Ze Count of Monte Cristo

I was watching The Count of Monte Cristo on cable yesterday. In my defense, I had nothing to do.

Alexandre Dumas wrote the book, which is essentially a revenge drama, in the 1800s. Hollywood, never comfortable with the idea of leaving well enough alone, made the movie. The movie, of course, looks nothing like the book.

Here's the plot. Of the book; not the movie.

What? What do you mean, "Stop"? What do you mean you want to watch the movie first? You don't want me to give away the ending?

You know, it's not like I'm slinging you a spoiler here. The book has been out for more than a frickin' century. If you don't know what the ending is by now, well...it's probably time.

So briefly and sketchily, here's the story. 

Edmond Dantes, a sailor in nineteenth-century France and overall good guy, is getting married to his fiancee, the Catalan beauty Mercedes. But not so fast, because he has not been terribly selective about his friends. His jealous friend Fernand Mondego, with the help of a few others, frames Edmond for treason and sends his goody-goody ass to jail. Fernand then lies to Mercedes about Edmond's death and marries the weak-headed woman himself. They shortly have a son. Fernand then builds up a fortune through various environmentally-friendly business ventures like piracy, smuggling, and assorted general shittiness. Poor Edmond spends a gruelling eighteen years in jail, before being befriended by a fellow inmate who tells him of a great fortune buried on the island of Monte Cristo before dying. Probably from a bad plot.

Edmond escapes by substituting his skinny self in the body bag meant for his saviour. Hey, the saviour-fella was dead, OK? It's not like he cared. Edmond then goes to Monte cristo, digs up the fortune, styles himself the Count of Monte Cristo, and grows a beard so no one from his past will even suspect him of being Edmond Dantes. Real sneaky move, that beard. As the Guiness ad on TV says, "Brilliant!"

And then he plots his revenge on those that gone done him wrong.

Through various clever devices which would never work in the real world, Edmond succeeds in ruining his by now rich and powerful framers. Last, he bankrupts the head conspirator, the backstabbing Fernand.

All well and good, but then...remember that son that Fernand and Mercedes had? Good. 

Well, this son does not take kindly to the fact that a stranger has just robbed him of his fat allowance and forced his father to sell the Ferrari. He also has no idea that his father is a bad, bad man. He just assumes that his father is a honest dockworker who mysteriously adds a couple of million bucks to their bank account every month by putting in some serious overtime. Which sorta proves that when you cross a villain with a weak-minded woman, you won't exactly come up with Einstein. 

So he gets his silk britches in a twist and goes up and challenges the Count of MC to a duel with swords. In the name of family honour and all that.

The place and time for the duel are fixed in due course. The bookies place heavy odds on the Count, who is only the finest swordsman that France has ever seen. Don't ask me how he got so good. Maybe it was while he was in prison, where Swordplay was a required part of the prisoner work-rehabilitation program. Use your imagination, OK?

Just before the night of the duel, Mercedes, who still loves the Count, but at the same time doesn't want her idiot son to end up as sheesh-kebab, secretly goes to the Count's house and begs him to spare her son's life. The Count, who has also always loved her but is honour-bound to duel, replies that he will not call off the duel but will throw away the match after it has started. And everybody knows what else gets thrown away when you throw away a match that involves swords, right? Er...your life, that's what.

Before things go horribly wrong but, the son has an epiphany. Mainly because his mother sits down with him and says, "Look you idiot, here's what the deal is ...", and realizes that his father is basically a rat-turd, but with less integrity, and calls off the duel himself.

Things end on a sort of happy note when justice is done with Fernand committing suicide and leaving the world a little brighter as a result.

And that is the story as the book would have it. Justice served and fires extinguished.

And books are fantasy of course. That is why they sell.

You know how the book would have gone if it mimicked real life? 

Probabilistically speaking, nine times out of ten, this is how it would have happened in real life. Edmond The Good would have rotted away in prison for eighteen years before dying of internal injuries after some especially tender and intimate attention, if you get my drift, from a large tattooed man called Big Willy. The bad guy would have gone on to head a medium-sized corporation and got a half-page passing mention in Fortune at the age of fifty-five. And the girl would have bought herself a consolation BMW, maxed out her Tiffany's store card, grown a fat ass, and passed away peacefully in her bed at a ripe age from overeating and boredom.

That is how the world behaves ninety percent of the time.

There are exceptions of course. There are those lucky few among us for whom the word "justice" has had meaning. There are those few for whom "love" has not simply been a word fragment that is immediately followed by the word fragment "making". But that is the exception. One out of ten.

For most of the people in this world, nice words like justice, love, etc. are fantasies. And those people for whom this is so, they are the ones who buy these books. The one in ten don't. They have no need. The nine out of ten do.

And that is why these novels sell. Because nine out of ten want to believe the escapist fantasy that this is how the world works.

In conclusion, all humour (black, or otherwise) aside, The Count of Monte Cristo is a pretty good read. At least it seemed that way when I read it many, many moons ago. Go read it.

Avoid the movie.