The prosecutor is Villefort.

I wonder if Dumas was trying for an over the top Hamlet (which, to some, is an oxymoron), with the delayed revenge theme and all.

Turkish! That's what Haydee is--I think. She always seemed an utter cypher to me, as well. I was rooting for Mercedes the whole way. She is the only innocent--other than the kids.

Thanks, Nutty. Gotta agree with your assessment. Thematically better if the Count dies , but I'm not so sure his stay in the Chateau d'If is just a falling through cracks in the system. The folks put Dantes there out of self-interest and kept him there to avoid embarrassment.

What works do we hate? Here's one of my prime dislikes: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, by Samuel Johnson.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abissinia.

This is, plot-wise at least, an adventure story. There's a prince who runs off to explore the world. There's a princess who runs off with him. They see amazing sights, get captured by pirates and escape, and otherwise have as much excitement as Wesley and Buttercup. However, Johnson lards the entire story with so much heavy-handed moralizing (yes, even for the 1700s) and so many absolutes (all the joys were here, all the blessings were there, and none of the sorrows were in that other place) that it's as interesting to read as my grocery list. (Want to know how much oatmeal I need to pick up tonight? Want to spend three paragraphs finding out? Didn't think so.) He manages to remove any tension from the allegedly dramatic or picturesque moments with his paragraphs upon paragraphs of meditating on the nature of man. Or death. Or power. You can say, yeah, that's 18th century lit. for you, but this man was writing at more of less the same time as Swift and Pope, with little of their skill. I think he's elevated to their stature in the canon because he had a particularly good PR flack in Boswell.

Wondering how Rasselas ends? The last chapter is titled, "The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded". I'll whitefont the last line. Of these wishes that they had formed they well knew that none could be obtained. They deliberated a while what was to be done, and resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return to Abissinia.

Samuel Johnson is entirely responsible for me switching my studies from 18th to late 19th century English lit.

My author that I hate that everyone else should hate too: Thomas Hardy.

Read Jude the Obscure in high school. Hated it. Ten years later in grad school, read it again. Thought "maybe I was just being an obnoxious high school senior with no patience for work." Nope. Hated it more. Read The Mayor of Casterbridge last semester. Hate-on is definitely for Hardy, not just for Jude. His characters are never sympathetic, his plots are just excuses to beat people up, and his overall message is basically "life sucks", which I knew on my own, thank you.

Fred Pete, I believe you're correct re: the Chateau. Villefort was about to release Dantes until he realized that his father, Nortier, was involved and Dad's involvement would wreck his career.

end font

The last chapter is titled, "The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded".

Oh my god, it's like a novelization of Dogville.

Well, but there was the whole Napoleon thing. If Napoleon hadn't left Elba when he did, the whole imprisonment might have been much, much shorter, and thus the bitter would not have been quite so acute.

Actually what is funny is seeing movie adaptations of the book, where they (necessarily) shorten and simplify -- one recent one made Albert into the Count's son, and Mercedes married (a combined Morcerf/Danglars character) quickly in order to hide the illegitimacy of her pregnancy. It made for a (not in the book but) very dramatic reveal at the end, which led to swordfighting, and I can't but approve of swordfighting.

I do get the sense that Monte Cristo started out as one thing, and morphed as Dumas was writing it into a thing where the Count became his ego-ideal. And that's why the ending is weak -- he didn't have the stones to kill his own ego-ideal; his ego-ideal couldn't end up alone and bitter; his ego-ideal couldn't get back together with someone who had married his enemy. Otherwise, I think it could have been a fascinating study of what revenge -- and expiation -- does to the soul; instead, it was a half-baked adventure, which was great fun, but not satisfying.

My author that I hate that everyone else should hate too: Thomas Hardy.

I know another staunch Hardy-hater. I'm thinking he's low on my list of authors to check out.

Unrelatedly, I still need to read Wuthering Heights. It's really short, isn't it? And I have this copy I got for, like, a dime. I should just read it, huh.

I read Wuthering Heights when I was around 15, and then again last year. It was like it was two completely different books. Do you like reading things through a rather unreliable narrator and having to take PoV considerations into your reading as you go along, P-C? WH is great for that.

ETA: I kind of liked Tess of the Durbyvilles. Not enough to read it twice, though.

Unrelatedly, I still need to read Wuthering Heights. It's really short, isn't it? And I have this copy I got for, like, a dime. I should just read it, huh.

Yes. Yes you should. It's wonderful.