Monday, March 9, 2015

The Count of Monte Cristo....on hold

Well, I am putting The Count of Monte Cristo on hold. I discovered that my version (thought it says nowhere) is an abridged version, and I kind of really despise reading abridged versions for myself. It makes me feel like I am being cheated on a story somehow. My version does not even tell who the translator is, but only mentions who wrote the introduction, which I am assuming must also mean the translator. From what I am understanding, it was standard for this novel to be abridged, I guess it was in a way to control what people were reading. So a ton of chapters were just removed from the novel that I guess someone decided was not appropriate to read, literally removed 20+ chapters, changing the number of pages from over 12,00 pages to about 500 pages (which is what my books is). Can you imagine missing over 700 pages from a story? That seems so incredibly crazy to me. From just reading through some reviews and looking at books, I guess one of the only versions available that is unabridged is translated by Robin Buss, and printed by Penguin Classics. My problem at this point, is the listing on Amazon shows all different kinds of versions if you click on the different styles (hardcover, paperback..), so it is confusing for me to understand which version I would be getting if I order it. Also, what is even more confusing, is that my abridged version is also printed by Penguin Classics. I am so lost! I am thinking this might have to be a book I pick up in person so that I know I am getting the right version, and that may be a while before I am in a bookstore that sells it. So, sadly, The Count of Monte Cristo (or half of The Count of Monte Cristo) is being put back on my shelf because I can't bring myself to read a partial story no matter how much I was loving it. I would rather wait until I have a full copy, to fully enjoy it. I am not sure what it will be like, as this means the style will be a bit different, being translated by different people, and I was really loving this style. I wished it had occurred to me before I purchased this copy that it was a translated works, as I would have done more researching to make sure I was getting a good version. I didn't realize that it wasn't an originally English published novel until I was reading it. Fingers crossed that I will be able to get my hands on an unabridged copy soon and that I will still thoroughly enjoy it! If you know any further information that might help in understanding this translation/abridged/unabridged situation, I would love to hear!

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