El Club Dumas (Punto de Lectura) (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Arturo Perez-Reverte (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 559 pages
• Publisher: Suma (July 2003)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 9871106181
• ISBN-13: 978-9871106189
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,224,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars I found the book a much interesting and more creative piece of work and I'm sorry the movie dropped the second plot completely., January 28, 2010

By 

Carlos T. Mock "carloschicago" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: El Club Dumas (Punto de Lectura) (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverete

This is the book is the background used in the Film The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp.

Unlike the movie the book has two distinctive plots, one related to The Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Hell by Aristidem Torchiam, and the original manuscript to the Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas.

Like the Movie, the book opens with the suicide by Enrique Taillefer. However Mr. Taillefer had a manuscript--The wine of Angou--which was the original manuscript written by Augusto Macosa and given the final touches by the great A. Dumas.

Boris Balkan, who is the villain in the movie version is the narrator and the leader of the Dumas Club. Each one of its very prominent members meets the first Monday in April at the castle of Meung (The day and place The Three Musketeers was first started in 1625). Each of the seventy seven chapters is assigned to one of the club members for safekeeping and upon their demise they meet and elect a new member. The society is entrusted with a very deep secret: Dumas was not the author of the Three Musketeers, but rather the collaborator after Augusto Macosa wrote the original. Macosa's original words are in white paper and Dumas final product are in blue paper.

Apparently Mr. Taillefer was going to blow the whistle on the society's secret because they refused to publish a book he wrote. Boris Balkan, aided by Laura Taillefer set the suicide scene and try to recover the Wine of Angou which Mr. Lucas Corso had bought from the dead man.

Then there is a second plot. This is the one that deals with the The Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Hell by Aristidem Torchiam. A famous book collector, Varo Borjas, from Toledo, asks Mr. Corso to investigate if his book of The Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Hell by Aristidem Torchiam is a fake or real. Like the movie, there are two other copies in existence, since Aristidem Torchiam burnt in the stake in 1667 with most of the copies. Only three remain. Corso starts on a journey that takes him to Madrid, The Cenizas Brothers where Mr. Borjas bought his book. He then compares the Borjas copy with the other two known copies in existence: Victor Fargas in Lisbon and Baroness Frida Ungen in Paris. Like in the movie, Corso discovers that all three books are originals but the devil divided his work among the three, distributing his work in each of the books, and with the three forming a path to open the Nine Gates. Like in the movie, both the Baroness and Mr. Fargas are assassinated, the first one in a fire and the second one drowned. Like in the movie Corso is helped by a guardian "angel", Irene Adler, a young girl that is as old as the world. There is also a persecution of Corso and the girl by Mrs. Taillefer and a dark man with grey hair and a scar on his face--Rochefort.

The two plots collide on page 467 of my copy when Corso realizes that in the Three Musketeers there is an illustration that is similar to the eight illustration on The Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Hell.

As the plot unfold we discover that Mr. Borjas and Mrs. Taillefer just want to recover the Dumas manuscript for the society, however, Varo Borjas is the murderer who wants all three copies of The Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Hell. Corso finally catches up to him but Mr. Borjas in too involved in the ritual not knowing that the Cenizas brothers had withheld one of the necessary illustrations for the ceremony.

I found the book a much interesting and more creative piece of work and I'm sorry the movie dropped the second plot completely.

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary., January 31, 2008

By 

RA "history fan" (Jal, MEX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: El Club Dumas (Punto de Lectura) (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Extraordinary book, the best of it: the way it is written. Highly recommended for someone looking far more that a simple story and a natural narrative. Characters are great and real, it contains many references to the life and work of Alexandre Dumas (specifically to the three musketeers' saga), even in the way it is written.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Below Expectations, October 20, 2004

By 

Juan C Villamil (Bogota, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: El Club Dumas (Punto de Lectura) (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Perez-Reverte is an extremely well known writer, and I must admit this is the first of his books I pick up....rather dissapointing.

The story deals with a mystery, based on an ancient book, which is developed in the world of antique booksellers and bibliophiles. The plot is very interesting and well conceived, but in my opinion, the characters lack depth.

For a mystery, the book does not grasp and involve you, it's simply too easy to put it down and do something else instead.

Not worth the time to get through the almost 500 pages.....