The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, Reviewed

I read this classic on my Kindle whilst holidaying in Paris and the South of France, which proved serendipitous, as the bulk of the action takes place in these two locations. In fact, I recognised many of the places referred to in the book, as I toured.

A great tome of a read, it gripped me from the start and held my attention throughout, in spite of the often flowery descriptive prose, authorial intrusion and sometimes obtuse classical references.

Dumas draws the central character, Edmond Dantes, later the eponymous count, with a fine and sympathetic pen. The young man’s utter innocence is beautifully depicted as is his fall through bad luck into catastrophe. But his rise from near death and subsequent search for justice and revenge, acting as an agent of God, is sublime writing.

The author is, of course, writing his fable in France close to the time of Napoleon and his rise, fall and regaining of power. The Catholic faith is a deep and constant influence on the actions, thoughts and emotions of the novel’s characters. It is also a profound driver of the author’s philosophy and is often a subtle enough influence to deceive the writer into a false impression of his own impartiality.

The language is, of course, picturesque, detailed and full of allusion, as you would expect of a novel written in and for an age when readers had more leisure time and actively sought such full narrative form. Dumas often uses fifteen words where today’s readers would be content with four.

But the narrative fits the action, the period and the characters. This is deservedly a literary classic and those whose experience of the tale is limited to the distortions of Hollywood and the many adaptations (I except the brilliant 13 part series produced by BBC TV in the 1960s) will be unaware of the great humour and satire displayed by the written text.

This fable of man’s desire to usurp the role of Fate, God, or whatever other disinterested mechanism for corrective justice you envisage, is not an easy read. But it rewards the attentive reader with its ready exposure of both the dark and lighter side of human behaviour. It explains aspects of history, particularly French history, which might otherwise remain obscure. And it deals with ideas, themes and philosophies that might be imagined more modern than they are in fact.

I happily recommend this book, well aware that its length and content may make it appear too daunting to those modern readers reluctant to venture beyond the boundaries of the genre with which they are comfortable and familiar. Should you get the opportunity to read this, I urge you to do so. You won’t be disappointed.

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The Republic, by Plato, Reviewed.

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This classic, in the true sense of the word, was written by Plato some time after the execution of his admired narrator, Socrates, in 399BC. The supposed dramatic setting for the narrative is around 420BC.

Taking the form of a discussion between Socrates and friends, the work is a philosophical treatise founded on the theme of justice. It touches, along the way, many other aspects of life and thought and can be seen to be a foundation stone in the building of Western thought, politics and ideas.

That Plato wrote in an era when slavery was not only accepted but was an everyday normality, and where women were perceived as inferior beings, permeates the text for a modern reader. There are many places where I felt like grabbing the narrator, and his fellow conversationalists, by the metaphorical lapels and shaking them out of their complacency over these two issues. But that is more a reflection of my attitudes about these issues than of the quality of the writing.

I started reading this tome, which requires a good deal of concentration, before Xmas and the season rather interrupted the serious read. But I became determined to finish the book before starting on the editing of the novel I'd written the preceding November (NaNoWriMo challenge for those interested). The reason was that it immediately became clear that The Republic deals with many of the themes I included in my novel and I wanted to see what this seminal work had to say on these ideas.

The ideas expressed are remarkably contemporary in many cases. I was surprised by references to personality, character, political systems and religion that I'd previously considered to be relatively modern. There were times when I completely forgot that this book was written almost 2,500 years ago.

What I found most disturbing, however, were some of the theories and philosophical ideas that have clearly been responsible for the way we think and live today in the Western world. That some of these ideas have been distorted, misunderstood, partially comprehended or, in some cases, deliberately taken out of context, to justify certain modern political decisions became clearer as I read. I understood, for the first time, some of the classical references I've come across in life and many of the underlying reasons for our current way of life became obvious. It's clear that many of our current leaders are steeped in the arguments put forward in this narrative. The teaching of the classics is, of course, fundamental to the education supplied by most private schools. That it isn't generally included in the curricula of state schools is equally clear. I'm not a lover of conspiracy theory, but it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that there has been a deliberate policy of discouraging the reading of such books as this, lest the general populace become aware of what leaders have always known.

It's impossible to do justice to this text in the space of a simple review. I can only suggest that those who have the intellectual stamina and the necessary curiosity about the nature of thought and life read this book. There is much that the modern reader will deplore, disagree with and denigrate. The benefit of living long after the work was completed provides us with a greater understanding of many things that must have been mysteries to Plato and his contemporaries. But the fundamentals of his thesis on politics, rule and the actions of leaders and the general populace are sound.

Those who love the superficial and the easy will find this book indigestible but those who like depth, provocation of the grey cells and stimulus for the imagination and curiosity will find this a singularly rewarding read. I thoroughly recommend it.