Training Char-RNN with The Count of Monte Cristo

Andrej Karpathy recently shared an interesting article about the capabilities of Recurrent Neural Networks here. He also shared an open-source character-level RNN named char-rnn that is easy to train with some text. Lots of people have had fun training it and seeing what it can produce! 😊

Installation of Torch and char-rnn is straightforward. Just follow the instructions and it should be done.

char-rnn needs a large amount of text to train and I used the massive 1500-page tome The Count of Monte Cristo which I read recently. The English translation of this book is available at Project Gutenberg here as a text file. I cropped off the Gutenberg-related text at the beginning and end of this file and trained the char-rnn with it.

With a low temperature, char-rnn returned text which was almost correct in grammar and spelling. However, since I have read the book, I noticed that it played safe, seeming like a nonsense regurgitation of the book:

$ th sample.lua cv/lm_lstm_epoch50.00_1.1763.t7 -length 2000 -temperature 0.2
using CUDA on GPU 0...  
creating an LSTM... 
missing seed text, using uniform probability over first character   
--------------------------  
der.
As the last man who has been able to say that he has not been
deceived by the name of the count's hand in the dead body. The count was said
to the count's steward, and the count was still as the door of the stranger to the
present of the count's power of the two features of the count's shoulders.

"I have not the count is a fine and the count's door, and the count will be able to say that I have seen
the same time to the postilion of the present of the countess, and the count was a
small cravarse that he had not the count was the same thing to the
bright previous conduct to the count with a smile of the countess with his study,
and was a strange shoulders. The count was spoken of the count's return
to the count's countenance of the count's steward had been at the same
of the country of the count's room, and the count was to be deceived, and the
street was standing at the same time and the count's hand to his hands, and
the count was still as though the continual distance was the stranger to the
president and the count with a smile of the garden to the count, and the
streets she had been able to have been continued to say that he had been so much
approaching the stranger. The count was still as though the streets were
she did not propose to the same time the wall, and the count was still as the same
time he was about to be able to conceal the president was strictly endeavoring to see the
porter with a smile of the street, and the count was so much the present of the
countess, which he had been able to leave the countenance of his companion,
who had been so far as the door of his father's servant, who was still as the
countenance of the count with a smile of the procureur. "I am already said that the count was the
present of the countess, and the count was the same time the two men who had been
considered the count's servant, and the other had been so long and the second
part of the passage and the present of the staircase before the cou

High temperature was more fun! There was more interesting and new conversations, more newly created phrases, but also more spelling mistakes. You can read it below and enjoy: 😊

$ th sample.lua cv/lm_lstm_epoch50.00_1.1763.t7 -length 2000 -temperature 0.85
using CUDA on GPU 0...  
creating an LSTM... 
missing seed text, using uniform probability over first character   
--------------------------  
der.
It is well before shame."

"Is it well going to expons I confess, the last fine staircase on the evenge of your life."

"How did not contrain to me."

"Oh, you go known." And Monte Cristo passed the counter, exclaimed, "Star to you, but I left you, that's what I
hear Perusial spot to the room,--deeply so dead. I will give him marriage.

"Ma," replied Monte Cristo, in the middle of the Ruestian; "my tage of conscious to do at
Noirtier"--

"A life that hung modest."

"It is a man of honor."

"Dear Vilentie?"

"The foirs of the direction of another."

"What, awaited Robe," continueded he, while Dantes passed of his danger's, "Your splendid silence as you present me to think of
my father to speak in the little beauty of my own fault."

"I was able to leave for a superble in a splendid hands."

"I will not say this; for it half accomplished that, like the emperor. He touched a royalist, which was a
window, lyies have been arrested, while they was Ali passed on me. But our eyes
was turned towards him, where he had referred at the small and thirty. He began
me into the door. "To which I take the life to my house? and
the soft acquainter was reflected by the window."

"Then I may ashails, your majesty's name, and did you not yet be at your
disposal thus."

"And where doubtless your poverty
will be so blue to me in the department?"

"Yes, sir; you really so well know that, my friend, who, and then, because by the track of treason, but risk
of her mind, and the idea of shortes have eludantly watching
the educity and agony and perfect inmost in such engalor that they are admittance, those
who are about to recognize it. In order of Mademoiselle
the notary stormed the concierge under the thoughts, for what, however, the freedom of the
two friends, or seven o'clock in the diggages. He doubled his bread.

"Why shouldered so?"

"Yes, I will, for he is an equal fortunate to see the Champs Elysees of meeting?'--'Well, as you say
do