Wed 28 Aug 2019
Reviewed by David Vineyard: ALEXANDRE DUMAS PERE – The Count of Monte Cristo.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
ALEXANDRE DUMAS PERE – The Count of Monte Cristo. Penguin, hardcover, 2013. Translation by Robin Buss. Illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith.
The Count of Monte Cristo is a book everyone knows, most people will claim to have read in some form, and almost everyone knows is a classic of little more than children’s literature, one of those homogenized 19th Century classics approved for animated features, comic books, and “safe†to read for all ages.
And yet the plot of the book involves the following elements and always has:
As Robin Buss argues in his introduction to this new translation, part of the problem is simply the book hasn’t had a new complete translation since 1910, meaning even the best English translations of the book are heavily censored by Victorian and Edwardian prudery and the stiff and uninspired literalism that can make the book hard going.
It is true Dumas was not a great stylist, and wrote in collaboration, but he did write in a style at least equal to the modern bestseller. Most translations have ignored that and disguised or obscured the racier elements of the novel as mentioned above behind the most heavy handed of Victorian prose and unimaginative translators.
Note how Dumas introduces the reborn Edmond Dantès as Monte Cristo tying him to the popular figure of the vampire in literature:
That idea of Monte Cristo literally risen from the dead is one key to the novel. It is not merely the story of Dantès’ stunning revenge and undoing of injustice, but also of Dantès’ resurrection and return to life, an element often lost in prior translations designed to disguise the more serious themes as well as the darker aspects of the novel. Other elements of the novel link it to Doyle and Sherlock Holmes in the near prescience of the brilliant Abbe Faria.
I’m not really suggesting most of you will want to read this latest 1,500 plus page translation of the novel, only that if you do you will discover much you missed in earlier readings. The story you think you know is much different than the reality, the book both easier and more felicitous to read, and certainly no classic of children’s literature.
Read in this new translation, it is easy to see why the novel has held such sway over the popular imagination, and why it was one of the greatest best sellers of French and English literature. It holds a little bit of everything, from Near Eastern intrigue to international skulduggery, mystery, romance, and adventure. This translation is almost the equivalent of a new and previously unknown work by one of the masters of French literature.
August 28th, 2019 at 7:50 am
Well, I must admit that I certainly don’t remember much of that, but I read the book over 50 years ago. I can still remember picking it off the library shelf. At the time the Brooklyn Public Library allowed you to take out up to 10 books (I think it was 10) for the summer, and I was looking for “big” books. This was one of my all-time favorites and shaped a lot of the way I feel about hypocrites (hello, Washington!) ever since.
August 28th, 2019 at 8:18 am
New translation? Robin Buss’s version came out more than 20 years ago! But, yes, this is a wonderful book… And with a scene at a performance of Robert le Diable to boot!
Have you seen the Depardieu miniseries?
August 28th, 2019 at 10:12 am
There has never been a wholly satisfactory film, and while I have not read the ‘new’ translation, I certainly will order it today. Meanwhile, there are certainly, shall we call them variations out there, that allude to all David has written. On a personal note, I love Edmond Dantes, so unlike our twenty-first century snowflakes. No mercy. no forgiveness simultaneous to the transgression. He is my kind of guy.
August 28th, 2019 at 2:06 pm
Read it in the 5th grade. At that age I could read & understand the words, but I suspect there was a lot that went over my cute little tousled head.
August 28th, 2019 at 8:41 pm
New is relative, but being the first comprehensive translation since 1910 is still newish. I didn’t mean to suggest that the racier elements are missing from the older translation, but they are carefully coded in the style of Victorian English novels, and not the tradition of French serial fiction which is much more explicit.
Many of the elements mentioned are vaguely suggested in the previous translations and stated fairly obviously in the original French.
Much the same is true of Eugene Sue whose work has been translated even less than Dumas, and in fact went through the entire 20th Century without a new translation, the only editions available for many years being from the Modern Library and based on early Victorian editions.
Dumas and his collaborator Maquet wrote in the equivalent of the page turning modern bestseller, and one of the joys of the book is Dumas descriptions of Marseilles and Carnival in Rome, as well as high and low Parisian society.
As Barry says, many of the versions of the film have fine qualities, but none, not even the dePardieu miniseries is quite complete. The Robert Donat version does the best job of compressing the story radically, and I like the Richard Chamberlain television, and the Jim Cazaviel films. My personal favorite is the two part French film version starring Louis Jourdan.
Actor Jean Marais (Orpheus) has a unique place being the only actor to play Dantes, d’Artagnan,Jean Valjean, and Sue’s Prince Rodolphe from the Mysteries of Paris.
August 29th, 2019 at 10:04 pm
Most translations of Jules Verne into English are even worse than Dumas. Scientifically illiterate; censored: anti-British and anti-imperialist remarks gone – and anti-Semitic ones introduced. Whole chapters missing, too. (See https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/11/julesvernedeservesabetter)
I’ve had Eugène Sue on my list of authors to read for a while (probably le Juif errant rather than Les mystères de Paris ou du peuple) – but a 1400 page novel is daunting! What is the best way of reading a feuilleton novel? To read the whole thing in one go, or to read it in weekly instalments?
August 30th, 2019 at 8:14 pm
I loved the Robin Buss translation of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO! Yes, this edition is a lot longer than the abridged version I read as a kid, but it’s worth it!