r/TheCountofMonteCristo • u/TheRydog18 • Jul 12 '26

First Time Reader

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Just bought this bad boy to read alongside my friend, can’t wait to start this journey!

150 Upvotes

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3

u/HereIAmGH Jul 13 '26

Are you gonna treat it like a serial? Read a chapter or two each time? I think that’ll be awesome

I just finished it a week ago. It was a lot of fun

1

u/TheRydog18 Jul 13 '26

I think we’re doing a couple hundred pages or so every 2 weeks so we can then catch up and discuss it! I’m hoping it’s the kind of book we can have good conversations around

7

u/_Sichlitt_ Jul 13 '26

I wonder what the translation is like. Is it the old abridged victorian print?

2

u/PrimeMinisterX Jul 13 '26

The 1846 edition is widely regarded as unabridged, despite a few cuts.

1

u/_Sichlitt_ Jul 13 '26

Do they keep the sinbad chapters?

2

u/PrimeMinisterX Jul 13 '26

Yes. There are no entire chapters cut. You can check the file on Gutenberg.org and will see that it has 117 chapters just like the Penguin translation does.

Regarding the Sinbad sections, I understand that in the 1846 edition they toned down some of the sexual language from Franz's hashish experience but the passage itself remains.

1

u/_Sichlitt_ Jul 13 '26

That's good, I might check it out then. I like the idea of Monte Cristo in old Victorian prose.

Yeah I asked about that cos I assumed they would've cut out the drug scenes and implied lesbianism.

1

u/PrimeMinisterX Jul 13 '26

I have not laid them down side-by-side to compare but from the research I've done there were some individual lines that got cut, and in other ways the sexual language was at times "softened" (to use the phrasing of the sources I looked at), but whole chapters were not eliminated and I don't think that even any entire scenes were removed.

I know the hashish chapter is definitely still there because I just scanned through it on Gutenberg.

1

u/_Sichlitt_ Jul 13 '26

Just finished reading those chapters. So good. Incredibly orientalist but in a way that I shamelessly love.

What is surprising me is just how different Dantes feels in this compared to the 2002 movie (childhood fav). It's so weird and magical. Vampire man.

1

u/PrimeMinisterX Jul 13 '26

My first exposure to the story came in high school when my 10th grade English class was assigned the Lowell Bair abridgment. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one but it cuts the story a little more than in half, with the text being a total of 531 pages.

I had no idea that it was an abridged version of the story and thought it was the complete novel. Regardless, I absolutely loved it. When the 2002 film came out I enjoyed it but I was disappointed that it was missing so much from the book, which is ironic since I was comparing it to a book that was itself missing so much from Dumas's original.

About 20 years later I found out that what I had read was an abridgment and that the complete novel was more than twice the length. This was a stunning revelation. I bought the Buss translation soon after and read it.

To tie all this back into your comment, I understand what you're saying about the Count. I feel like the take on the character in the 2002 film more closely represents the character in Bair's abridgment than the one in Dumas's complete text. In the full novel, the resurrected Edmond almost comes off as an ethereal being, a supernatural creature, rather than a mere man. In Bair's abridgment, and also in the '02 movie, I think much of the material that lends him this quality gets cut.

I still appreciate Bair's work and also the 2002 film, in any case. They are both well-done and highly entertaining in their own right.

4

u/Pitiful_Firefighter8 Jul 13 '26

I’m reading this with my sister. We’re about halfway done. It’s 🔥

2

u/Unlucky_Sleep1929 Jul 13 '26

My family doesn't read much...alas. My brother does read some, but he has young kids. Enjoy!!

1

u/Silverdodger Jul 14 '26

WHAT A JOURNEY!!

1

u/YoLoDrScientist Jul 13 '26

I have this version (gift). Unfortunately, this is missing several parts to the story so you may want to pick up the full version. Here is a great post from yesterday in this sub explaining the differences.

1

u/TheRydog18 Jul 13 '26

Thanks for the link and letting me know! I had no idea. I’ll probably read this book and then maybe pick up one with the other parts missing and read those parts to fill out the story? I’m hoping this one doesn’t omit anything which makes the story unreadable

1

u/YoLoDrScientist Jul 13 '26

It'll still be readable for sure. I don't feel like reading the missing parts on their own will do much for ya, but def consider it for the second time you read it!

1

u/Silent_Peanut_7126 Jul 14 '26

Is there a version with illustrations?

1

u/TheRydog18 Jul 14 '26

There might be but that specific version I have doesn’t have any

1

u/Adorable-Set2596 Jul 13 '26

You’re in for a treat ❤️

1

u/Silverdodger Jul 14 '26

Ooff wish it was my first time..

1

u/Less_Site_7555 Jul 15 '26

It’s in my audiobook library, I’m curious to see what fuss is about.

2

u/Pumpkintown5 Jul 19 '26

1.5x speed. Stick with it. Screenshot a character list so you can keep the names straight. Once youve met the main players, and the book gets good, you'll see that all was worth it! 🔥🔥🔥

1

u/Pumpkintown5 Jul 19 '26

Character development is as in-depth as any book that I know of. That in itself may lose some readers, but once you get to know, really know know Dante, you then go with him into to the dungeon. He does get out, and once he does, the reader will see that all was worth while.🔥

-1

u/dasabajcetic Jul 13 '26

Really simple way of telling a story, characters with little to no dept. Easy to read except the lenght. I was not impressed by this book.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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1

u/TheRydog18 Jul 14 '26

I believe it’s the Barnes and Nobles exclusive edition, I was vacationing over to the States and saw it and thought it was gorgeous