REVIEW: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo
Author: Alexandre Dumas
Translator: Robin Buss
Kindle Edition
Challenges: Back to the Classics, Historical Fiction, Mount TBR

Goodreads synopsis: ‘On what slender threads do life and fortune hang’
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If.  There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration.  Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialised in the 1840s.
Robin Buss’ lively translation is complete and unabridged, and remains faithful to the style of Dumas’ original.  This edition includes an introduction, explanatory notes and suggestions for further reading.

I have FINALLY finished The Count!!!!!!!  Hooray!

I enjoyed this very much.  Some spots were a little dry, but it was well-written and the translation was smooth.  In fact, for most of the book, I completely forgot that it was a translation.  The version I read had footnotes to explain some of the historical aspects when Dumas referenced certain events in history, which I thought was very helpful.  The one downside to reading this over such a long period of time (and especially with an almost 2 month gap of no reading it at all) was forgetting some of the details.  The only other thing that frustrated me with the story was the interchanging of names (first and last) and titles.  Once again, with a pause in reading I was a little rusty with which names and titles went together.

This is such a sad story of heartbreak, disappointment and most importantly, revenge. I tried to take notes while reading to remind myself of points I wanted to mention.  I ended up taking some notes in my earlier reading and none in the second “half” (using this term lightly, since I never actually broke it down in halves), so I may have more specific examples and things to say about the first half of the book, and will rely more on my memory for comments about the later parts of the book.  So bear with me! …

There is a profound sadness to Dantes elder, and it’s so heartbreaking to see his demise.  In truth, the whole Dantes family has such a crappy lot in life, and Edmond was the saving grace; until Villeforte decided he needed to make certain assurances for himself.

When Edmond discovered the plaster in his dungeon was soft enough to chip away, all I could think of was The Shawshank Redemption. Makes me wonder if this is where Stephen King got that idea?  I also remember The Count being mentioned in Shawshank Redemption. (“Shouldn’t this be filed under educational?” – paraphrasing of course!)

Edmond’s relationship with Abbe Faria was an interesting one, and it’s sad that it had to end the way it did.  At least they were each able to find some comfort and friendship during their incarceration.  And more importantly, Edmond got an education he would never have had otherwise.

The carnival in Italy sounds like a spectacle to behold.  I would love to witness something like it.  Though I bet seeing one nowadays with all the modern amenities may lose some of the old world charm. How descriptive and poetic is Dumas?!:

It was a veritable human storm made up of a thunder of voices and a hail of dragees, bouquets, eggs, oranges and flowers.

The moccoletti must have also been breathtaking to see.  To think, thousands of lights sent up into the night sky.  Dazzling!

(So I guess that’s end of my notes in the Kindle after all)

There are a lot of characters in this story and they all have hidden agendas.  They are all connected in some way and it’s the intricacies of their relationships that really move the story along.  Sometimes I wasn’t sure where the story was going, and especially starting up again after 2 months I had to remember who was who, who knew who, how they were related, etc. etc.  So I was a bit rusty getting back into it.

I had a feeling about everything going on with Valentine toward the end (I don’t want to give it away in case there is anyone out there who hasn’t read it yet, or is currently reading it!).  If it hadn’t happened that way, I would have been sorely disappointed, but then again I guess we would really see the casualties of revenge, no matter the intention of the avenger (revenger?).

The ending for Edmond and Mercedes kind of left a bitter taste, but I think that’s more because I have read a number of stories where everything gets wrapped up very neatly in a bow by the end.  The difference with this (and what I also think makes it better) is that it’s true human emotions, plotting, and in some instances downfall.  Life never has a pretty bow tied on it, and Dumas realized it and included it in this wonderful novel.

At one point, when the collateral damage began showing, I questioned whether The Count had gone too far, but it seems revenge is one of those things that can grow on its own, whether the avenger (revenger?) is prepared or not.  Clearly, aside from a single moment, he had no qualms about his path and truly believed he was God’s instrument to exact retribution.

All this talk of revenge makes me think of the TV show Revenge (which I thoroughly enjoy!)  And there are definitely some parallels to this story.  Anyone else watch it?

REVIEW: 100 Cupboards (Book 1 of 100 Cupboards) by N. D. Wilson

 100 Cupboards
Author: N. D. Wilson
Kindle edition
Challenges: 50 States, Mount TBR

Goodreads Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Henry York wakes up one night to find bits of plaster in his hair. Two knobs have broken through the wall above his bed and one of them is slowly turning . . .Henry scrapes the plaster off the wall and discovers cupboards of all different sizes and shapes. Through one he can hear the sound of falling rain. Through another he sees a glowing room–with a man pacing back and forth! Henry soon understands that these are not just cupboards, but portals to other worlds.

100 Cupboards is the first book of a new fantasy adventure, written in the best world-hopping tradition and reinvented in N. D. Wilson’s inimitable style.

This was a quick, enjoyable YA read.  There is definitely enough mystery to propel the reader forward to learn more.  And as any good opening to a series would have it, enough mystery to make you want to read the next installment to learn more.  Who exactly are Henry’s parents?  What is the connection to the cupboards?  And a few other questions I can’t write without giving away some of the ending.

Of course, in order for it to be a good story, there is the good versus evil element.  The evil is personified in a rather scary kind of woman, but not so scary that kids would be turned off from it.  Maybe it could be something parents could scope out first, depending on how young their child is (and how active the child’s imagination may be).

All in all, a cute story and I’ll probably read the next in the series…most likely I’ll see if I can get it from the library instead of buying them on my Kindle.

 

Mount TBR Challenge: Mt. Vancouver: Checkpoint #2

Links to Checkpoint #2 post

So I almost missed this post!  Luckily, I recently subscribed to My Reader’s Block via email (and I saw Geoff’s post for it) so I didn’t miss it!

Anyway, a quick reminder: I chose Mt Vancouver, which equals 25 books.

So of the 25 books, I’ve completed 4.  So that’s better than where I was at the first Checkpoint (0!):  16%

The four books are:

1. The Map of Time, Felix J. Palma
2. The Twelfth Enchantment, David Liss
3. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
4. Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie

So in addition to marking our progress, Bev has also encouraged us to figure out where we would be on the actual mountain miles-wise.

According to Wikipedia, Mt. Vancouver is 15,787 feet so I’ve gone 2525.92 feet up the mountain!

She also suggested writing a poem using the completed titles and/or a favorite character and/or a book that surprised me.

Since I only read 4 books and the titles are rather short (and I’m not all that creative) I’m going to skip the poem thing.  (If you can come up with a poem using those books titles, leave it in the comments!)

So… a favorite character?  H. G. Wells from The Map of Time and Bailey from The Night Circus.

A book that surprised me?  Maybe surprised by how much I enjoyed The Night Circus, as I’ve told many people it is my favorite book read this year.  Peter Pan surprised me in that I realized the Disney version was more kid-friendly and Peter a more likable character.

I definitely want to finish this list by the end of the year.  With a couple of vacations requiring airplanes (and involving laying on the beach), I know I’ll definitely be able to tackle some of these without a problem.  Maybe I’ll save the Kindle ones for my vacations so I won’t have to carry any…

This is definitely one challenge I will do every year because it’s nice to “clear off” the shelves.

REVIEW: The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss

The Twelfth Enchantment
Author: David Liss

Goodreads Synopsis: Lucy Derrick is a young woman of good breeding and poor finances. After the death of her beloved father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as the unwanted boarder of her tyrannical uncle, fending off marriage to a local mill owner. But just as she is on the cusp of accepting a life of misery, events take a stunning turn when a handsome stranger—the poet and notorious rake Lord Byron—arrives at her house, stricken by what seems to be a curse, and with a cryptic message for Lucy. Suddenly her unfortunate circumstances are transformed in ways at once astonishing and seemingly impossible. 

With the world undergoing an industrial transformation, and with England on the cusp of revolution, Lucy is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy in which her life, and her country’s future, are in the balance. Inexplicably finding herself at the center of cataclysmic events, Lucy is awakened to a world once unknown to her: where magic and mortals collide, and the forces of ancient nature and modern progress are at war for the soul of England . . . and the world. The key to victory may be connected to a cryptic volume whose powers of enchantment are unbounded. Now, challenged by ruthless enemies with ancient powers at their command, Lucy must harness newfound mystical skills to prevent catastrophe and preserve humanity’s future. And enthralled by two exceptional men with designs on her heart, she must master her own desires to claim the destiny she deserves. 

The Twelfth Enchantment is the most captivating work to date of a master literary conjurer.

So that is kind of a long synopsis of the book!  I finished reading this a couple of weeks ago but am only now sitting down to write the post.  It was a decent book and fairly predictable in some areas.

Sometimes it seemed that the writing tried too hard to be “old”.  By “old” I mean mimicking the writing of books written in the 1800s or so.  It didn’t really detract from the book (as it took place in the 1800s) but I just thought it felt slightly forced.  The characters were fairly well written, some better than others.  The main characters were definitely the better written ones as we were able to “see” them more.

The ending was predictable though there was a slight twist at one point that I wasn’t expecting.

The belief in magic was definitely a lot more prevalent in that time period and a number of historical fiction novels I read had some element of it.  I thought the magic in this book was good.  It was well written and more natural/philosophical than wand waving.  I really enjoyed the following quotation about magic:

“Magic implies some sort of exception from the rules that govern the world, something outside nature, but if these things were magic in that sense, those spells could not be written down. There could be no knowing if a spell would work from one time to the next. But these things you teach me to do – they are governed by laws. A spell cast in the same way, under the same conditions, with the same level of concentration – it will work the same way every time. If that is so, is not magic simply another kind of natural philosophy, though a more obscure one?”

The magic described here makes me think more of alchemy than “hocus pocus”.

The Twelfth Enchantment was fine to read, but I don’t know if I’ll be re-reading it any time soon.

(Full disclosure, I also feel like this is a half-hearted review, since I waited a bit after I read it to write it)

REVIEW: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

 The Night Circus
Author: Erin Morgenstern

Goodreads Synopsis: In this mesmerizing debut, a competition between two magicians becomes a star-crossed love story.

The circus arrives at night, without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within nocturnal black and white striped tents awaits a unique experience, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stand awestruck as a tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and gaze in wonderment at an illusionist performing impossible feats of magic. 

Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves. Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is underway–a contest between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in “a game,” in which each must use their powers of illusion to best the other. Unbeknownst to them, this game is a duel to the death, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.

I’ve written about it in a few different posts, but just to recap:  I bought it on my Kindle back on November 20 (fun fact: that’s my birthday, I had just gotten an Amazon Kindle gift card. hehe), but I had it in my Amazon wish list for a few months before that.  I’m not sure what took me so long to buy it, and then again what took me so long to finally read it once I bought it.  So I think I have the Mount TBR Challenge to thank for finally picking it up!

Onward to my review —->

I absolutely LOVED this book!  It took me a bit longer to read than anticipated due to starting a new job this week, but I ended up staying up until 1 this morning to finish it.  Toward the end I was getting a little confused as to the timeline because it moves back and forth to see the same time points from different character points of view, but I think that was more to do with the fact that it was after midnight than because of the writing (I figured it out, though!)

Anyway, I thought it was well written and had really great, vivid descriptions.  I read some other reviews, and I think it had been on Goodreads where I found one that complained about the extent of the description.  When I saw that, I got a bit nervous because too much description can really turn me off, but I thought no such thing at any point in the novel.

It is such a unique and new concept for a story line (to me, at least) and I thought it was so interesting.  The characters were all great and you can really grow to like/dislike/pity/etc. them.

There was one particular chapter that I actually really loved and it was about the Rêveurs (“Dreamers” in French).  The actual name of the circus is Le Cirque des Rêves (Circus of Dreams), so the rêveurs are the “followers” of the Circus.  I think this was one of the best chapters because it steps away from the circus itself and shows how it has affected people all over the world.  It shows how these people are connected and how they create more than just a “fan club” for the circus.  It gives them a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves.  I thought there were some beautifully written passages about them:

“They are enthusiasts, devotees. Addicts. Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent.” (p 143, Kindle edition)

“They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic. … When they depart, they shake hands and embrace like old friends, even if they have only just met, and as they go their separate ways they feel less alone than they had before.” (p. 143, Kindle edition)

This was just such a wonderful story with so many vibrant characters,  I strongly urge everyone to read this!

REVIEW: The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma

Title: Map Of Time
Author: Felix J. Palma
Translated by:  Nick Caistor

Goodreads Synopsis: Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence. What happens if we change history? Felix J. Palma explores this question in The Map of Time, weaving a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting–a story full of love and adventure that transports readers to a haunting setting in Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.

I bought this book on my Kindle months and months ago.  I saw it on Amazon and thought it sounded good. Then I never got around to it.  First, until I looked it up on Goodreads,  I didn’t even realize it was a translation.  But let me tell you, it’s a wonderful translation.  I didn’t really notice any odd phrases or parts that sounded as if they had been translated.  It was beautifully done.

Next, I should probably tell you that I love the concept of time travel.  It’s one of those things that piques my curiosity.  I’ve read non-fiction books by Michio Kaku (a prominent string theorist) in which he discusses the possibilities of time travel.  Obviously (but unfortunately) I’ll never see it in my lifetime, but it’s an amazing thought that maybe someday it could happen…

The narrator of the novel was a great character separate from the main characters.  He (or she…but I tended to think of it as male) addressed the reader and made it more of an actual storytelling than just a narration, if that makes sense.  By addressing the reader, I feel that the narrator pulled the reader further into the novel.

Normally, a lot of description in a novel can bore me, but I really enjoyed it all, and I think that was due to the narrator.  Yes, there may have been tangents, and yes those usually bother me as well, but it didn’t.  Strange.  Maybe mixing historical fiction with science fiction is the ultimate genre for me. hehe  Historical novels tend to keep me more entertained, even when the descriptions get long.  I love learning about the past, even though I was never a huge fan of history class.

I can’t say much about the plot (aside from what you see in the synopsis above) without giving certain things away.  There were definitely quite a few twists, and at certain parts I was waiting for some sort of  revelation, and there was a final twist at the end.

Each part could stand alone as its own story, but some characters spill over into the other parts and really give a full wonderful version that really intertwines the lives of people who may never even realize it.  I love that it twists and turns, yet is all connected.  It’s really wonderfully written.

Mount TBR Challenge: Mt. Vancouver: Checkpoint 1

Image links to Mount TBR Reading Challenge Checkpoint Post

So there is a Checkpoint post requested for this challenge.  Let’s just say that I’m gathering my equipment to begin climbing Mount Vancouver.  I discovered and joined this challenge only last week, so I’m only on my first book that qualifies for this challenge.

Mount Vancouver
(image from Google images)

Climbing Equipment
(image from Google images)