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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1923 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 1, 2026

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So, what are you reading?

Almost finished Al-Ghazali's Book of Contemplation and trying to go through his Censure of Wealth and Miserliness. Still on Macpherson and others.

Started The Count of Monte Christo.

Had to read that one for French class in high school. The way Edmond got cucked was particularly painful. But his revenge schemes were way too elaborate, and would never work in real life; man needs to learn that shooting is not too good for his enemies.

What I remember most is the way his cellmate promises to teach him "mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted" within a couple of years, in a prison with nothing in the way of materials. Which goes against everything I know of pedagogy. But, then again, Alexandre Dumas was a writer, not a mathematician or a physicist.

Good book. Public domain, too, so lots of adaptations, some of them great. Probably the standard modern version would be the 2002 movie with Jim Caviezel, but if you are ever in the mood for something a little more exotic, Gankutsuou is excellent (and particularly innovative for choosing to tell the story from Albert's POV).

Maybe it's been a while, but my personal head-canon was that Edmond didn't get cucked, and his fiance only married his enemy to protect Edmund's son she was pregnant with at the time.

...yeah, maybe it's time for me to re-read the book. I blame the anime for this.

That's actually from the movie, which reveals that Albert is Edmond's and Mercedes's son, and that she only married Fernand to provide him with a father (Fernand is unaware, so in this version, it is he who is cucked). In the book, Albert is Fernand's son, and Mercedes married him after eighteen months, having given up hope that Edmond would ever return.

Ah, that explains it, then. Well, glad to see I atleast pulled it from somewhere, as opposed to the idle and delusional musings of my mind.

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