Reviews and Comments

I rated this 4 stars at first. Looking back, there really were vast chapters of me just not enjoying anything the book had to say. But now that I'm done, being objective about it, it really all had its function. It was just slow untangling of blushing maidens, noble gentlemen playing with contemporary ideas into a rotten core of French high society. Monte Cristo being the single fuse that can blow up this facade through his masterfully woven web.

It's weird because the main theme of revenge never hit me. Revenge has consequences, and consumes the one taking revenge. Nothing ground breaking from a modern perspective. The juxtaposition of how people were and the logical conclusions of their personalities in a span of 16 years were my favorite instead. The materialists, the ambitious brilliant men who would crush anyone in front of them to achieve their goals. The traitors, the weak. They're all there, as their past and present selves.

Monte Cristo is a great, masculine (in the traditional sense) character with surprising depth. The religious aspect of his character gives it a whole new dimension too. Side characters range from extremely interesting with very good character progression to archetypes only there to serve a single purpose.

Overall a very good read, with a payoff that's worth it all. But what sets it apart from some other books I'd consider 10/10 is that it really didn't make me feel so much. And I doubt I'll be thinking about Monte Cristo in a year, like I did with War and Peace and Crime and Punishment.

A great contrast to the massive amounts of dystopia I've seen in media. But that's not even remotely why I rated it 5 stars. A lot of my enjoyment is almost the meta-meta-commentary in my head, which completely fell in line with the meta-commentary of the narrator. I felt his disbelief. I shared his skepticism (how can people really be happy and nice to each other, no way, people are horrible!). And then I embraced it. I'll admit that my enjoyment dropped a bit when it came to the technicalities of how the utopia came to be, but it was still a breath of fresh air altogether.
The book relies on complete immersion in the world, and as such cannot be rushed.
This really is just a beautiful daydream, written down on a page. But like every daydream, or my fondest memory of summer as a child, it's now over. And I get to go back to the gray reality of post-industrial Europe. But hey, at least being literate gave me the opportunity to read this and inspire my own daydreams.

The book isn't much of an investment, but it still felt like a chore a lot of the times. The characters are extremely intelligent, but not very likeable. Which might not be a problem if they served some higher purpose. From what I could gather, it's about Europe submitting to Islam. And the story is written from the POV of some bored, unfulfilled professor. So it's kind of a pain in the ass to get through the chapters where he's just doing nothing. I think the author is trying to show the average European male, and how liberalism and democracy take away all purpose from him. That is then compared to the fulfilled life of religion (mostly Islam, who solves all problems).

I think the value of this comes from this prediction. People who see this takeover and submission by the natives take hold, will probably find it amazing. I think the opposite is never explored, as the Muslim immigrants and converts are displayed as this unconquerable warriors of the spirit, and as such can never lose to lesser human desires.

All in all, didn't like the characters, didn't like the story, and the idea of submission was only presented through one, idealistic lens. The actual writing is great, the main character is written amazingly, maybe that's why I found him boring. It's very quotable. I found myself laughing, or admiring hot takes constantly. I've highlighted almost 30 sentences, and only really stopped because I had too many already. Maybe it'd be 4 stars if the French-ness didn't permeate every page. French wine, French places, French authors, French history.

I let this sit for a while, because I was hoping for some sort of eureka moment. But it never came. So I'm keeping this review simple. Kierkegaard (or the translation, I'm not sure) has a way with words. Throughout the entire book you get this comfortable, happy feeling, and his love for life and Christianity. But this work specifically seems to be meandering a lot. It does feel like there's a common thread, but there's so many weird tangents whose entire purpose seems to be to reiterate the same points, but very rarely in a way where they explain things better. For some reason, I was really entertained by what I pictured as a Christian Übermensch.

The annotated version is necessary, as the book is just riddled with obscure references and latin expressions.

The core concepts are very hard to grasp, and will probably require a reread, especially his Faith /individual rising above the universal paradox. And the reason I'm rating it 3 stars is pure spite. This guy had over 200 pages to explain it, and I think he used different examples that explained things in the same way.

I have no idea how to rate this. I do think that the book is meant exactly for people like me. People who have had Christianity misrepresented to them by various clergymen, media and the like.
It starts off really well, and portrays Christianity in the slightly more human way, that isn't full of shame, and self-hatred. So that is the overarching reason I put it at 5 stars, even though I'm bound to find multiple logical obscurities and "source: dude trust me" types of statements.
At the moment of writing this, I couldn't think of any of the flaws myself. But I can say that it didn't really convince me to become someone that's all in with God. I'm still a sceptic, so I guess mission failed, Lewis.
It did made me really rethink a lot of things though. Admission to heaven not being some test based on your outwards life. But an admission based on your inner life, and how it projects that into your outer one, and realization of goals, based on your potential. It is almost impossible to explain with words, and writing 3 paragraphs on that in a review seems pointless.
Generally, to sum it up
- Avoids almost every major issue that a 2021 sceptic has with Christianity
- Doesn't get bogged down my denominations
- Real, human examples and generally does a great job of simply explaining complex concepts
- Not much repetition
- A lot of "Just my opinion bro", to avoid criticism
- A great introduction to Christianity for an average person like me, and I assume many people don't really need much reading beyond this and The Bible.