Count of Monte Cristo Music

[SMgitara]

Hey guys,

First of I would like to say The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas is my favorite novel by far (got 3 copies/read multiple times). After reading the book and being a bit disappointed by the movie I picked up my guitar and made a song that was inspired during some parts of the novel. Since I see that you guys are enthusiasts of the novel as I am. I was hoping to get some input on what you think of the song. Any critique/advice/or comment is welcome. Thanks.

Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZa9CzII5k0

[MarieG]

SMgitara - Very beautiful and touching song. Thanks for sharing. It's a perfect fit for The Count.

[kiki1982]

I agree, and I'm difficult to please.

[Emanuele]

Perfect if you are in love with the novel as I am maybe you can help me out with this Question.

In the novel Dumas wrote the Edmond Dantes spent 14 years in prison.
But in the chapters refferring to the prison time he is very detailed in describing Edmond pains and period:

He enters jail in feb 1815
Then he meet the INSPECTOR after 17 month (chapter 14)
Then he is waiting the governor to check Villefort notes for 1 year
Then he spent 4 years passing from rage to the idea of committing suicide (chapter 15) and whes he's dying he heard Faria Priest.
After he meet him they spend 1 year in edmond education and 15 month digging the new tunnel.
then Faria got his stroke and thean after a short period he dies.

TO me the count is 10 years (more or less).
So I was wondering, am I missing something or Dumas just di not mention something in the novel and this seems really strange to me since he is so detail oriented along the whole novel?

Please help me

[kiki1982]

I think you imagine the amount of time Dantès and Faria spend together as a little short...

Dumas does not really touch upon real-time there (neither did he do that in the beginning, only spending a few ines on the four years of solitude), but the fact that Dantès calls Faria 'father' when he has died and will keep doing that, is a clear indication that the feeling of the reader as to 'time' is not the same... They would have spent 9 years together in that prison, if we take Dumas seriously.

Maybe it was a way of conveying the lack of natural clock to the reader. For prisoners (certainly then) night merged into day and they lost track of time. Dantès does not know how long he has been there when he meets Faria, who can exactly tell him. It is also he who is the saner of the two at that moment.

[Emanuele]

Kiki you are right,

but when Faria rises from the floor the first time he is afraid of telling Dantes his name, and he is asking how old is he?
Dantes aswers that he only knows that he entered in jail on february 28th of 1815 and he was 19 years old.
Faria answers: "not eve 26 years old, you cannot be a traitor..."
This means that Dantes meets Faria after 7 years of prison (if Faria is not mad off course).

They spent 7 (not 9) years toghether (7+7 - 14 years of prison in total)

The same day, after Faria discloses to Dantes the plot of Danglars and Villefort, Dantes asks him to teach him everything. Dumas writes that Dantes was an excellent student and after 1 year he was a brand new man.

Than again Faria start to think of eliminating the guard by digging a tunnel and Dantes replies: " ah you want to do it now, so we lost 1 year..." and Faria gets angry

Then they star digging and they finish the tunnel in 15 month and then Faria has his first attack. Edmond state that he will not escape without the priest.

SO the only possibility is that between the first attack and the death of faria passed 4 years.

This from my calculation off course

[kiki1982]

That statement is not about his age then, it is about the age of majority back then.

A man could not marry without the father's consent until the age of 25 (Les Misérables. Apparently the age if majority must have been after 26. Hence, the fact that Dantès could not have been a traitor as he cannot commit a crime like treachery at the age minority.

In the original French version, the sentence reads: 'Pas tout à fait 26 ans. Allons, à cet âge on n'est pas encore un traître.' ('Not yet/absolutely/entirely 26. Come on, atthat age one is not/cannot be a traitor yet.')
I beieve your versio has been badly translated. 'tout à fait' does not mean 'even' in English, that would be 'même'. 'Tout à fait' means that one is not there yet. So I thing Faria was talking about Dantès's age at the time of his 'crime' and not at the time that he meets him.

However, now you ask me, I got interested .

Apparently, he took 4 years to produce the tools he has for digging, and 2 years he has been diggng his tunnel (chapter XVI). Allowing that he entered the prison in 1811, it is at the point where he meets Dantès six years later, so 1817. Essentially, it means that (concidentally) Faria started digging in the year that Dantès entered the prison: 1815, also the year Napoleon came briefly back and was definitively banned to St Helena. (symbolically of course...) So, it means that they would then have spent not 9 years, but 8 years in prison together. So that, at the point where Faria dies, Dantès is about 33 (oh, my God, was Christ also not 33 when they put him on the cross and was resurrected? Monte Cristo is often paired with Him).

[Emanuele]

Thanks Kiki for the wonderful translation / explenation. Your point is pretty clear. though I have some remarks to your statement below

However, now you ask me, I got interested .
Thank for your interest Apparently, he took 4 years to produce the tools he has for digging, and 2 years he has been diggng his tunnel (chapter XVI). Allowing that he entered the prison in 1811, it is at the point where he meets Dantès six years later, so 1817. If they met in 1817 and Dantes escaped in 1829 this means 12 years together and it is not matching anything, cause Edmond enters in 1815, he met the prisons inspector after 17 months and waited 4 years before thinking of committing suicide ???

Essentially, it means that (concidentally) Faria started digging in the year that Dantès entered the prison: 1815, also the year Napoleon came briefly back and was definitively banned to St Helena. (symbolically of course...) So, it means that they would then have spent not 9 years, but 8 years in prison together. in 1815 Dantes is 19 years old if they met in 1817 and spent 8 years together means that Dantes escaped at 29 years old and not 33
So that, at the point where Faria dies, Dantès is about 33 (oh, my God, was Christ also not 33 when they put him on the cross and was resurrected? Monte Cristo is often paired with Him).[/QUOTE]

[kiki1982]

Anyway, yesterday I tried posting, but my computer crashed and I didn't have the courage to open everything again. So, here I am again.

I am really going to get to the bottom of this .

Firstly, my calculation was wrong, as I took the wrong point of reference... I took Faria and then calculated the time they spent together, but that's not right as he has spent four more years than Dantès (alone) in that prison. I must have been sleeping or something . So:

As they met inside in 1817, Dantès is then 21. If he has been in prison for 14years before he escapes, they must have spent 12 years and not 9 together. he must be 33 when he gets out, because that is what Dumas tells us. The question is how their time is divided within that time-span.

So:

17 months (that's one year and 5 monhs) after they put Dantès into prison, he gets his visit from the governor. This is in the year about July 1816 (he was arrested in February 1815). A few months later, he will get to know Faria who is digging as we speak. He meets him in the year 1817.

They agree that Faria will tell him and teach him everything he knows and they agree that Edmond will dig a new tunnel,going from the middle of the one Faria dug. If we assume that they first started by teaching Edmond the basics and then digging the tunnel, we can assume that they spent first one year in teaching Edmond calculus and that sort of thing. So, we are now in the year (possibly Summer) 1818.

In chapter XVI, it says fruther that 'after 15 months' of digging, the tunnel was finished and that Edmond practiced his languages while doing it. So, we can assume that the tunnel, counting from Summer 1818, is finished in the Autmumn of 1819. But, as they are ready to escape, Faria gets his stroke which paralyses him on his right hand and left leg. It will stay like that until his third stroke that kills him. But he recovers vigour and continues to teach Edmond. he tells him of the treasure.

Unfortunately, after his first stroke (it must be in 1819), there is nothing more to designate any time-frame. Dumas describes the timing very fast and merges day into day without real exact timing. He talks of them spending the days together, but how many of them, is the question. Although, apparently, it is so that the gallery that stayed long disused (whch allowed our prisoners t dig their tunnel unnoticed) has been redeveloped during that time. Also the hole they made in the side (or something) has been blocked up, so they will not escape by the tunnel anymore and are now conscious that only an act of Provience is goin to get them out of there. Fact is that redeveloping such a gallery is not a mere job of one month, certainly not in those days. And we cannot assume that they did that straight after their tunnel was dug. The language in that passage betrays the fact that it ocurred some time after the paralysis of Faria. I go for 5 years, but that's only speculation.

Only in chapter XXII Les Contrebadndier/The Smugglers does Dumas touch upon the fourteen years in prison that have given Dantès a full balck beard and long hair. Although it remains questionable how his hair can only have grown to one foot length... Maybe down to the bad food? Dumas says he looked like 'one of those beautiful heads of Titian'. So, in Livorno (Italy) where he sailed with the gang of smugglers on the Jeune Amélie, he knows a barber who cuts his hair and beard and he looks at his face that is now 33 instead of 19 (when he saw it last). Allowing for a few weeks sailing there (depending on the wind), he must have escaped in the year 1829. We know that it took a short night to sail from the island of Pianosa he left on his left to see Montecristo the next day early in the morning at half an hour's swim from it. So their whole sail from Marseille must have taken a few weeks as they picked him up from the Tiboulen in the west of the Îles du Frioul (7th quarter of Marseille) only a (possibly large) swim from the Isle of Îf.

He must have spent a very long time (12 years) with Faria within that one chapter before Faria's second and final stroke. Admittedly, it seems a little illogical, but it must be like that as Dumas puts us into real time again after that in Livorno (Italy). Although, you are right that Dums was a little careless here...

[Emanuele]

Kiki,

i get your point and now it is really clear to me that 4/5 years passes between frist Faria stroke and his death. I agree

Just point out that Dantes Meet Faria after 6/7 years of prison so eventually 1821/22. Summurazing:
17 months after he enters jail he meets the governor,
Then 1 years waiting for a reply from the Governor on Villefort Note (and then the governor change)
4 years of desperation, anger and suicide tendencies (while he il loosing forces he heard faria diggin on the wall)

6 years and an half / 7

Thanks for the patience in replying me. You were really kind.