Book Review - Revenge by Stephen Fry
Jun. 27th, 2006 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lareinenoireFirst of all, how a retelling/modernisation of Dumas' Le comte de Monte-Cristo came out in 2000 and completely escaped my notice until a few days ago is beyond me. At any rate, I found it at the library and there was absolutely no way that I was leaving the library without it. Kept away from reading it until yesterday evening, gave up, and finished it (albeit with a few interruptions including one very long discussion) around 3:30 AM.
My first impression of the book was one of slight perplexity. One, I worry about anyone attempting to rewrite Monte-Cristo, if only because most film versions simply don't get it (the exception being the version with Richard Chamberlain, which is fantastic, even if it lops off every single subplot to concentrate on the title character; at least it admits that). Two, Monte-Cristo come is around 1500 pages, and Revenge is only 316 in hardcover.
I began to read, and was instantly sucked in. The novel begins with two letters, one from Portia Fendeman to Ned Maddstone, and the other his reply. Readers of Dumas will probably giggle at many of the names, which are anagrams of their counterparts in Dumas (Ned Maddstone = Edmond Dantès, etc). Ned is the proverbial Golden Boy: he's about to enter his final year at Harrow, he's all but got an Oxford place lined up, he's going into politics with a pedigree, as his father is the poor-but-principled Sir Charles Maddstone, he's got a lovely new girlfriend, and on top of everything, he's just a very nice person.
Except that he's got enemies he's entirely unaware of. One is his fellow classmate, Ashley Barson-Garland (Baron Danglars; I don't believe we ever do find out his first name), who comes from a very lower-class background in Manchester and is desperately attempting to hide that amongst his fellow Harrovians. He's got a great deal of political ambition, but with Ned constantly in the spotlight, he's always second-best. And once Ned -- accidentally -- reads his diary and finds out what he's hiding, Ashley wants revenge. Another student, Rufus Cade, dislikes Ned if only because Ned is aware of Rufus' stoner tendencies and Rufus is convinced that Ned is lording it over him. Then there's Portia's cousin, newly arrived from America, named Gordon Fendeman (Fernand Mondego), who just happens to be in love with her and hates Ned by default.
As for The Plan, it's a fascinating update of the original. In Dumas' novel, Edmond is anonymously denounced as a Bonapartist (the novel is set in 1815, just before Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Battle of Waterloo); Fry has the three boys plant marijuana in his jacket pocket and make an anonymous drug tip to the police. Ned is, of course, taken in, where he meets Oliver Delft (de Villefort), an up-and-coming secretary in the Home Office, whose mother, Philippa Blackrow, just happens to be a notorious member of the IRA. Delft will do anything at all to hide that particular family connection. Including imprisoning an innocent seventeen-year-old boy and forgetting he ever existed.
The book, much like the Chamberlain film, streamlines the plot down to the main storyline. Which, in this case, actually works out in its favour; it reads like a very taut modern thriller as much as a recasting of the original. Published in 2000, it takes advantage of the dot-com bubble to explain Simon Cotter (Monte-Cristo)'s meteoric rise, and very cleverly uses modern technology to further the revenge plots. So I would recommend it even to people unfamiliar with the original novel; on its own, as far as I can tell, it reads extremely well, and Fry just has a fantastic writing style to begin with. Very witty, lots of black humour.
My favourite aspect of Revenge, however, is that Fry does not whitewash his main character in the end. Ned's transformation into Simon is *supposed* to change him, and he really does become something of a bastard. We can't precisely blame him for this, given what he goes through, but we are supposed to doubt him here and there, to wonder if perhaps he might be going too far. Revenge is also, in a way, more brutal and violent than its predecessor -- for example, one of the characters dies by being forced to swallow hot coals. Given that some of the people in Simon's pay are criminals, drug dealers, and the like, this is not surprising so much as fitting with its new modern setting. And we do wonder even more, I think, if Simon's revenge is worth all the horror he is visiting not only on his enemies but on everyone around them. Monte-Cristo does have a moment, toward the end of that novel, where he realises that he has gone too far. Simon does as well, but far too late to fix anything. His realisation that he has made of himself a figure of absolute terror is just heartbreaking.
As for the ending, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Fry didn't succumb to the Hollywood phenomenon of happy endings, and provided a finale that fit with the story's darker view of Ned/Simon. There is no 'attendre et espérer' here; just Simon ripping up his old letters from Portia and watching them vanish into the horizon over the sea.
Someday, I want to teach a course on revenge plotlines. From The Oresteia to Batman. Because they all build so beautifully on each other. A pity Monte-Cristo might be too long to assign as part of a class, and not on its own. The longest book I read as part of an undergraduate class was Ulysses, and we needed an entire term to devote to it. Of course, I could just teach Monte-Cristo and use the other texts as additional material. Ooooh.
In other news, we might have a place to live. We just need to wait about two weeks, to see if the unit we want is still available. The gentleman who showed us around was kind enough to promise to let us know about any developments concerning the unit in question, so hopefully we'll have no problems there. And I spent the past few days reading lots. This makes me happy.
My first impression of the book was one of slight perplexity. One, I worry about anyone attempting to rewrite Monte-Cristo, if only because most film versions simply don't get it (the exception being the version with Richard Chamberlain, which is fantastic, even if it lops off every single subplot to concentrate on the title character; at least it admits that). Two, Monte-Cristo come is around 1500 pages, and Revenge is only 316 in hardcover.
I began to read, and was instantly sucked in. The novel begins with two letters, one from Portia Fendeman to Ned Maddstone, and the other his reply. Readers of Dumas will probably giggle at many of the names, which are anagrams of their counterparts in Dumas (Ned Maddstone = Edmond Dantès, etc). Ned is the proverbial Golden Boy: he's about to enter his final year at Harrow, he's all but got an Oxford place lined up, he's going into politics with a pedigree, as his father is the poor-but-principled Sir Charles Maddstone, he's got a lovely new girlfriend, and on top of everything, he's just a very nice person.
Except that he's got enemies he's entirely unaware of. One is his fellow classmate, Ashley Barson-Garland (Baron Danglars; I don't believe we ever do find out his first name), who comes from a very lower-class background in Manchester and is desperately attempting to hide that amongst his fellow Harrovians. He's got a great deal of political ambition, but with Ned constantly in the spotlight, he's always second-best. And once Ned -- accidentally -- reads his diary and finds out what he's hiding, Ashley wants revenge. Another student, Rufus Cade, dislikes Ned if only because Ned is aware of Rufus' stoner tendencies and Rufus is convinced that Ned is lording it over him. Then there's Portia's cousin, newly arrived from America, named Gordon Fendeman (Fernand Mondego), who just happens to be in love with her and hates Ned by default.
As for The Plan, it's a fascinating update of the original. In Dumas' novel, Edmond is anonymously denounced as a Bonapartist (the novel is set in 1815, just before Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Battle of Waterloo); Fry has the three boys plant marijuana in his jacket pocket and make an anonymous drug tip to the police. Ned is, of course, taken in, where he meets Oliver Delft (de Villefort), an up-and-coming secretary in the Home Office, whose mother, Philippa Blackrow, just happens to be a notorious member of the IRA. Delft will do anything at all to hide that particular family connection. Including imprisoning an innocent seventeen-year-old boy and forgetting he ever existed.
The book, much like the Chamberlain film, streamlines the plot down to the main storyline. Which, in this case, actually works out in its favour; it reads like a very taut modern thriller as much as a recasting of the original. Published in 2000, it takes advantage of the dot-com bubble to explain Simon Cotter (Monte-Cristo)'s meteoric rise, and very cleverly uses modern technology to further the revenge plots. So I would recommend it even to people unfamiliar with the original novel; on its own, as far as I can tell, it reads extremely well, and Fry just has a fantastic writing style to begin with. Very witty, lots of black humour.
My favourite aspect of Revenge, however, is that Fry does not whitewash his main character in the end. Ned's transformation into Simon is *supposed* to change him, and he really does become something of a bastard. We can't precisely blame him for this, given what he goes through, but we are supposed to doubt him here and there, to wonder if perhaps he might be going too far. Revenge is also, in a way, more brutal and violent than its predecessor -- for example, one of the characters dies by being forced to swallow hot coals. Given that some of the people in Simon's pay are criminals, drug dealers, and the like, this is not surprising so much as fitting with its new modern setting. And we do wonder even more, I think, if Simon's revenge is worth all the horror he is visiting not only on his enemies but on everyone around them. Monte-Cristo does have a moment, toward the end of that novel, where he realises that he has gone too far. Simon does as well, but far too late to fix anything. His realisation that he has made of himself a figure of absolute terror is just heartbreaking.
As for the ending, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Fry didn't succumb to the Hollywood phenomenon of happy endings, and provided a finale that fit with the story's darker view of Ned/Simon. There is no 'attendre et espérer' here; just Simon ripping up his old letters from Portia and watching them vanish into the horizon over the sea.
Someday, I want to teach a course on revenge plotlines. From The Oresteia to Batman. Because they all build so beautifully on each other. A pity Monte-Cristo might be too long to assign as part of a class, and not on its own. The longest book I read as part of an undergraduate class was Ulysses, and we needed an entire term to devote to it. Of course, I could just teach Monte-Cristo and use the other texts as additional material. Ooooh.
In other news, we might have a place to live. We just need to wait about two weeks, to see if the unit we want is still available. The gentleman who showed us around was kind enough to promise to let us know about any developments concerning the unit in question, so hopefully we'll have no problems there. And I spent the past few days reading lots. This makes me happy.
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Date: 2006-06-29 08:21 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'll be the same way with The Time Traveler's Wife. They've cast Brad freaking Pitt. I'm going to die.