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120 of 134 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "Devine" Thriller, February 23, 2003
Every few years a book is written that breaks the mold of the standard mystery/thriller fare. Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose", Martin Cruz Smith's "Rose", more recently Boston Teran's "God is a Bullet", to name a few. "The Dante Club", the remarkable debut of writer Matthew Pearl, is another example that represents a bold, ambitious, and refreshing approach to the familiar serial killer "who-dunnit". I'll admit that at first I was somewhat leery of the concept: the Fireside Poets - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell cast as investigators of a string of horrific murders? An ambitious premise for a novel, for sure, but more aptly, bizarre and ripe with risk. Pearl, however, pulls this off with a curious combination of the poet's love of the language and the storyteller's knack for pace and action. The "Dante Club" refers to the group assembled by Longfellow - including Holmes and Lowell - to assist him in the first American translation of Dante's "Devine Comedy". As people in high places - a judge, a minister, a wealthy merchant - turn up tortured and murdered in scenes recreating those described in Dante's classic, the poets hit the streets of Boston and Cambridge in search of the killer. The result is an exceptionally well-researched book that is rich in historical detail while capturing the post-Civil War American psyche and culture. Pearl's description of the Civil War horrors and post-war trama is especially gripping. Not since "Silence of the Lambs" or "Se7en" have murders been so brutally and vividly portrayed, as the victims are variously eaten-alive by maggots, buried upside-down and set on fire, and (literally) cut in half. Yet despite the graphic butchery, this is a book that must not be rushed, but savored for the intricacy of the plot and the intensity of the prose. It is the rare book that draws the reader to revisit the poetry of Longfellow, US history in the wake of the Civil War, and the mystery of Dante in 19th century America. In summary, a stunning first novel from a writer destined to become a household name. Don't miss it!
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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Dante Club, August 15, 2003
Mattew Pearl's recent novel, the Dante Club, combines history, suspense, and mystery in a truly unique reading experience. Famous, well known characters such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Windell-Holmes and James Russell Lowe are intricately woven into a plot which develops around their translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Their work is disrupted however, when a series of murders in Boston are modeled after mankind's punishment in hell as described in Dante's Inferno. The murder of prominent citizens modeled after their translation make them suspect. These noted historical authors work closely with a black police officer, Nichola Ray, to prove their innocence and solve the murders. The vivid description of Boston in 1865 and the unique literary skill of Mattew Pearl to weave the history of the civil war and racial relations into this time period is pure genius. The words used to describe the Boston street scene at this time in history are reminiscent of Caleb Carr's description of New York City in his book the Alienist. This book is a must for any reader who enjoys historical fiction and I would strongly recommend it to them.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A great idea for a story, but I just couldn't get into it, April 15, 2006
The premise of "The Dante Club" is absolutely fabulous: the year is 1865 in Boston, and a small group of renowned men (including physician Oliver Wendell Holmes and poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell) have come together to translate Dante's "Inferno" for an American audience. While the Dante Club is hard at work on their translation, a series of gruesome murders takes place around town. The Dante experts soon realize that each of the crimes is based on Dante's descriptions of Hell's punishments, and the group of scholars turn into detectives as they desperately attempt to solve the mystery and find the killer.
"The Dante Club" is a work of historical fiction. Most of the main characters in the novel are people who actually existed, and history and literary buffs will appreciate the way Matthew Pearl managed to wind these well-known characters into a murder mystery. Pearl is also a Dante scholar himself, and his superior knowledge of Dante's work is illustrated on every page of this book. However, all that being said, I didn't really enjoy the story. This book really dragged in a lot of places...the first 100 pages or so are incredibly dry, then things get exciting for a while, but by the time page 250 rolls around, things are dragging again. I was pretty disappointed. I really enjoyed "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Devil in the White City," and I thought "The Dante Club" was going to be sort of a combination of those two books. In a way it was, but it dragged so much that I just couldn't get into it.
Again, I really admire the effort Pearl put forth in developing the concept of this book, which is very unique and has the potential to be quite fabulous. Unfortunately, the writing is incredibly tedious in most places. It took me a long time to read this book, primarily because I was completely unenthused every time I picked it up...I knew I wasn't going to enjoy reading it, which was a real shame.
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