Thothmuffin

So I just finished reading Count of Monte Cristo. So much for April 1! I think it actually may have taken me less time to read this than any one book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Dumas is just so very...digestible.

The book is much more involved and convoluted than the movie version, and builds to a splendid climax, though the denoument leaves something to be desired. The Count is such an interesting psychological figure, so convinced that he is an avenging angel and beyond reproach, the agent of Providence. His brief period of questioning that certainty and then finding new resolve is dealt with much too hurridly, and the revenge he extracts on Danglars, his last revenge, is somehow unsatisfying, a very pale reflection of his former terrible justice. On the whole, I think that Dumas was almost overwhelmed by the powerful and fascinating character he had created in the Count, and somewhat at sea as to how to bring him back into the mortal realm. He lapses into a merrily-into-the-sunset sort of ending, which feels a bit like Dumas gave up and retreated to more manageable characters.

One character that I love dearly from the book, and who was absent in the movie, is Eugenie Danglars, who is as frankly lesbian as one can be in 19th century France. There is the most adorable cross-dressing scene at the end when she elopes with her girlfriend. While on the one hand her character is quite sterotyped (and one could argue, who is not in a Dumas novel?), it's refreshing to see such a sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality. Sure, Eugenie is forceful, man-hating, has "strong features," and is often described as masculine and even prone to crossdressing, where her girlfriend is a timid, blonde, feminine thing--but Eugenie is still clearly a young woman before she is Sapphic, with a woman's troubles, and Dumas is even careful to note that she's very pretty and doesn't lack for male suitors in the society.

I wonder if Dumas was so kind to the girls precisely because they *were* girls--I mean, if Albert Morcerf and Franz D'Epinay had concocted plans to sunder Albert's engagement and disguise Franz in a dress so they could elope to Italy together, I'm not sure Dumas would have been so terribly sympathetic and had as much cheeky fun as he did with Eugenie and her girl. Maybe it all goes back to the Sedgwick idea of the homosocial, and that in pre-modern times only male homosexuality was threatening because only between men did homosexual relationships threaten anything like power structure, etc. I can see I have to do more research on views on lesbianism in antiquity to round out my knowledge. Also interesting is that the Victorians cut a lot of Eugenie's parts from their translations. Who's surprised?

I got my hair cut again today, and while it turned out a little spikier and a little less Audrey Hepburn than I wanted, it's not bad.

I leave you with a strangely pertinent Eugenie Danglars episode that may perhaps help explain my affection for her character:

'Don't I look a hundred times better like this?' Eugenie asked, smoothing down the few curls left on her now entirely masculine haircut. 'Don't you think I'm more beautiful as I am?'

Indeed you are, Eugenie.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

i feel bad