Tag: dude

The Count of Monte Cristo

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Part 2

Alexandre Dumas was a guy™.
Let me elaborate.
Alex, can I call you Alex? I’m gonna. Alex was born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in 1802, a French novelist and playwright, who gained seemed to genuinely be living his best life.

His father, Thomas Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was the son of a French Marquis and Haitian slave woman who rose to the rank of general-in-chief, fighting in multiple of the French Revolutionary Wars and invasions into Egypt, Battle of the Pyramids, and more. From extremely humble beginnings, brought to France by his father for education, Thomas Alexandre was considered a paramount of discipline, structure, struggle and reward.

And Alex would have likely hated that I mentioned his dad first, but I needed him for contrast.

Alexandre Dumas was described by English Playwright Watts Phillips as “the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth.”

In 1830 Alexandre participated in revolutionary riots that ousted Charles X and installed Louis-Phillipe, the citizen king. This led to huge restrictions being lifted on censorship that really helped the literary movement of the time to freely portray classism in Europe. Alexandre also faced considerable discrimination for his African heritage which he responded to…sharply. Known for wit and being an incoming train of words, he established himself as the progressive paradigm.

Described as loud, talkative, jovial until he wasn’t, Alex’s salons were something of legend. He was a founding member of the Club des Hashischins, a group of prolific writers including Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo, who met monthly at a hotel in Paris to take hashish together.

Alex married actress Ida Ferrier in 1840, they had no children together. Alex did have four claimed illegitimate children and 40 known mistresses as part of a publicly open marriage, iconically the prolific Adah Isaacs Menken who was 33 years younger than him which launched her brief writing career though she sadly died young at 33.

He founded a production studio and art collective and remained on the edges of multiple revolutionary movements throughout Europe and Russia, ex-patting to Russia for two years.

Now, the production company is one I’m fond and not fond of because he was at times accused of plagiarism, particularly around elements of the Count of Monte Cristo. Auguste Maquet who was a known collaborator of Dumas’ accused him of plagiarism after Monte Cristo because elements of Monte Cristo were lifted and expanded on from the novel Georges, also by Dumas but which Maquet had contributed to. Maquet was ultimately granted more money by the courts but couldn’t get a by-line.

His works ultimately mean that he wrote over 100,000 pages and there are still lost works which occasionally turn up, he was a powerhouse of getting work done. And then rewarding himself for it.

Which brings us to the Chateau de Monte Cristo in part 3….

I like this picture of Dumas and Menken for how happy he looks

The Count of Monte Cristo

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Part 1

Come on a journey with me
The journey is Im reading The Count of Monte Cristo on a whim.
It is 1276 pages and I have absolutely zero free time between caregiving, writing, and content what have you.
So we’re making it content.
So, first obstacle;
I have had an extremely difficult time attempting to download a book on tape of this, allowing me to “read” count of monte Cristo while doing other stuff.



I recommend looking up librevox or loyalbooks for public domain recordings!
You can access them on their websites or I like to look for specific recordings that have been uploaded to podcast addict!


I attempted at one time a recording of Ulysses by James Joyce, which may be another journey we go on this year, but it is so impenetrable to read out loud that every recording I found included some laughter or groans, which honestly was so charming.

So anyhow, I got caught up on Chateau D’If. For whatever reason my phone refused to download this 55 hour audio book past chapter 8.

Weird, right?

So, I’ve gotten creative and been switching between audiobook options because almost every platform I’ve found has some issues with Count of Monte Cristo.

And because I most likely have some form of ADHD, I have zoned out and spent a lot of time researching Alexandre Dumas as an individual and let me tell you, he’s a guy.

I mean, he was a guy™.

So next week will be my rant on Alexandre Dumas and I’ve challenged myself that the week after that will be a take down of the Count himself.

We’re having a Dumas month!

Womp womp

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Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

I hadn’t read this since highschool. Hey, hey be honest with me, is it a bad sign my algorithms keep suggesting I read Kafka and Sylvia Plath?

So anyway, I reread it for shits and giggles and I wanted to let you know I neither shat nor giggled.

A lot of the things which happen in the story, I mean…do I have to tell you? He turns into a giant weird bug. He wakes up and is a bug. This could be interpreted as waking up as a young man to your role in society, a nod to religious persecution in some interpretations, or a more often a nod to the dehumanizing results of capitalism. Both are completely valid.

What I feel like people talk about less in the social osmosis are the reactions of the family to Gregor Samsa when he wakes up to this revelation. They all reject him. Some are nice than others, but it’s ultimately his father who leads to his death. And when he dies, they all leave and pretend he was never there, happier to be rid of him. A nod to whistleblowers being stomped out by the earlier generations for being too sensitive to harsh conditions? A nod to people not fitting into society’s norms and expectations being murdered by those closest to them to prevent being ostracized themselves? A nod to ….you get the idea. All of it. It’s all valid interpretations.

For real though, should I be worried this keeps coming up in my reading suggestions?

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

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An analysis,

It’s not often I find something like this; specifically, a book I hadn’t heard of by an author I love. the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only fully completed novel by Edgar Allen Poe, someone I learned to do voicework by narrating. I’ve literally read, cover to cover, multiple compendiums but somehow this story slipped past me. It was only because of House of Usher on Netflix that I had heard of it and because I felt deeply compelled to figure out Mark Hamill’s character (who was my favorite).

The Pym story is odd for Poe because it doesn’t follow his normal tropes. I could probably make a key for Poe: dead wife, remarried; main character with high sensory perception, etc cetera. But the Pym story is a high seas novel in the vein of Treasure Island.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it isn’t surreal. It does have the trope of a man trapped in a confined space which he details, similar to Pit and the Pendulum, in the chapters in which Pym is a stowaway on a vessel then overtaken in a mutiny with no one aware he’s below deck. And there is, of course, the novel’s abrupt end which plays out a bit like M. Valdemar where the whole  narrative could Be taken for a hoax—the Pym narrative claims to only be transcribed by Poe.

No, what’s surreal and out of pocket for Poe about it is how he plays a straight face for most of the novel. Only toward the very end is there any supernatural happening, instead, much of the book could have been written by someone else.

It seems almost like a writing exercise.  Published in 1838, the Pym narrative covers shipwrecks, mutiny, cannibalism, hollow earth theory, and touches on the race for the poles– infamously leading to the deaths of many explorers. It seems to have been an obvious inspiration for The Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne fifty years later.

Review: Orfeia

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Orfeia
Joanne Harris

Finishing out the year with Joanne Harris yet again, and far from the only Joanne Harris novella I read after indulging in Honeycomb, Orfeia stuck with me in a biting way.
I find with Harris’s work I have a tendency to incorporate it into my understanding of a given mythology. Blue Salt Road is how I always saw selkie stories, isn’t it?
Orfeia was unique and beautiful. I absolutely recommend it, her prose style reminding me of George MacDonald or Edgar Rice Burroughs but deeply cemented in a network of fae stories with Harris has been weaving through her many novellas and Honeycomb.
Orfeia follows a mother who has lost her adult child and is willing to travel into the land of the dead, through various fae traps, to restore her.
It was absolutely lovely.

Review: You Feel it Just Below the Ribs

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You Feel it Just Below the Ribs
Jeffrey Cranor, Janina Matthewson

Wheewwww
I loved it. I struggled with it a bit because it feels at times too unreal and at other times too close to home, which I imagine is exactly the sliver of reality is seeks to exist between.
I have realized something very crucial in reading this book; I would follow Jeffrey Cranor into the ocean. Which I imagine would be terrifying for him, but I love the biting realism in this dystopian thriller.
Typically, I am not a fan of books told in journal format, it’s just not my preference, but this was excellently written, sci-fi horror.
I absolutely recommend it for people who like darker, more realistic portrayals in their fiction.

Review: SisterSong

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Sistersong
Lucy Holland

This book was beautiful; a retelling of the Twa sisters, it follows three siblings through an Arthur-adjacent tale with links both to real history and myths in The Matter of Britain.
As an Arthurian nerd (read: everything nerd), I loved seeing a story I wasn’t familiar with, a murder ballad that I was familiar with, an amazing queer representation, and a new take on Merlin.
The story manages to do all of it without beating you over the head with its source material, instead guiding through a world that feels totally Holland’s creation. The narrative and characters are remarkably organic and conflicted.
I would absolutely recommend it, especially to a queer audience which all too rarely sees representation outside of mundane coming out stories.

Review: Thistlefoot

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Thistlefoot
GennaRose Nethercott

I’ll cut to the chase, this was one of my favorite books I read in 2023.
Thistlefoot takes place in a world of magic and not, a world where most things are exactly the same as they are in reality but with an important exception —the scars of an event can awaken the spirit of a place.

One of the early mentioned examples of this is a Burger King that grew eyes after a break in.

Thistlefoot, the book’s name sake, is a house that sprouted chicken legs.

The sibling pair at the heart of the story, Bellatine and Issac Yaga, are the inheritors of Thistlefoot and the generational trauma that both makes them who they are and that has been kept from them by their family. They both have their own unusual gifts, which unbeknownst to them are adaptations to that trauma. The book examines disapora in a fascinating way.

The story follows both the Yaga siblings and the history of the house itself in a slow burn reveal of the tragic events that led Thistlefoot to sprout legs and flee.

All while being hunted by a similar oddity, which intends to destroy Thistlefoot.

This book was such a delicate and well constructed handling of generational trauma and particularly genocide. I had gone into it blind and was taken in immediately with the world and characterization.

It’s an absolute recommendation.

Review: Big Bad

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Big Bad
Chandler Baker


A copy paste disclaimer! :There are several stories available for free download if you are already subscribed to amazon prime, and I took advantage of that recently and thought I’d spend November telling you about the short stories and novellas I picked up that I liked best and thought was worth the read.

These tend to be stories commissioned by Amazon and put into collections by Amazon

Okay, back to review:

From the first line I knew I would like this one; a horror story wrapped in a failed marriage and the other way around.

At 58 pages, it’s a very quick read. The pacing and characterization is a lovely build to the end of the story; the twists are both obvious and not, telescoped well but always leaving the reader with doubts.

It’s another of those stories that is difficult to talk about without spoiling the whole of it, so very worth the read.

I honestly started to say more but am not sure how to without giving it away haha

The characters are extremely well done and feel organic, even under their bizarre circumstances.

Review: The Six Deaths of the Saint

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The Six Deaths of the Saint
Alix E Harrow

A copy paste ! :There are several stories available for free download if you are already subscribed to amazon prime, and I took advantage of that recently and thought I’d spend November telling you about the short stories and novellas I picked up that I liked best and thought was worth the read.

These tend to be stories commissioned by Amazon and put into collections by Amazon

Okay, back to review:

*Vomit, scream, fall over in vomit*
It’s perfect.
Professional start, no?

I absolutely adored this story. It checked every mark for me: time travel, time loop, deal with the devil, character development by progressing through trauma, sacrifice motif, clear evil, unclear anachronistic time period. The tone and voice of the story was so clear and strong immediately, the narrative wasting no time to establish the character outside of anything other than a force to be reckoned with through the motif of willpower.
I have recommended this short story to so many people at this point that even at 29 pages I’m willing to offer it up as one of my contenders for my favorite book I’ve read this year.
It is beautiful, the wording and flow of sentences purposeful and well sculpted.
No notes.