The Countdown of Monte Cristo

Welcome to The Countdown of Monte Cristo, the daily podcast where we break down one of literature’s greatest adventures, bite by bite. For the next four years—yes, you heard that right—host Landen Celano will be reading a passage from Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo every single day. Each episode offers a short escape into this timeless tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption, paired with Landen’s reflections, insights, and occasional forays into 19th-century oddities. Never read The Count of Monte Cristo? Perfect—you’re not alone. This show is for first-timers, seasoned fans, or anyone who’s curious about exploring a literary masterpiece one small morsel at a time. Along the way, we’ll dig into historical tidbits, unpack the story’s twists and turns, and maybe even stumble over a French pronunciation or two. (Phonetics are hard, okay?) Whether you’re a lover of classics, a casual listener looking for a daily dose of culture, or just someone who needs a momentary escape from the noise of the modern world, this podcast has something for you. So grab your metaphorical ticket to Marseille, and let’s set sail on this absurdly ambitious journey together. Subscribe now on your favorite podcatcher or find us on YouTube. And don’t forget to support the show at https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod. Join us as we count down The Count!

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Episodes

Sunday Jun 29, 2025

Dantès has prayed. He has waited. Now he begins to unravel.
In this devastating installment, Dumas walks us through the next psychic chamber of Edmond Dantès’ descent. Rage replaces faith. Memory burns. The letter from Villefort—once just a betrayal—is now a curse etched into his mind like divine judgment. He lashes out at the walls, at the air, at his own thoughts. From here, the idea of suicide creeps in—not as a desire for death, but as a reprieve from suffering. Dumas, in one of his most poetic passages, compares this temptation to a Dead Sea: calm on the surface, death beneath. This is not melodrama. This is suffering rendered with philosophical clarity.
 
Topics Covered:
•The evolution of rage and blasphemy in isolation
•Dumas’ literary reference to Belshazzar’s feast: “mene, mene, tekel upharsin”
•The philosophical framing of suicide as both horror and false peace
•How language and image deepen Dantès’ despair without reducing it to cliché
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Saturday Jun 28, 2025

Alone and exhausted, Dantès finally turns to the last power he has not yet pleaded with—God.
In this haunting chapter, Dumas charts the next phase of Edmond Dantès’ psychological descent. He asks for the company of even the madman in the next cell, but is denied. Then, having exhausted every earthly plea, he remembers the prayers of childhood and finds new meaning in their repetition. This is not a triumphant moment of faith—it’s a desperate search for meaning in isolation. But even prayer offers no release. Dantès is left only with memory and madness, circling the same thought over and over like a man gnawing his own soul. Dumas ends with a chilling image: Dantès, trapped like Ugolino in The Inferno, devouring the one thing he cannot escape—his loss.
 
Topics Covered:
•Solitude, prayer, and the return of faith under pressure
•How Dumas uses Dante’s Inferno to mirror Dantès’ emotional state
•Memory as both comfort and torment
•How Dumas frames spiritual awakening as a psychological shift, not just religious redemption
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Friday Jun 27, 2025

What happens to a mind when it’s left alone for too long?
In this harrowing chapter, Dumas traces the emotional collapse of Edmond Dantès—not with violence, but with silence. From righteous innocence to desperate bargaining, Dantès endures the slow grind of solitary imprisonment. He speaks just to hear a voice. He begs for movement, for conversation, even for a deeper, darker cell. And most chillingly, he starts to envy the galley-slaves—the branded, chained men—because at least they can breathe the air and see each other’s faces. Hope is not gone—but it’s sickened into something quieter, stranger, and more dangerous.
 
Topics Covered:
•The psychology of solitary confinement
•Dumas’ depiction of spiritual erosion
•The haunting line between sanity and surrender
•Dantès’ evolving relationship to hope, God, and the self
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Thursday Jun 26, 2025

The madman in the cell offers six million francs—and no one listens.
Abbé Faria makes his offer: wealth beyond comprehension, in exchange for a chance at freedom. But he’s already been labeled mad, and in this system, that label is stronger than reason. In this chapter, Dumas introduces the secret that will reshape the entire novel: a hidden treasure, real or imagined, buried far from the dungeon. The officials laugh. But the readers lean in. Something has changed.
 
Topics Covered:
•Faria’s treasure: delusion or leverage?
•The power of belief in a system that doesn’t
•Bureaucracy’s blindness to opportunity
•Foreshadowing Dantès’ future
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Wednesday Jun 25, 2025

He offered proof, logic, and a promise—but he was already dismissed.
In his final plea, Abbé Faria makes a simple, airtight offer: test me. Dig where I say, and I’ll stay here. No risk, no escape, just verification. And still—he’s denied. Because in the eyes of the institution, he’s already mad. Dumas shows us how truth can be ignored not because it’s unclear, but because of who speaks it. This chapter closes Faria’s arc with irony, heartbreak, and one final equation scribbled in chalk. The treasure—real or not—becomes a symbol of lost credibility, and what happens when power refuses to listen.
 
Topics Covered:
•The rejection of truth by institutions
•Sanity vs. perception in bureaucratic systems
•Faria as a tragic prophet figure
•The treasure as both literal and literary symbol
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Tuesday Jun 24, 2025

The madman in the cell offers six million francs—and no one listens.
Abbé Faria makes his offer: wealth beyond comprehension, in exchange for a chance at freedom. But he’s already been labeled mad, and in this system, that label is stronger than reason. In this chapter, Dumas introduces the secret that will reshape the entire novel: a hidden treasure, real or imagined, buried far from the dungeon. The officials laugh. But the readers lean in. Something has changed.
 
Topics Covered:
•Faria’s treasure: delusion or leverage?
•The power of belief in a system that doesn’t
•Bureaucracy’s blindness to opportunity
•Foreshadowing Dantès’ future
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Monday Jun 23, 2025

He claims to know something that could change everything—but no one will listen.
In this unforgettable scene, the so-called madman Abbé Faria demands a private audience—not to complain about the food or filth, but to reveal a secret of world-altering importance. The inspector and governor scoff. They call him delusional. But Dumas does something different: he lets us wonder if the madman is the only one telling the truth. With references to Newton, Machiavelli, and a unified Italy, this is the moment when the dungeon becomes something stranger and more dangerous than a tomb—it becomes a vault.
 
Topics Covered:
•The shift from despair to intrigue: Dumas introduces “the secret”
•Faria as prophet, not fool
•Political insight masked as madness
•Romantic tropes of the brilliant, isolated genius
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Sunday Jun 22, 2025

In a cell below the sea, a man draws circles in plaster—and speaks of millions.
This chapter introduces one of the most important characters in The Count of Monte Cristo: the mysterious Abbé Faria. While Dantès pleads for reason, Faria appears to embody madness—but it’s a madness filled with structure, symbols, and startling clarity. With references to Archimedes and economic logic, Dumas positions Faria as a force of knowledge and obsession. He may seem broken—but he is, in truth, about to change everything.
 
Topics Covered:
•Introduction of the Abbé Faria
•The difference between Dantès’ and Faria’s survival strategies
•Madness as a form of resistance
•Classical allusions and intellectual imprisonment
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Saturday Jun 21, 2025

He meets a man with power—and mistakes kindness for change.
For the first time in over a year, Dantès has someone listen to him. He pleads not for pardon, but for understanding—for a trial, a verdict, a reason. The inspector listens. He even promises to investigate. But Dantès doesn’t realize what we do: this is not a rescue. This is a delay. Dumas ends the scene with chilling brilliance—Hope, once dead, is reborn. But in this prison, even hope wears shackles.
 
Topics Covered:
•Dantès’ belief in process vs. the system’s inaction
•The emotional and ethical weight of uncertainty
•Villefort’s influence even in absence
•Hope as both fuel and captivity
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

Friday Jun 20, 2025

He doesn’t beg for freedom—he begs to be judged.
In this devastating passage, Dantès speaks not just of imprisonment, but of the emotional erosion that comes with lost time, lost love, and lost purpose. He remembers the exact hour of his arrest. He measures time not in days, but in emotional ages. And above all, he asks not for pity, but for justice: a trial, a verdict, a name in the eyes of the law. This is one of Dumas’ sharpest critiques of institutional cruelty—not active violence, but total indifference.
 
Topics Covered:
•Dantès’ trauma, time distortion, and plea for justice
•Romanticism’s treatment of lost potential
•The cruelty of silence vs. the clarity of a verdict
•Existential punishment vs. physical restraint
 
Support the show and access bonus episodes + full-length story-only audio:
👉 https://patreon.com/gruntworkpod

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