skygiants | (no subject)

Many years ago, as a wee little high school sophomore, I read an abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo for class. It is no surprise that we were assigned the abridged version, seeing as the full version is 1200 pages long; still, I was bitter, and swore to myself, "SOMEDAY I WILL READ THE REAL THING." (I also said, "SOMEDAY I WILL READ THE REAL THING IN FRENCH," but, uh, that is not happening at this time.) Then that same English teacher assigned us Julius Caesar and told us we didn't have to read beyond the third act because there was nothing important in the text after Antony's speech, and I forgot my bitterness over the Count because I had something new and exciting to be bitter about!

ANYWAYS. Recently, I caught the end of the Count of Monte Cristo movie on TV and I remembered my vow! And the story is just as awesome and cracked out as I remembered, oh man. I have to admit I do not care much about poor Edmond Dantes and his Terrible Sufferings, but once he reinvents himself as the crazy manipulator with at least five secret identities, OH MAN AWESOME.

My favorites are probably the parts in Italy with Franz and Albert - Albert is the son of one of Monte Cristo's terrible enemies, and Franz is his traveling buddy - because Albert totally does not get that he is living in a dramatic and dark revenge fantasy. Albert thinks he is living in Eurotrip. So much of that part of the book essentially goes like this:

Franz: Hey Albert, don't you think that the Count is kind of creepy?
Albert: The Count? Dude, he's awesome! And he hooked us up with a totally sweet ride.
Franz: Yes, but he keeps staring at you. Also he looks unnervingly like a vampire, really enjoys watching executions, has a private island for sinister purposes, hangs out with bandits, is kind of a drug dealer, has a servant with no tongue . . . are you catching my drift here with the creepiness?
Albert: Dude. Dude. What is more important - that the Count is sinister and creepy, or that I have been in Italy for three months and I have not met ANY hot Italian chicks?

OH FRANZ. I love you and I would marry you over emo Maximilien Morrel in a heartbeat. Sadly, Franz disappears after this point, but Albert continues hilarious as he chills with his BFF the Count. My favorite line in the book comes when Albert tries to convince the Count to hang out at his house:

Albert: "You were only a charming man, but you could be an adorable one!"
(Monte Cristo: WTF THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO IS NOT ADORABLE!!!!!!)

And, speaking of people who are amazing and probably living in the wrong book: EUGENIE DANGLARS. Eugenie is another one of the children of the Count's enemies, and he has this whole tragic fate planned out for her and her family involving surprise incest (of course) and bankruptcy and corruption, and Eugenie Danglars is all "Um, WHATEVER, I am just going to run away with my girlfriend and become a LESBIAN OPERA SINGER, so it does not matter to me!" Dumas wants to make really sure we all know she is a lesbian, too. Like, this is not a subtext thing at all; Dumas is all 'HEY, here, have a SAPPHO reference! And if that is not enough, here, have her in bed with her piano-playing girlfriend!' And based on her conversations with Albert, I'm not too sure about him, either:

Eugenie: Wow, the Count has a really gorgeous lady with him in the booth!
Albert: I guess, but . . . don't you think the Count is awfully good-looking?
Eugenie: Can't say I'd noticed.

I also love how the Count's idea of rewarding the people he likes is to . . . drive them to the point of suicide. And then of course he gets to swoop in to save them at the last minute, but, hilariously, he really wants to make sure that it is exactly the last minute; at one point he has a conversation that basically consists of "Are you suicidal yet? . . . how about now? Are you SURE you are suicidal? I am totally going to give you this poison, so you had better be COMPLETELY SURE that you are entirely and ridiculously depressed and miserable and don't want to live any more!"

OH COUNT. YOU SO CRAZY. On a more serious note, I do really like that towards the end we really are invited to judge the Count as a lunatic and sympathize with his enemies, when he makes the Dramatic Reveal to Villefort and instead of getting the guilt-stricken response he expects from Villefort, Villefort is like "UM, I don't even care, MY ENTIRE FAMILY IS DEAD, YOU FREAK." And though the Count gets over his crisis of conscience about this, that . . . is in large part because he is crazy. I do think we're expected to find his justice has gone into the realm of way, way overkill.

I also really, really want the Count to hang out with Sweeney Todd. Come on, they would have the best conversations! In my head it goes something like this:

Sweeney Todd: Man, fuck judges.
Count of Monte Cristo: I know! I totally hate those guys.
Sweeney Todd: I was completely innocent and I was condemned just because this judge wanted my wife!
Count of Monte Cristo: ME TOO. Well, my girlfriend. Fiance. And it was someone else who denounced me, and the judge actually just condemned me to save his father, but hey, close enough!
Sweeney Todd: Then the judge raped my wife and left her to go crazy and try to commit suicide and die.
Count of Monte Cristo: Well, my fiance . . . married that guy who denounced me and is living a rich and happy life . . .
Sweeney Todd: And now I'm poor and bitter and alone with only a cannibalistic pie lady who is disturbingly attracted to me for company.
Count of Monte Cristo: And now I'm really rich with a gorgeous ward and a lot of servants who adore me. But I suffered a whole lot before then, seriously. Anyways. VENGEANCE.
Sweeney Todd: Right. Vengeance! I am going to SLIT EVERYONE'S THROAT.
Count of Monte Cristo: That is not even hardcore. Make them suffer first!
Sweeney Todd: Oh, that's just for innocent people. The guilty will totally suffer! Especially that creep of a judge who is trying to marry my daughter, WHO IS HIS WARD, I mean, how sick is that!
Count of Monte Cristo: . . . . . . . . . Uh. Maybe I should be going.

(In a Sweeney Todd vs. The Count of Monte Cristo angst/craziness cage match, Sweeney Todd totally wins.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

muji

You know I was originally gonna write my thesis on Monte Cristo. <333333 Much love. God that book is awesome.

From:

skygiants

I know that but I had forgotten it! :O Oh man, it is so amazing, and so ridiculously cracked out. I think my other favorite part is how he keeps name-dropping his other identities, like, 'Oh yes, I was having lunch with the Abbe Busoni the other day, and he said . . .' YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE, COUNT. Okay, well, you are. But it is still hilarious.

From:

jothra

Now I need to read it again.

From:

skygiants

You should! >:D

Someday, I swear, I will have enough skills to read it in French, and that will be an awesome day.

From:

gramarye1971

Yeah, this just got bumped up to the top of my fiction list. ^^;; Mostly because I need to have your voice in my head providing the running commentary.

From:

skygiants

Excellent. >:D (It can be a nice change from Trollope, not that he is not also awesome - but instead of lots of people stabbing each other with poisoned words, it is sometimes nice to have actual stabbings. And poisonings.)

*giggles* I have faith in your ability to provide your own awesome running commentary as well!

From:

yakalskovich

I always found it telling how the Count goes away with his Oriental Sex Slave Woman at the end. Never mind she used to be some sort of princess. How about a grown woman that is a social equal, as far as women could be in the 19th century?

He goes away with her, but really he has nothing. He has had his revenge, but left himself with a great big nada, afterwards.

From:

skygiants

There is a line actually that I noticed on this read, when he's looking at Haydee with a "fondness that is almost like love" (I think those are the words) that make it pretty clear to me, at least, that he does not have a Grand Passion for her. And as for her, she literally has never met anyone else, so . . . I mean, I do not dismiss Haydee as a character; she has a moment or two of badasserie, at least as much as can be expected in this kind of book. But it is not really a 'happy ever after', no.

(Also, instead of getting to hang out with Albert and Franz after the book is over, the Count gets stuck with emo Maximilien and Valentine, which is possibly punishment enough! Um, that makes it sound like I hated Max and Valentine more than I did, but really they would not be fun at all to hang out with. They would be That Couple who is always like "no I love YOU more," "no I love YOU more," "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU," and it would get very old for anyone traveling with them!)

From:

bravecows.livejournal.com

I had totally forgotten that Eugenie was a lesbian! MAN. Clearly I need to reread this book. omg I love how crazy the Count is and his stupid elaborate revenges and his general stupidness. In my imagination Haydee runs away from him about five pages after the end of the book and goes off and lives a happy and fulfilling life with SOMEBODY WHO DIDN'T USED TO OWN HER AS A SLAVE. And the Count dies alone and leaves all his money to a casino.

They would be That Couple who is always like "no I love YOU more," "no I love YOU more," "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU," and it would get very old for anyone traveling with them!

This is so true! hee hee hee.

Have you watched Gankutsuo? It is the one where the Count is a crazy blue space vampire.

From:

skygiants

Clearly you do! Dude, Eugenie and her elopement with her girlfriend and her lesbian-opera-singer-tasticness are like the only things I remembered from when I read it as a sophomore. (Because it was the most awesome thing then, and it continues the most awesome thing now.) And I COMPLETELY AGREE, slave PLUS daughter (he spends half the book referring to her as his daughter! it is so creepy!) = DOUBLE-PLUS-UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPNESS. And the count can live alone with all his alter egos and have insane multiple-personality tea parties. ("Please pass the salt, Lord Wilmore. Why, thank you, Abbe Busoni.")

Oh Maximilien/Valentine. The funniest thing is how when he is introduced Dumas is all "Maximilien is a STOIC." AHAHA no.

I have not but now that I have reread the book I THINK I NEED TO.

From:

bravecows.livejournal.com

("Please pass the salt, Lord Wilmore. Why, thank you, Abbe Busoni.")

:DDDDDDDDD

Gankutsuo was kinda so-so as an anime, IMO, but fun as Count of Monte Cristo fanfic. CRAZY Count of Monte Cristo fanfic. In SPACE. Also the main characters are Albert and Franz and it is basically practically text how crazy in love with Albert Franz is. Sadly they left out the part about Eugenie being gay, though. :(

From:

skygiants

. . . I was going to say that clearly whoever made the anime had their priorities straight! until I reached the end of your comment and saw that they did not include Eugenie's girlfriend. :( Albert/Franz is awesome but does not make up for this!

I still think I need to hunt this down and see it, though.

From:

adiva_calandia

*giggling*

I think there are few angst/crazy cage matches that Sweeney Todd doesn't win. (Because he is FUCKING INSANE.)

From:

skygiants

(Well, to be fair, so is the Count! It is just his levels of RIDICULOUS INSANITY consist more of VERY SNEAKILY creating two extra false identities for himself in Paris, JUST SO the person whose wife he is in the process of convincing to poison their ENTIRE FAMILY can visit those two false identities to get information from them. About himself.

Whereas Sweeney Todd just goes straight for the slicing. Simple, but efficient!)

From:

blacksheep91.livejournal.com

Indeed! True love all around~ I saw the movie and the Showboat melodrama play. (Which was ridiculously funny for a number of reasons, that the part of the show where Edmond's son was all,
"You insult my father! I kill you!"
Old man in the audience: "Yay."
Rest of the audience: "No old man! That's his son! It's not a good thing! o_o")
Also've seen a bit of the anime based off of the story, but haven't finished it...

My moter and I had that same conversation XD "What is it with all these guys being wrongfully imprisoned so some snide jerk can get with their wife, and then they come back with a 'new face' seeking revenge?"

From:

skygiants

Hee! I think I saw that same play actually - they were doing it at the Stratford Festival a couple years ago, if it is the one I'm thinking of. And that is an awesome bit of audience participation.

(The hilarious thing is that in the book it's not actually his son at all - there is a part where someone is like "so hey Dantes, you and Mercedes, you have been getting it on, right?" and Dantes is like "NO I WOULD NEVER! WE ARE NOT YET WED, HOW COULD YOU IMPLY SUCH THINGS, SIR!" Which I actually think makes it kind of more awesome that Albert turns out to be a totally decent kid and the Count eventually feels sort of guilty for ruining his life anyways, despite the fact that his father is an ass.)

Apparently shipping people off to prison for fifteen years was what you did back then if you wanted a chance with their wife!

From:

blacksheep91.livejournal.com

I hope they enjoyed it ^-^ Our audience was kinda iffy about yelling things out. Except for Andy. Andy was embarrassing loud. ^^;

And not a few moments after I posted a reply to this, The Simpson's Monte Cristo parody ep. came on XD

From:

skygiants

But yelling things out is the best part!

- DUDE. I did not even know there was a Simpson's Monte Cristo ep! Clearly I must hunt this down. :O

From:

ashen_key

Oh, Franz. Franz is adorable.

And YES, to Eugenie and her girlfriend! Who run off together and are totally, totally, totally awesome.

I also like how he ends up with the girl he rescued, and not (as I've seen so many times in movie-versions) Mercedes. That works for me. I meant, not that him and Haydee were healthy, but it was more realistic than Mercedes.

But mostly, Eugenie and her GF <3<3<3

Edited Date: 2009-02-21 01:03 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

He really is! Nobody in the book gives him the affection he deserves for his surprising amounts of sanity. :( On the other hand, he does not end up crazy or poisoned, so I guess he comes out comparatively okay . . .

EUGENIE/LOUISE OTP. They are crazy cute together too!

Yeah, I don't really want him back together with Mercedes . . . I guess I just kind of want him to die alone. *cheerful* Maybe that is harsh. Um. He can keep Bertuccio!