Themes: Adventure, Fiction
Status: 🌲
Tags: literature book
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Summary
This book is a classic for a reason. Dumas follows the journey of Edmond Dantes. Edmond is a virtuous young man who quickly earns the respect of the reader. He is set to earn a promotion on his ship, marry the woman he loves, and enjoy his life thoroughly. However, this is all interrupted when three of his acquaintances set him up for arrest to satisfy their greed, jealousy, and negligence. Edmond loses everything and is wrongfully imprisoned for fourteen years before spending the rest of his live in service to providence, bringing down from the heavens above an elaborately planned vengeance upon those who wronged him, and a divinely ordained justice to those who didn’t. This book explores the themes of resilience, power, love, and faith.
Quotes
Page 519
Before him rose a grotesque mass of rocks, that resembled nothing so much as a vast fire petrified at the moment of its most fervent combustion.
Quote
Page 838
He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory.
Quote
Page 1072
The moccoli, or moccoletti, are candles which vary in size from the pascal taper to the rushlight, and which give to each actor in the great final scene of the Carnival two very serious problems to grapple with,—first, how to keep his own moccoletto alight; and secondly, how to extinguish the moccoletti of others. The moccoletto is like life: man has found but one means of transmitting it, and that one comes from God. But he has discovered a thousand means of taking it away, and the devil has somewhat aided him.
Quote
Page 2727
“Very well,” replied M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, since like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, he was occupied with seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker.
Insight
When one is burdened with their own thinking, they can’t help but to seek the thread of their own thoughts in the ideas of the person they are talking to and as a consequence, they never fully hear or understand what the other person is saying.
Page 2826
And her glance was turned towards heaven, where a mysterious Providence disposes all things, and out of a fault, nay, even a vice, sometimes produces a blessing.
Quote
Page 3122
When he had fixed his piercing look on this modern Babylon, which equally engages the contemplation of the religious enthusiast, the materialist, and the scoffer,—
“Great city,” murmured he,
Quote
Page 3147
man of the count’s temperament could not long indulge in that melancholy which can exist in common minds, but which destroys superior ones
Insight
Melancholy as an emotion that may exist in common minds but destroys superior ones. Depression as a force that will sink a man and keep him from his extraordinary potential.
Page 3236
By degrees the sun disappeared behind the western horizon; but as though to prove the truth of the fanciful ideas in heathen mythology, its indiscreet rays reappeared on the summit of every wave, as if the god of fire had just sunk upon the bosom of Amphitrite, who in vain endeavored to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle.
Quote
Page 3268
As for you, Morrel, this is the secret of my conduct towards you. There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.
Concept
Objective emotional states do not actually exist. All that exists is the comparison of one state to another. In this regard, all emotional states are related in the sense that one who has experienced the most profound suffering is then capable of genuinely appreciating the simplicity of happiness or peace. In the same regard, one who has had an encounter with death, is therefor able to genuinely appreciate life.
Page 3271
*“Darling,” replied Valentine, “has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words:
“‘Wait and hope (Fac et spera)!’”
Quote
The entire through-line of this story. Providence: faith in the unfolding of the universe.