The Black Count

I first heard about this book from a coworker of mine. He read it several years ago and had nothing but good things to say about it. I've had it on the backburner ever since, fully intending to get to it at some point but just never managing to. This month, however, a group of fellow book friends decided to give it a shot, and I tagged along. I'm....mostly satisfied with my experience with this book! Going into it, I had previously read [b:The Count of Monte Cristo 7126 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611834134l/7126.SY75.jpg 391568] last year and I knew very little of French history.The entire Dumas family was super interesting to read about, with the whole take on slave ownership being turned on its head for large parts of the book. They had some progressive ideas in the beginning, even if they didn't always follow through on them. Alex Dumas was an accomplished military man, no question about it, and his dedication to a country that didn't always have his back was commendable. I'm not huge on military history, I'll just address that now. I honestly had to force myself through large parts of the middle of the book about military logistics and who was sending letters to whom and where troops were going. Large parts of the book didn't even mention connections to Dumas-any Dumas-and while I thought the historical aspects were interesting, it felt disconnected and boring in places. The author clearly did the research though, and the footnotes and asides he throws in about random details were entertaining. Almost a third of the final part of the book is nothing but bibliography and end notes, though, which surprised me a bit when the book ended much earlier than I was expecting.This was still an entertaining read, I just wish it were a bit more focused.

I received an advance reader copy of this book back in 2012, but it sat on my shelves for eight years before being read. I am trying not to kick myself too much over this fact, and I plan on picking up a finished copy of the book (the ARC does not include the index, and the end notes, while present, lack page number references).

While I have been familiar with the novels of Alexandre Dumas for years, I knew little about his life, and nothing about the life of his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. This excellently researched biography and history helps fill in those gaps. Drawing from letters and memoirs and records of the time, Reiss pulls together a fascinating narrative honoring this incredible man.

I ventured into a new genre, Biography. I expected to hate it, and so I did.

I considered this book because I loved The Count of Monte Cristo, but where one is a novel, which purpose is to entertain the reader, this a history book, which purpose is to be precise and accurate with names, dates and sequencing of events.

The prologue was interesting, it tells about the authors difficulties obtaining the documents for his research.

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3.5 stars. I didn't love the narrator for this one, and it felt a bit long for the amount of material it covered.

Much more than I was expecting: the biography is beautiful but it's the social context that really shook me. Reiss presents informative and powerful insights into the cultures of the time and their transformation over the course of Dumas's lifetime: legal and ethical stances on slavery, “race”, and human rights that echo eerily in today's world. He takes you into the insane convolutions of late-18th-century France, the bizarre legal arguments, the horrible mix of politics and business that destroyed the lives of humans based solely on their skin color. He also provides illuminating background on the conditions that led to the Terror and to Napoleon's ascension, much of which rings depressingly true today.

As a person General Dumas seems larger than life: physically imposing, intelligent, strong, highly moral, deeply principled, courageous, kind. The sort of person, actually, we should know more about. It's criminal that he's been forgotten, and you owe it to yourself to read this book for that reason alone. Reiss uses historical sources everywhere it's possible but his tone toward Dumas is warm and engaging. I came away with what I think will be a lasting impression of Dumas, one I'm grateful for.

And there's the relationship between General Dumas and his son, the novelist we know. All we have left today are wisps but they're poignant ones; Reiss weaves them through the book respectfully, never cloyingly.

Highly recommended. I feel incredibly lucky to have had a friend push me to read it.

Meh. I think I would have liked the physical cooy more than the audio book. It was a bit hard to follow the generations by audio.

Alexandre Dumas père, de schrijver van onder meer Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, was half zwart. Dat zat wel ergens in mijn onderbewustzijn, maar ik had nooit echt nagedacht over wat dat precies betekende.

Ik was er altijd van uitgegaan dat “Dumas grand-père” wel ergens een zwarte mevrouw zou gevonden hebben, in de kolonies of zo. Blijkt: niets van dat – het was de vader van de schrijver die zwart was! En meer nog: het leven van de man is nog boeiender dan dat van d'Artagnan en de graaf van Monte Christo samen!

Alex Dumas, de vader van Alexandre Dumas-de-schrijver, was de zoon van een weggelopen zoon van arme adel, die in het binnenland van Saint-Domingue (het latere Haïti) op de vlucht was voor de authoriteiten, en er met opeenvolgende (zwarte) vrouwen vier kinderen kreeg. Als zijn ouders en zijn oudere broer gestorven zijn, keert de vader van Alex terug naar Frankrijk. Het geld voor de oversteek haalt hij op door zijn vrouw en kinderen als slaven te verkopen. Alex koopt hij even later terug, maar de drie anderen zullen sterven als slaven.

Nog voor de Franse Revolutie was er al een beweging om slavernij af te schaffen (die op dat ogenblik niet eens met huidskleur vereenzelvigd was), en op het grondgebied van Frankrijk, precies op het moment dat Alex Dumas er terechtkomt, was het helemaal mogelijk voor een “kleurling” om een degelijk leven op te bouwen. Wat hij dan ook doet: hij blijkt een uitstekende paardrijder en zwaardvechter te zijn, en is helemaal aanvaard als aristocraat in Parijs van de jaren 1770.

En dan hertrouwt zijn vader, en gaat de geldkraan dicht. Alex Dumas gaat op zijn 24ste in het leger, als gewone voetsoldaat bij de dragonders. Waar hij aan sneltreinvaart carrière maakt: een paar jaar later is hij de facto leider van een regiment van een duizendtal “gens de couleur”, en dan baas van een heel leger, en dan van een nog groter leger, en dan is hij plots de hoogst geplaatste niet-blanke persoon in een Europees leger ooit, tot op vandaag.

Oh, en dat is nog maar het begin van de avonturen, want dan komt hij in het vizier van Napoleon, die jarenlang veel lager van positie was dan hem, maar nog steiler opmars maakt. En neen, het is blijkbaar echt géén goed idee om zonder al te veel omfloersingen uw gedacht te zeggen tegen Napoleon.

Lees het boek vooral zelf, maar in het kort: het verhaal van de Edmond Dantès, dat is eigenlijk het verhaal van Alex Dumas. Behalve dat het nog minder een happy end heeft.

I stopped reading fiction about ten years ago, when I discovered non-fic books and realized that, omg, truth really is stranger than fiction. The Black Count is one such strange, incredible story.

This is a biography of Alexandre Dumas's dad, (also) Alex Dumas, who was the mixed race son of a cheeky French aristocratic lothario and a slave lady in Haiti, came to France, pwned everyone at fencing at his Fancy Teen Aristocrat Fencing School (or whatever it was called), became top general of everything, weathered the French Revolution (avoiding the guillotine, oh man), commanded the French cavalry in the disastrous Egypt Expedition under Napoleon, ended up imprisoned in a castle in Italy by some crazy Neopolitans, and was also super tall for that period (over 6 feet!) and had the ladies faintin'. He was that kind of super noble, super modest, super athletic dude that's the hero of many a film. So: amazing person. And: amazing time! For goodness sake, late 18th century France was OUTTA CONTROL. It's a miracle anyone survived that period, especially while getting promoted.

Oh yeah, Dumas (the son) is the guy who wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Reminder!

I imagine Dumas (the father) played by a beefed up Chiwetel Ejiofor. Seriously, someone needs to buy these film rights.

Great biography of Alex Dumas, the father of [a:Alexandre Dumas 4785 Alexandre Dumas https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1279049943p2/4785.jpg]. This is the best work of non-fiction I've read since [b:Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln 2199 Team of Rivals The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347278868s/2199.jpg 2861004].I've always been a fan of Alexandre Dumas and have read a great deal of his work. It was interesting to read about the family history and the amazing things the his father accomplished. The biography starts with Alex Dumas' grandfather a minor son of a noble in France who took off to the new world to make his fortune. It continues through Alex's childhood in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and return to France. His participation in the France Revolution and following campaigns. His eventual capture, imprisonment and life after his release. Truly, a rags to riches to rags story. The book is told in an easy to read voice. The footnotes are plentiful and particularly helpful. I'm going to have to check out more by [a:Tom Reiss 63278 Tom Reiss https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1354292860p2/63278.jpg]. If you enjoy a good biography, French History, or the writing of Alexandre Dumas you really should read this book.

Fascinating. Utterly fascinating. I learned so, so much about stuff I really didn't care about before (and really still don't), but Reiss made me care, made me interested in most of it. I knocked it down from 5 stars because I thought toward the end of the book he spent too much of time on non-Dumas matters that didn't seem to play a significant part in the circumstances of his life (and there were far too many authorial “I”s in a biography for my taste).

This is the kind of non-fiction/history that makes a guy want to read more in that genre.