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The Club Dumas

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"The Club Dumas" kept me at home, curled up in bed the whole weekend despite a long-awaited Saturday rave. It was THAT good.

The plot is enough to keep you on edge until the last line. It starts of with an investigation on the suicide of a well-known bookseller, who had left a manuscript of "The Anjou Wine", a chapter of Alexander Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". Lucas Corso, the central character of the novel, is a book detective hired to authenticate the manuscript. His investigation leads him to a vortex of mysterious events, and he becomes involved in puzzling murder scenes and even demonology. To add to his stange experiences are the people he meets, who bear a puzzling resemblance to characters in the Dumas masterpiece.

This book was so interesting. It had twists and surprises that didn't use tired formulas of old mystery novels. I must add, though, that this book may not be enjoyed by everyone. If you're looking for an easy, fast read, well, you might have to think twice before reading this. There are various allusions to classic literature (particularly 19th century French literature), medieval history, religion and demonology. A reader not versed in Dumas' works may get confused. (And I haven't even mentioned all the Latin phrases yet). I DO recommend this book, however, to all bibliophiles, fans of classic literature and murder mystery genres. All the little literary tidbits, particularly on Alexander Dumas, will be mind candy, indeed. The author, Perez-Reverte, was compared by some critics to Umberto Eco in this novel. I have to disagree a bit, though...for although "The Club Dumas" resembles "Foucault's Pendulum" in that it freely alludes to history, ancient texts and esoteria, finding connections to otherwise unrelated events, I think that Perez-Reverte's writing is easier to take in. ( I didn't need a dictionary for the first sentence). The plot of "Club Dumas" also reminds me of another, not-very-known book, "The Eight" by Catherine Neville, because of the protagonist's entanglement with juicy puzzles and references to historical figures. I was also particularly impressed by the ending of the novel, which I thought was clever. Not a lot of books I've read these days have endings that satisfy me. (Hell, not a lot of books can keep me antisocial for the weekend!)

Lucas Corso is an unusual kind of private detective. He's "a mercenary of the book world," hunting down rare books for wealthy collectors. If that includes arranging for a theft and having confederates disguise the book's provenance, so be it. Corso knows all the angles.

In The Club Dumas, however, his latest case unexpectedly takes detours into violence and satanism. Corso has twin tasks: verifying the authenticity of a manuscript chapter of Dumas's The Three Musketeers and discovering whether a medieval volume, The Nine Doors, is a forgery. This book supposedly holds the secret of calling up Satan, and copies were burned during the Inquisition.

As he plumbs the murky depths of The Nine Doors and delves into the world of Alexander Dumas, Corso's case grows more and more phantasmagorical. He's stalked, beaten, becomes an accessory to murder, falls in love with a mysterious young woman who may be a devil, and becomes convinced someone has enmeshed him in a bizarre re- enactment of The Three Musketeers.

Critics have compared the author to Umberto Eco, but The Club Dumas lacks the heavy hand of the literary critic. It's a fast-paced, joyously complex and inventive book, imbued with a passion for literature. Prepare to be amused and amazed by this funny, bizarre set of puzzles within puzzles. And if you're a book lover, or have a special fondness for The Three Musketeers, this novel is an unforgettable feast.

In The Club Dumas, Reverte takes the idea of the novel-within-a-novel to an entirely new, compelling level. The levels of references within the novel are rich, nearly impenetrable, from the more obvious connection to Dumas's Three Musketeers to the fact that the central female character is named Irene Adler, who was "the woman" in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story, "A Scandal in Bohemia." The Club Dumas is a mystery about books, and Corso is a book detective. The reader must act as a detective as well, sorting through the woodcuts, the diagrams, and the references in order to follow Corso's journey.

Reverte is successful in that he creates an experience for the reader that mirrors Corso's own experiences; whether that experience is enjoyable for the reader remains to be seen. "Books play that kind of trick," Reverte writes, and the tricks within this book can actually reach the point of tiresome at times. Nevertheless, this remains one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. The narrative style is compelling and rich, even if it takes a bit of time to be fully digested.

The Club Dumas is a testament to bibliography and the treatment of books as physical objects as well as intellectual entities. The books within the novel interact with each other as they interact with the characters and with the reader. There are many ways to read this novel, but if nothing else, Reverte's novel is a love story to the book. It is difficult, if not impossible, to read it without feeling Corso's, or Reverte's, emotional connections to text.

While many of the literary references were over my head, it was amazingly easy to follow the paper trail (pun intended). We have two trails: a document that appears to be part of The Three Musketeers, and a `demon book', "The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows". The two don't seem to have much in common, but as Corso (a "book detective") continues his investigation of both the document and the book, disturbing similarities begin to appear.

What should be a simple case of authentication becomes a race against time, and a desperate attempt to stay alive. A girl with dubious intentions and origins joins Corso after many chance meetings, and her presence thickens the stew. Who is she? What is she? Why does she care about Corso?

The questions pile up, and answers aren't in abundance. Friends seem, at times, to be enemies, and enemies seem to be friendly. Corso's actions, as well as others around him, seem to mirror events from The Three Musketeers, and the characters seem to be playing their parts - Milady, Roquefort, and Richelieu. Everything seems tied in together, but how? The Three Musketeers and a "demon book"?

Three copies of the "Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows" exist, and Corso's charge is to find them all, compare them, and verify their authenticity - though his employer tells him that the copy he gives Corso is most certainly a forgery, although he will not tell Corso how he knows that. The content of the book is fascinating, and Corso's investigation into comparing the texts and the meaning behind everything within opens deadly doors - doors, perhaps, to Hell. Doors that could bring Satan himself into the material world. There is also reference to the "Delomelanicon", a book purportedly written by Lucifer himself, apparently a precursor, of sorts, to the "Book of the Nine Doors..."

The narrative structure of the story is ingenious. It starts in first person, and then switches to a seemingly odd third person telling. At first, you will wonder why the author chose that particular structure, but as with everything else, that question will be satisfactorily answered.

Some say this is Umberto Eco `light'. Probably. I have a difficult time getting through fiction that Eco has written since "The Name of the Rose". You could also call this Dan Brown for Intellectuals. Whichever. They're both compliments.

Be careful which path you follow, for it may lead to a destination you do not wish to go, seems to be the lesson of this absorbing, erudite, literary detective story. I am being very precise when I use the term, "literary detective story," for that is exactly what this is.

It is the story of Corso, a rare book expert with questionable ethics, who is sent on duel missions: first, to determine if a handwritten copy of a chapter of "The Three Musketers," is indeed written in the hand of its author; and second, to examine and obtain--by any means necessary--the two remaining known copies of the 17th century book, "The Book of Nine Doors." This is an unusual book in that it is said to be the one which contains a secret which would allow one to summon the devil. His employer for this job owns one of the copies, and apparently has good reasons to believe his copy is a forgery.

So Corso, the lonely, middle-aged, intelligent, somewhat alcoholic cynic, takes the book, and goes on his journey, from Madrid, to Lisbon, then to Paris. He meets forgers to discuss his problem, and we learn about how one might go about forging a book, or part of a book, or even a page of a book. In the meantime he studies his own book, and takes notes, and we are easily and delightedly able to follow along, as the author has reprinted the key engravings on which his attention is centered. He meets the owners of the other two copies, and they all carefully try to glean what useful information they can from each other, without revealing any more than they absolutely must. These conversations are one of the highlights of the book, as these intelligent and educated people use all of their cunning and resoucrces to out-maneuver one another.

Eventually Corso learns that there are differences in these three copies. Significant differences. And that he may be the only person in the world who understands what they might mean.

Along the way he is befriended then accompanied by a mysterious and beautiful young woman, who becomes his protector, and who displays an unusual interest in Satan. He is shadowed by someone who twice tries to injure him. He makes a startling discovery that his friend is in Paris with him. And why does everybody he has been running into lately resemble a character from "The Three Musketeers?"

This is a very engrossing book. The characters are interesting and believable, the plot is revealed carefully and slowly builds in suspense, it allows one to participate in the mystery, and it is very cerebral. Part of the fun, in fact, is that it abounds in literary allusions (but is never pretentious). If you like intelligent thrillers, you'll love this.

Even Johnny Depp couldn't save "The Ninth Gate", an appalling mish-mash of a film that didn't make much sense on any level, but "The Club Dumas", the book on which it is based, is a very enjoyable read. In Lucas Corso, Arturo Perez-Reverte has created an appealingly unappealing hero. Corso is a book detective, whose job is tracking down rare volumes for discerning collectors who don't mind using Corso to do their dirty work. And this he does with gusto, for, after all, he's being well paid for it. Corso will betray his best friend or sell his grandmother for a copy of a rare volume if the price is right. Perez draws us into the world of rare books and book dealers so convincingly that we can almost breathe in the dust of incunabula that have lain undiscovered and untouched for centuries.

This time around, Corso has a double job ahead -- he has to verify if the recently discovered, unpublished chapter of Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers" is genuine, and he also needs to determine if a copy of "The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows" is a forgery. "The Nine Doors", a volume written by Aristide Torchia which got him burned alive on the Campo Di Fiori near the end of the Inquisition, supposedly contains the secret of summoning the Devil up from Hell.

It turns out there are only three copies of "The Nine Doors" left in the world; all the others were tossed onto the pyre along with their author. It's Corso's job to track them down and see if any, or all of them, are genuine or not. The secret may lie in the nine illustrations in each volume, conveniently reproduced for the reader in "The Club Dumas", and Perez-Reverte goes into great detail in showing the reader how the nine illustrations in each volume differ from each other. So which book is a fake, or are all of them fakes? Corso tracks down two of the volumes, but lo and behold, there's devil and all to pay -- each owner meets a nasty death, and somebody with murder on his mind is on Corso's own track. But Corso isn't a detective for nothing; he not only resolves the question of the authenticity of the chapter of the Dumas novel, he discovers that part of each of the three volumes of "The Nine Doors" holds the secret to calling up Beelzebub from the netherworld. Only in the right combination can this be achieved, and it's the owner of the third volume who turns out to have commissioned Corso's search, in order to have all the ingredients at hand.

The book follows two story lines -- the attempt to verify the authenticity of the Dumas volume and the the search for the missing volume of the "Nine Doors", and the latter is vastly more interesting. In fact, the two separate plot lines appear to have little to do with each other because the story of the Dumas book is not nearly as well developed. Neither is character development one of Perez's strong points. The characters don't grow in this book; they just are. We see them less as personalities than as the jobs they have to do. But the story of the quest for the third volume of the "Nine Doors" is great fun, and the Perez-Reverte brings in more twists and convolutions than a Chinese puzzle; the book races along like a runaway freight train, but never careens out of control. For all the twist and turns, it knows where it's going, and carries the reader right along to the final page. And as Corso, the reader, and the unfortunate owner of the last volume of the "Nine Doors" all find out, everyone gets the devil he deserves.

Judy Lind

It doesn't hurt to know a little Latin and to have read Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but it is by no means a prerequisite for delighting in Arturo Perez-Reverte's meta-thriller The Club Dumas. Like the best kind of intellectual puzzles, the novel features a scattering of charts, diagrams, and pictures which invite the reader to actively participate in the solving of the mystery. Holding it all together is a sweeping and self-referential narrative that always amuses and entertains. Protagonist Lucas Corso is a savvy, pragmatic dealer in the exclusive and erudite world of book collecting. He is paid to find rare editions for collectors and to authenticate found fragments of original manuscripts. When, in the course of his searching, he also starts discovering dead bodies and links to satanic practices his mission becomes magnified greatly. The solution to textual mysteries takes on greater implications when his own life and the cast of characters around him start to resemble something out of a 19th century action-adventure book. Perez-Reverte is wily in the way he explores the themes of literature as taking on a life of its own and being the key to the ultimate mysteries. By employing a kind of intertextual motif he forces us to examine anew the way we, as readers, interpret and contextualize

"The Dumas Club" was first published in 1993, and was first translated into English in 1996. "The Ninth Gate", which was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Johnny Depp, was loosely based on the novel.

The story is told by Boris Balkan, a rather well-known in Spain's publishing industry. He's done the occasional translation, edited a few other books, written reviews and ran courses for writers- as such, he's regarded as Spain's most influential literary critic. In fact, when someone needs an opinion on the nineteenth century novel, Balkan is the man to ask. It's this expertise that leads to his meeting with Lucas Corso - who proves to be the story's central character.

Corso is what Balkan describes as a "mercenary of the book world". He works for a very small number of clients - exceptionally rich book dealers who pay very well to avoid getting their hands dirty. He does appear to be very good at his job - patient, an excellent memory, an expert knowledge of the literary world and a conscience that doesn't bother him unduly. He has also mastered a number of rabbit-like expressions, designed to tease more information out of the person he's questioning. However, he can change from a rabbit sharing half a carrot to a mean wolf, off on the hunt, in an instant. (He is also an expert on Napoleon's battles, and has a certain obsession with Waterloo in particular). Corso comes to Balkan with a manuscript he's wants examined - chapter forty-two from "The Three Musketeers", apparently in Dumas' own handwriting. Balkan refers Corso to a graphologist, based in Paris, by the name of Achille Replinger - both a friend and an expert on nineteenth-century French writers.

Corso is hoping to authenticate the manuscript on behalf of a friend called Flavio La Ponte - who had, allegedley, bought the manuscript from a publisher called Enrique Taillefer. Slightly awkwardly, Taillefer had died the previous week in an apparent suicide. (The unfortunate Taillefer had also failed to leave a note). Corso and LaPonte have known each other for many years and have quite a bit in common - Corso, for his part, nearly seems fond of LaPonte. Together, the pair have founded (and remain the only two members of) the Brotherhood of Nantucket Harpooneers - in honour of their shared enthusiasm for "Moby Dick".

Corso is also working on an investigation for Varo Borja - Spain's leading bookdealer and a man who can always afford the asking price. Borja is particularly interested in a book called "The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows", written in the seventeenth century by a man called Astride Torchia. Since the book was regarded as a dummies guide for summoning the Devil, this naturally got Torchia in trouble with the Inquisition. (Everything they could find written by Torchia was burned - a similar fate was endured by the author not long afterwards). While one copy of the Nine Doors did apparently survive, there are now believed to be three copies - one in Borja's collection, another in Portugal and the third in Paris. Borja wants Corso to discover which of the three copies is authentic. Since Corso will be travelling to Paris at Borja's expense anyhow, he decides to look up Replinger while there. In time, Corso comes to believe the two investigations are somehow linked. Furthermore, it appears he is being stalked by flesh-and-blood versions of Rochefort and Milady - two characters who worked for Richlieu in "The Three Musketeers". Naturally, that leaves the implication there's also a real-life Richlieu somewhere calling the shots...

This is a hugely enjoyable book - it's one that just bounces along and it constantly had me smiling. It obviously owes a certain amount to "The Three Musketeers", and I picked up a few things about that Dumas I didn't know before. (Dumas isn't the only one to have an influence - there's a couple of nods in the direction of Umberto Eco and Sherlock Holmes). Absolutely recommended - I'll certainly be reading more by Arturo Perez Reverte.

That's the feeling I get with this erudite, mesmerizing, creepy little tome by Spanish bibliophile Arturo Perez-Reverte: the book is deliciously rich and positively reeks of forbidden knowledge, and the sensation one gets while leafing through its pages (hopefully you can purloin a hardback edition)is akin to having a good pipe over brandy in a darkened, hidden room of a secret library.

There is a handful of authors who are entranced by history, but view it not with the mortician or embalmer's eye so much as the explorer's: history is not so much a fixed narrative as it is an amazing necropolis, a labyrinith, a series of catacombs winding beneath the present. Umberto Eco is such a writer; John Crowley is another; and happily for "The Club Dumas", Perez-Reverte is still another. For Perez-Reverte, there are many secret entrances and recondite passages linking the adventurer in the present to the dubious past. For the Lucas Corso, rare-book dealer and protagonist of "Club Dumas", the trick, having gotten through one of these hidden apertures, lies in getting himself out again with skin, and soul, intact.

The book begins with Madrid book-seller and rogue Lucas Corso having been presented with two mysteries: one, an unpublished chapter from "The Three Musketeers" called "The Anjou Wine" and reputedly written by Alexandre Dumas, sold by the book collector Enrique Taillefer hours before his suicide. The other is his commission from book dealer and magnate Varo Borga, who wants Corso to travel across Europe in an effort to determine whether Borga's copy of "The Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows", a grimoire printed by 17th century Venetian printer Archimedes Torchia, is a forgery or authentic.

Two mysteries for the price of one, and we haven't even talked about "The Nine Gates" yet. Corso is told that only three copies of the grimoire exist: Borga's, one in the crumbling Portuguese estate of Victor Fargas, and one in the Paris townhouse of Baroness Frieda Ungern, specialist in the occult. Oh yes: "The Nine Gates" is an infamous work, chiefly because it contains everything a wizard needs to summon up Satan himself. Why is Borga interested in authenticating his copy, again?

The attentive reader and cinephile will know that Roman Polanski chose "The Club Dumas" as the source material for his fine and thrilling film "The Ninth Gate", but while Polanski distilled the raw (and diabolic) elements from the book, "The Club Dumas" contains far juicier (though quirky, whimsical, and eccentric) fare. Like Umberto Eco, Perez-Reverte is not an author in a hurry, and he's more than happy to take his reader on a saunter down a curious (though shadow haunted) literary lane.

One difference between the film and the book is the character of Corso himself: the character in the book is infinitely more complex, sad, and interesting. Corso is a rogue in search of lucre, true, but he's also a man bereft of his love who spends his idle hours wargaming, re-fighting the Napoleonic campaigns (particularly the Battle of Waterloo), and winning for his beloved Emperor, to say nothing of avenging his French grenadier ancestor.

Another difference is the way in which the Dumas manuscript figures in the story, entwining itself with the hunt for the diabolic grimoire, and playing with Corso's literary fancies: the shadowy pursuers become the emissaries of Dumas's fiendish Milady de Winter, while a skulking, lurking, mustachioed rogue becomes the Three Musketeers' nemesis Rochefort. And don't worry, even the villainous Cardinal Richelieu makes an appearance.

The result is a heady and luxurious read, full of whimsy and erudition---but don't let that fool you. Beneath the meandering turns into Dumas, Dickens, and Melville, among the interested musings on the fate of the old Ogre of Corsica, lies the book's dark diabolic soul that so fascinated Polanski. Perez-Reverte neatly binds the disparate threads of his narrative up, and the ending is more explicit and troubling than that of the movie.

Light your pipe, fill your snifter with brandy, and make sure that secret door to the main library is locked: you'll want to make sure you're undisturbed as you savor "The Club Dumas". Just don't try any of the incantations.

Arturo Perez-Reverte is a mystery/thriller writer with a decidedly intellectual bent. When I first started looking for his work, I expected it to be in the general fiction or literature section of the book store, but finally found it listed under mystery. This is a wonderful book for people who like books in the way that antique people like the antiques roadshow on PBS. It revels in the details of book-making, old texts, and bindings. Lucas Corso, the main character, is trying to discover the link between a fragment of a Dumas manuscript and a possibly Satanic text.

Though the movie version, the Ninth Gate, goes whole hog on the occult angle, the book is more about the Dumas manuscript and its connection to the other book. This makes the movie really irrelevant to the enjoyment of the book, other than if you liked the general idea of the movie, then this book is surely for you.

If you like to go to second hand book stores, or you enjoy talking about an old book, or if you go to garage sales to look through the old books, then Club Dumas is your type of book. I like Perez-Reverte's ability to go off on small tangents as part of the story, as when he digresses to discuss the ways to restore an old book or insert pages to complete it ... this may not appeal to everyone, but he doesn't use anything that isn't essential to an understanding of the plot.