Truth is Stranger than Fiction

I recently got it into my head to re-read The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.  I wonder why?  It's the story of a man falsely accused by jealous rivals who for really quite trivial reasons subject him to almost Biblical suffering and rob him of his simple dreams and throw away his whole life.  But he comes back and exacts a slow and very thorough revenge upon them...

To be honest, I actually didn't notice the revenge fantasy part of this until I had started reading the book again.  There's another, realer, more basic reason I was drawn to this book. It's my "creep into a den and safely escape" book.  When I was about 12, I went to my friend Simon's farm in the countryside of Ohio.  I chased a ball into some very dense brush, and came out with an absolutely horrific case of poison ivy.  I had it all up both arms and both legs.  I was in such discomfort that I was confined to bed for about 4 days.

My bed was in a converted barn, and was one of those delightful contraptions built by industrious intellectuals turned handymen - a set of massive plywood bunkbeds, made of the cheapest materials and thus almost demonically overbuilt - a fortress of wood - I recall you could actually slide some sort of panel in front of, though that is probably the invention of my memory.  However, it was a den, no question about it.  I could disappear there, all day, and nobody would even know I was there.  And for those 4 days, I did nothing but read The Count of Monte Cristo.  It was a marvelous escape from my unbearably itching body - into the streets of Marseille, the dungeons of the Chateau d'If, the secret cave, the buzz of Rome, the intrigues of Paris.  I was completely lost.  I can't remember ever reading such a big book so fast, and being so completely swept away.  I think I'm looking for that feeling again.

So I'm reading it again.  It's a great read, I can tell you.  Last time, I read the abridged version, that came in at just over 800 pages.  This time, I'm going for the full 1243!  I can't put it down!

I was particularly struck by this passage, which I marked: "I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics.  You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests.  In politics, you don't kill a man, you remove and obstacle, that's all.*"   Ah, politics.  It's the same in big governments, and little companies...

Oh and don't see the movie - it's appalling.  Read the book!

*translated by Robin Buss