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Title: The Dante Club: A Novel
ISBN: 034549038X
Author:
Matthew Pearl
Publicate Date: 2006-06-27
Publish: 2006-06-27
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.65
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: For a Period Piece, It was ok.
Renown authors/poets James Lowell, JT Fields, Oliver W. Holmes and Henry W. Longfellow are members of a literary organization known as "The Dante' Club". Dedicated to deciphering and translating Dante's works from Italian to English. These literary giants fight Harvard and others to reveal these works to a very resistant world.
While the 1800's saw Boston thriving and changing, it also saw an outbreak of distemper (that killed several horses thus successfully stalling transportation), the hiring of the first "mulatto" Boston police officer (which met resistance on and off the department), and a series of brutal murders that mimic those punishments issued in Dante's works. While they follow the clues, and try to protect their work and reputations, they find that everything is not as it appears, and everyone is a potential suspect.
Although I usually would not select a "period piece", when given this book to read, I gave it a chance. I thought that it was at least worth a 3.
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2: Writing style is very tedious!
We chose this book for our neighborhood Book Group. Of the 12 members, only three of us were even able to finish it. Very hard to get in to, most gave up before page 100. But, even those of us who keep going found it very plodding and tedious. A good plot, but, his writing style definitely got in the way of the story.
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3: Spectacular Mystery
Three unlikely sleuths, the real-life poets Lowell, Holmes, and Longfellow, investigate a series of brilliant murders inspired by Dante's Inferno, which is at the present of the story being translated to English by Longfellow himself So this means the murderer is amongst them somehow. A sheer work of brilliance set in post-Civil War times making for one fantastically enjoyable read. Highly recommended for all detective thriller fans.
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4: So-so murder mystery
No spoilers
The Dante Club is basically the definition of a so-so murder mystery. Basically, the foremost experts in the study of Dante's Divine Comedy work together to try to stop a murder who punishes his victims in real life, the same way Dante punishes sinners in his poem. The problem with this book is that it does absolutely nothing to stand out from any other murder mystery. While reading this, I found myself reading just for the sake of getting to the end, and not because I really cared about any of the characters, what happened to them, or who the killer was and why he was doing what he was doing. Although I can't say that I was actually bored at any point in this reading, I can say that I just wasn't particularly interested either.
The bottom line is that this book can be skipped over. Furthermore, if you like the premise of this book (Dante's poem being invoked for murder and using it to figure clues out) I HIGHLY recommend The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi. You can check out my review of it for more details, but think how Dan Brown used da Vinci's works to get clues behind something major, and that's what Asensi does with Dante. It's one of my favorite books of the genre, and I suggest checking it out over The Dante Club anyday.
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5: The Poet's step is quiet and solemn
Matthew Pearl's 'The Dante Club' is an enthralling and entertaining piece of literature. Set in nineteenth century Boston, readers are immediately introduced to such famous literary figures as Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and George Washington Greene. Readers are also introduced to murder most foul as one of their contemporaries is found on his own property, stripped bare, with a fatal head wound, and a black flag marking the spot where he lay as the very life seeped from his body.
The celebrated poets/historians who are the protagonists of this work busy themselves with a weekly meeting of their 'Dante Club' as Longfellow works to complete the first American translation of Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. As bodies beging to pile up around them, the men discover that the murderer, their 'Lucifer', patterns his kills after the words of Dante himself in the Divine Comedy. Once this is realized, the men know that they must work to unmask the killer before he strikes again. But as they investigate the work of this fiend, they discover that, somehow, he is always one step ahead of them.....committing another murder in the style of the Dante Canto they intend to work on at their next meeting of the Dante Club.
Full of historical detail and period manners, author Matthew Pearl certainly earned his keep in presenting a thrilling, well paced and plotted novel that brings to life not only some of the most famous literary minds of nineteenth century Boston, but their surroundings and daily lives as well. Pearl has crafted a dark, sinister tale of murder and mystery to ensnare readers as much as it ensnared the men investigating the crime.
Not to be passed up by readers who truly enjoy well-written historical mysteries and dark tales of even darker deeds. A fantastic find, and a work that I will most definitely recommend to others.
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