So, I made a big deal on Facebook about the fact that I was undertaking the reading of The Count of Monte Cristo.  The reason for that was that my edition was 1,462 pages long.  The older I get, the more I think there better be something worth the investment of my precious time.  My son thinks the experience deserves a blog.  Well, here it is.

I realize that many of my friends on FB read the book in high school.  They are way ahead of me.  I read The Tale of Two Cities in 11th grade.  I read Steinbeck and Hemingway on my own.  It’s just that a few classics somehow got by me and I am now trying to play catch-up.

But, I ran into some obstacles in my reading of the “modern” writers of note.  I avoided Infinite Jest because I thought it was overwritten and a little pretentious. [The footnotes drove me crazy.].  I also avoided Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow because I had trouble following the plot (if there was one).

But, I found The Count of Monte Cristo to be one of the best of the classic books I’ve ever read.  It was a page turner.  Not in the way that the Russian Masters like Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace, but I thought Monte Cristo was much more engaging.

It’s themes of love, love lost and vengeance resonated with me.

Next up is the long overlooked David Copperfield.  I’ll keep you posted.