#montecristo posting

[lafcadiosadventures]

Bandits you say?? insert hearts eye emoji hete

[lafcadiosadventures]

And another thing I think is very interesting/perhaps distinctive* of Dumas (at least in MonteCristo) is his penchant for scary and grotesque children. (Benedetto and Edouard Villefort)(their scariness is partially due to being spoilt by their mothers, but they both seem to carry a predetermination for evil in their physical features-> benedetto’s red hair, villefort’s huge, thin lipped grin)(that being said, dumas looking at spoilt children and finding them scary and disturbing is pretty valid)(is this self biographical ??? but it’s giving Diderot/Hobbes’ puer robustus,,,,)

*feels different from hugo and balzac’s children who never feel intrinsecally evil?? even in balzac who is a big determinism fan, society seems to have a heavier hand in molding people than biology,,, hmmm. this all definitely needs more research

[lafcadiosadventures]

diderot watching dumas defy reader’s expectations in montecristo like “yesss hahha, yess” (curiously, dumas might be the only french romantic i’ve read that I can’t remember mentioning diderot)(but his tonal shifts in montecristo?? gruesome satire* followed by lighthearted chapter about how Albert can’t and won’t get laid while in Rome?? Denis Never-Give-The-Reader-What-They-Want-or-Expect Diderot might have approved)

*still not over the mazzolata chapter, one of the best yet imo

[lafcadiosadventures]

Today in “Is it Vautrin or Montecristo?” we’ve got:

Fiery eyes

haughty and disdainful

aprox 40 yo

formed to rule the young men he associated with (!)

exerts the power of fascination

“(..)he had the fiery eyes that seem to penetrate to the very soul, and the haughty and disdainful upper lip that gives to the words it utters a peculiar character that impresses them on the minds of those to whom they are addressed.

The [redacted] was no longer young. He was at least forty; and yet it was easy to understand that he was formed to rule the young men with whom he associated at present. And, to complete his resemblance with the fantastic heroes of the English poet, the count seemed to have the power of fascination.”

This Byronic Man of French Romanticism is -no googling-i mean you can do what you want but where’s the fun in that

Vautrin

Dantès

Voting ended onOct 2, 2023

[lafcadiosadventures]

Dumas🤝 Balzac: Calling their forçat antiheroes fallen angel

[Which they literally are, see who Dantès and Vautrin were before entering the very different prison systems they transit, and who they become when they exit it (both via escape, and after that, becoming alchemically good at disguises, more things they have in common)(“rehabilitation of prisoners? I don’t know her”, the prison system in dumas and balzac seems to say)(it’s true that their situations are completely different, Dantès was a political prisoner who was supposed to be made to vanish from the face of the earth so, rehabilitation was never the goal/or excuse for his incarceration. while Vautrin was incarcerated as a petty forger but also rehabilitation was never on the map bc he got sent to forced labour aka to become a slave expected to work until dropping dead)]

[lafcadiosadventures]

Dumas: “the count's coachman was attired in a bear-skin, exactly resembling Odry's in The Bear and the Pasha”

Me: hmmm I wonder what that looked like-

Browsers: got you, Masha and the Bear pics coming right up!

[lafcadiosadventures]

“He’s a vampire, I can totally tell. My ex Lord Byron told me about them and he cannot fool me”

Alexandre Dumas, the Count of Montecristo

[lafcadiosadventures]

“We have no masks, and it is absolutely necessary to procure them.”

“Do not concern yourself about that; we have, I think, a private room in the Piazza del Popolo; I will have whatever costumes you choose brought to us, and you can dress there.”

“After the execution?” cried Franz.

“Before or after, whichever you please.”

“Opposite the scaffold?”

“The scaffold forms part of the fête.”

Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Montecristo