Reading Dairy

I’ve got to tell the truth that I had been too busy with my study to actually have a mind on jotting down any diary while reading the weeks before TEM4. Very sorry for that. During this winter, however, I did made about three logs on what I was reading, but unfortunately they have been carelessly deleted. I’ll try and see how well I can remember them.

Outline of The Count - Today

I’ve read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas from time to time for the last couple of months. It is a story full of adventure and something masculine. Edmond Dantes, a kind-hearted talented and brave young man who is loved by those who know him. However, misfortune falls on him and he is put in jail by his enviers for 14 years. He manages to escape and gain freedom again, but he is no longer as naïve as he used to be. With the treasure he gets, he is now able to award those who once helped him, or, take revenge.

My Respond to Ch. I to Ch. VIII – 3 months ago

I at first read the book very slowly, but as the story gets more and more attractive, my speed and understanding increase just like when I’m seeing a movie. I couldn’t believe that. Edmond is arrested on his wedding, within the first 50 pages of the book, too soon for me to expect. I felt something heavy for life. He is given the best happiness life can offer, winning the respect of many, and marry a girl he loves, at an early age of 19. But fate can take it once all away! How could I get through all this if I were him?

But maybe such suffering, somehow to a man’s success, is necessary. As Edmond himself realizes, all these good things may “happen too early for him”. But I just couldn’t have imagined, the trial, like these happy moments too, would come so early so soon. Someone takes advantage of his activity, and says he’s a Bonapartist, and he loses his freedom right away.

Perhaps what Dumas wanted to say is a man’s value lies in the trials he stands through. However, can we say that so sure? I listened to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos while doing the reading, the last notes struck just in time when I finished the chapter where Edmond is put into the dungeon of the Prison on Chateau d’If, amid the sea. Rachmaninov’s music tells something about fate too, while he is on the liner heading for the New World, far away from his Russian hometown, to seek his career.

Respond to “freedom chapters”

Edmond made his fatherly friend, Faria, who used to be an Italian noble scholar, and they are the only human to talk to in a cell to each other. Faria teaches Edmond the knowledge he knows and made him a learned sailor. Faria finds this young man so good and worth his trust, that he gives the way to find his considerable buried treasure, which they can share once they escape. However Faria suffers from a fatal disease and dies before they can make their way out. In pain and grief, Edmond makes his escape to the open sea, though nearly loses his life. Freedom, as he can swim in and breathe.

More Reading Diaries coming up before Sunday