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My father was a mulatto, my grandmother black, my grandparents apes. Summing up, sir, my pedigree starts, where yours ends. - Alexandre Dumas
Note: as this novel was published in 1843, some of the terminology I use below reflects the novel's era rather than modern language standards.
This novel is a blatant wish fulfilment fantasy, but the commentary on racism makes it interesting as does the strength of the writing and possible autobiographical content. Georges grows from being a smart little boy into the smartest and the strongest and the bravest man alive through a personal system of deliberate hardcore training. He's born on the Isle of France (Mauritius), educated in France in the Napoleonic era, and returns to his homeland post-Napoleon to start a revolution.
Georges is a mulatto and his goal in life is to fight prejudice against him and his family. (This anti-racist message is somewhat confused by the fact that Georges' father Pierre Munier is a slaveholder who only "seldom" punishes his slaves and has an appeals process if a slave is flogged unjustly, and that Georges' brother Jacques is a slave trader who attempts "as far as possible" to sell husbands to the same place as their wives and children.) (People advance toward liberation one step at a time. Also, the narrative is at least somewhat aware of the moral ambiguity here.)
You can't ignore the dynamic that it's glorious and awesome and powerful to have a mulatto protagonist who owns every heroic virtue known to mankind. It's heady excellent stuff.
The nautical terminology and descriptions of naval battles will be great fun to people who like Hornblower and similar. One of the major characters is a pirate and Georges' nemesis is an ex-navy man for Great Britain: this pays off. There's also a lengthy description of a condemned man waiting for capital punishment - an excellently written, chilling, suspenseful bit that shows why it's really good so many countries have now got rid of judicial killing.
Although Georges' many perfections come across as shallow characterisation, Georges also has hubris and a complex about revenging his pride. These flaws bring him down. He challenges the racism in his society by leading a revolt, but the world retaliates against him. Dumas lets his protagonist suffer. The Negro revolution, where twelve thousand masters dominate eighty thousand slaves, is crushed by the clever white people supplying the inferior black people with a hundred barrels of free booze - a suggestion originally made by Jacques, Georges' brother.
So all this long toil which Georges had imposed upon himself was thrown away; all this lofty study of his own mind, his own strength, his own worth, was useless; all this God-given superiority of character, of education at the expense of others, all this was crushed in face of the instincts of a race that preferred brandy to liberty.
However, the characters of Laiza and his brother Nazim are represented as two black men with brains and courage. They were sold as slaves but are highly ranked in their own country, and they desire freedom. Laiza falls in love with a white woman who doesn't return his affections, Sara, and his feelings are represented as noble and decent. (He never expresses his feelings because by then Sara and Georges have fallen in love.)
Black women don't get much of a lookout: barely a mention, except that Jacques the slave trader favours black prostitutes above white. Georges' mutual affection for wealthy white heiress Sara is portrayed as a mark of his superiority. Dumas' real life grandmother was black. Her name was Marie Cessette-Dumas; she was a slave owned by the estate, and is described as 'a great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men'.
It's difficult not to map Georges' story to Dumas' father and his lengthy, impressive military achievements (he is the highest ranked person of colour of all time in a European continental army). I also didn't realise that Thomas-Alexandre Dumas fought in the Vendée, the same incident where Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault and Renée Bordereau took up arms and Anthony Trollope wrote a mediocre novel. This novel also foreshadows Count of Monte Cristo, where although Dantès is nearly as impressively talented as Georges, the moral ambiguity of the Count's revenge makes him a more interesting character. This book's relevance to history and autobiography is probably its main strength and claim to importance. Additionally, many sections of it are very entertaining.
The Robin Hood retelling that follows 'Georges' in the online copy I read is not nearly as fascinating as this novel. It's generic, bland nonsense told in the unforgivable language of highfalutin. It adds nothing to the English folk tale. Also, it commits the cardinal sin of characters who talk way too much on what they assume is their deathbeds. It's so bad it comes off as almost a parody, but isn't funny enough to be a good parody.
Note: as this novel was published in 1843, some of the terminology I use below reflects the novel's era rather than modern language standards.
This novel is a blatant wish fulfilment fantasy, but the commentary on racism makes it interesting as does the strength of the writing and possible autobiographical content. Georges grows from being a smart little boy into the smartest and the strongest and the bravest man alive through a personal system of deliberate hardcore training. He's born on the Isle of France (Mauritius), educated in France in the Napoleonic era, and returns to his homeland post-Napoleon to start a revolution.
Georges is a mulatto and his goal in life is to fight prejudice against him and his family. (This anti-racist message is somewhat confused by the fact that Georges' father Pierre Munier is a slaveholder who only "seldom" punishes his slaves and has an appeals process if a slave is flogged unjustly, and that Georges' brother Jacques is a slave trader who attempts "as far as possible" to sell husbands to the same place as their wives and children.) (People advance toward liberation one step at a time. Also, the narrative is at least somewhat aware of the moral ambiguity here.)
You can't ignore the dynamic that it's glorious and awesome and powerful to have a mulatto protagonist who owns every heroic virtue known to mankind. It's heady excellent stuff.
The nautical terminology and descriptions of naval battles will be great fun to people who like Hornblower and similar. One of the major characters is a pirate and Georges' nemesis is an ex-navy man for Great Britain: this pays off. There's also a lengthy description of a condemned man waiting for capital punishment - an excellently written, chilling, suspenseful bit that shows why it's really good so many countries have now got rid of judicial killing.
Although Georges' many perfections come across as shallow characterisation, Georges also has hubris and a complex about revenging his pride. These flaws bring him down. He challenges the racism in his society by leading a revolt, but the world retaliates against him. Dumas lets his protagonist suffer. The Negro revolution, where twelve thousand masters dominate eighty thousand slaves, is crushed by the clever white people supplying the inferior black people with a hundred barrels of free booze - a suggestion originally made by Jacques, Georges' brother.
So all this long toil which Georges had imposed upon himself was thrown away; all this lofty study of his own mind, his own strength, his own worth, was useless; all this God-given superiority of character, of education at the expense of others, all this was crushed in face of the instincts of a race that preferred brandy to liberty.
However, the characters of Laiza and his brother Nazim are represented as two black men with brains and courage. They were sold as slaves but are highly ranked in their own country, and they desire freedom. Laiza falls in love with a white woman who doesn't return his affections, Sara, and his feelings are represented as noble and decent. (He never expresses his feelings because by then Sara and Georges have fallen in love.)
Black women don't get much of a lookout: barely a mention, except that Jacques the slave trader favours black prostitutes above white. Georges' mutual affection for wealthy white heiress Sara is portrayed as a mark of his superiority. Dumas' real life grandmother was black. Her name was Marie Cessette-Dumas; she was a slave owned by the estate, and is described as 'a great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men'.
It's difficult not to map Georges' story to Dumas' father and his lengthy, impressive military achievements (he is the highest ranked person of colour of all time in a European continental army). I also didn't realise that Thomas-Alexandre Dumas fought in the Vendée, the same incident where Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault and Renée Bordereau took up arms and Anthony Trollope wrote a mediocre novel. This novel also foreshadows Count of Monte Cristo, where although Dantès is nearly as impressively talented as Georges, the moral ambiguity of the Count's revenge makes him a more interesting character. This book's relevance to history and autobiography is probably its main strength and claim to importance. Additionally, many sections of it are very entertaining.
The Robin Hood retelling that follows 'Georges' in the online copy I read is not nearly as fascinating as this novel. It's generic, bland nonsense told in the unforgivable language of highfalutin. It adds nothing to the English folk tale. Also, it commits the cardinal sin of characters who talk way too much on what they assume is their deathbeds. It's so bad it comes off as almost a parody, but isn't funny enough to be a good parody.
