Number 27

I discovered a very interesting bit of information today about my favorite book of all time: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

Dumas, of course, often incorporated historical figures into his books, but generally less so when said book had a contemporary setting. Although Monte Cristo takes place over a good deal of time, the bulk of it is set roughly in the period in which it was written, and only the beginning really uses any history. That bit deals with Napoleon’s exile to the island of Elba and his subsequent return to the mainland, but the diminutive emperor never actually appears personally. (He does, however, gets a very large amount of screen time in Dumas’ criminally unknown The Companions of Jehu, which I am sure I will write about in the future.)

The point is, only today did I discover that one of the novel’s most important characters–the Abbé Faria–was in fact a real historical figure. When I first read Monte Cristo the character of Faria seemed very much like an invention, but not only did he exist, there’s even a statue of him.

Pretty creepy, actually. It makes sense, though, given the man’s history.

I won’t get into the details of that history because all I’d really be doing would be cribbing from the Wikipedia article, but something does come to mind. While Dumas’ version of the good Abbot is clearly highly, highly fictionalized, there’s one bit about the real Faria that I am positively shocked didn’t make it into The Count of Monte Cristo.

The historical Abbé Faria was, apparently, a pioneer in the study of hypnotism. In fact, one site that I saw even referred to him as the father of modern hypnosis. Now, in The Count of Monte Cristo, Faria trains and educates Edmund Dantes in myriad disciplines and skills, which that character uses to plan and execute the most intricate, devious, and Machiavellian of plots. With all of that, as well as Dumas’ consummate skill at always finding the coolest damn stuff for his stories, why did it never occur to him to have Abbé Faria teach Dantes hypnotism? That seems right up the author’s alley.

Monte Cristo would have been a very different book in that case, (well… maybe not that different) and perhaps hypnotism’s inclusion wouldn’t have been for the better, but it certainly is an intriguing what-if, isn’t it?