, but in actual practice it seems like her mother is really the figure that looms largest in her life, and in the book: from her mental breakdown, bringing her own mother home to die, leaving with the kids to Colorado and getting married multiple times, finally reconciling with her husband in Texas again, and this final revelation about her prior family and the loss of her first children  - I felt like this is the person who should have have the focus of the book trained on her.  Instead, she feels almost like a supporting character. 

Even though the author notes that she spoke with her mother on the subject and gave her the final book to read, there's no depth to her mother in The Liar's Club, she's just this opaque, semi-crazy out of control person - what on earth was she thinking for all of this?  Why was she making the choices she made? If you've got this resource, why not use it? Get into this woman who apparently was married off at fifteen but cared so much for her mother that she wouldn't evacuate from a hurricane.  The title feels misleading - Karr's father doesn't have half the mystery and allure that her mother has, for better or for worse (mostly worse).

And Karr herself, as a child of seven or eight, simply doesn't have any autonomy or direction apart from that her parents allow her.  While the things that happened to Karr (and the things that almost happened) are horrifying, I never feel like we get any better sense of why they're happening than Karr as a child did.  There is no clarity or knowledge that author Karr brings to her childhood confusion.

31: A Book About A Family

Salt to the Sea

Salt to the Sea

By Ruta Sepetys

Winter 1945. WWII. Four refugees. Four stories.

Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies, war. As thousands desperately flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom. But not all promises can be kept . .

I was under a mistaken impression of this book.  I thought it was going to be like All the Light We Cannot See, but it's actually marked "YA" and was very short and easy to read.  Not like, short-short, but all the chapters are like, two pages each.  There's a lot of blank space in the book.  I finished it in less than two hours.  Salt to the Sea takes the viewpoints of four characters: a fifteen year old pregnant Polish girl, a repatriating Lithuanian nurse, a Nazi forger fleeing with treasure, and a budding young sociopath.  

As children's books about WWII go, it's not really breaking much new ground in the ideas that war is hell, Nazis were awful, and crimes against humanity were committed on a massive scale.  Where it does excel is in covering a geographic area and event that doesn't get much press: the sinking (spoiler!) of the Wilhem Gustlof off the coast of what is now Poland. It also focuses more on the shrinking eastern front of the war, as the Russians approached, sowing devastation and rape indiscriminately on whichever women were in their path.  There's also no shying away from the mass rapes committed by the Russians in their march west, as it plays a vital role in Emilia's story.

We spend a lot of time with the refugees just trying to get on to the boat, and relatively little on board, which makes sense, since the ship's journey was only supposed to take two days, and they were sunk ten hours into the trip.  It's a fascinating and engrossing look at the event, but obviously a KYA book can't be all things at once: there's a lot of side plot about Florian stealing bits from the Amber Room which his Nazi mentor hid away, which adds more subplot about another WWII mystery that I don't think the book necessarily needs (especially as Sepetys' tying it in this way is complete speculation), and it cuts what is perhaps the saddest note about the sinking: because it carried some Nazi officials, the boat was not marked as a hospital ship, so under the "rules of war" (what an oxymoron) the sinking of thousands of refugees and civilians was not a war crime.  Not that I think that thousands of women and children fleeing an encroaching army should shield Nazis, but it's such an ironic and poignant detail, I'm sorry that Sepetys wasn't able to work it in somehow.

It's fairly well written, all the parts with Alfred made my skin crawl (intentionally so) although I did kind of love that Hannelore's last proclamation to him was her Jewishness, a last "Fuck you" to the ultimate fuckboy.  The multiple narrators actually worked well for this, as we got both a variety of viewpoints and didn't spend too much time on any one person. 


19: A Book Told From Multiple POVs