Skip to main content

Featured

Two Essays on The Count of Monte Cristo

I love The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I have read the unabridged version more than once, and my most recent reread was in 2023. At that time, I wrote a couple of brief essays which I posted on Tumblr, one of which was about a canonically queer character and the other discussed a character who is often left out of the various adaptations. I present for you these essays with expansion and alteration, because I keep returning to them as pieces of writing and because I don't want them to be limited to those original posts. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout, as well as new patrons DivineJasper and Sasha Khan. (Quotes are from Robin Buss’ English translation of Alexandre Dumas’ work.) Link to Audio Version. ----- Canonical Queerness in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas You’d need to change surprisingly little of The Count of Monte Cristo to confirm Eugénie Danglars as a trans man (or a masc-leaning nonbinary person...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #6, Witches #2)

Witches are not by nature gregarious, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe...

TITLE: Wyrd Sisters
AUTHOR: Terry Pratchett
PUBLISHER: Corgi
YEAR: 1988
LENGTH: 336 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: No

Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

WYRD SISTERS became enjoyable about halfway through, which was either when the Shakespeare references really got going or is just when I realized they were happening at all. I got enough of them for it to be funny, but it also means that a lot of the humor is referential, depending on the reader to be familiar with a bunch of other stuff (or in this case, with several specific plays) in order to get the jokes. Discworld humor tends to he referential but this felt like a particularly egregious version since so much of it has one source rather than generally pulling from many disparate inspirations. 

There was a disconcerting amount of humor which revolved around men being in dresses in a theatrical setting. It was particularly frustrating when someone of it was from a Dwarf, who (at least later on in the series) have an approach to gender which I’ve been promised I’ll like, but clearly had some issues to work out in this one. The “joke” began and ended with “that man is in a dress”, which is 1) not actually a joke and 2) potentially transphobic. 

The Fool is my favorite character, his backstory is very moving and his romance is genuinely sweet. Overall this one is fine but not amazing.

CW for ableism, sexism, misogyny, heightism, cursing, kidnapping, confinement, fire (not depicted), violence, child abuse, domestic abuse, torture, sexual assault (not depicted), murder, death.

Bookshop Affiliate Buy Link

Add this on TheStoryGraph

A black cauldron heated from below by flames with three black witch's hats floating above it



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts