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Title: The Dante Club : A Novel by MATTHEW PEARL ISBN: 0-8129-7104-3 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.84 (137 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Read This Book!!
Comment: Okay. No first novel is perfect. In fact, no novel is perfect. Beauty is in the eye.... Nonetheless, "The Dante Club" kept me up all night as I wrestled with yet another eternal question, "Whodunnit?" I enjoy Dante, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes and even have a few ancient volumes bearing the hallmark of Ticknor & Fields. I have walked through Mt. Auburn Cemetery, dined at the Union Club and slipped along the icy walks of Tremont Street---but never all in one evening! Not since Wm. Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" have I found myself incapable of putting a book down. (I know! That says more about me than it does about the state of our writers!--hey, I likes what I likes--and I accept full responsibility for that! Mea culpa!)
What is most important, though, is that I now catch myself rifling through Singleton's editions of "La Commedia" [notes and all], recharging a long- lost love of Tuscan Italian and forcing myself to use, mirabile dictu, my brain! Who knows what could come from all of this? I now want to turn back to the Fireside Poets to find what I missed on first meeting them so many, many years ago.
I recommend this book as a rollicking, good read to anyone who wants to curl up and bask in true quality time for oneself. Even if you open "The Dante Club" hoping to find fault with the book, read it! You cannot help learning a few things during your romp through the novel. The premise of the book, in the end, is clear: We are Dante. We live the Commedia each and every day. I anxiously await Mr. Pearl's next work.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well written historical novel that lacks - pizzaz
Comment: The murder mystery doesn't hold it's own. I found the mystery part of the book to be predictable.
You really need to be interested in both the times, post-Civil war Boston and the characters, nineteenth century, writers. The author certainly brings historical Boston and Cambridge alive, but I found the main characters to be dull. In a good novel, you really care about the outcome of the characters, and in this book, I found myself disinterested. Part of the problem is that we know that the main characters are most likely not in mortal danger, unless this novel is going to greatly deviate from well known history. The other problem is that the characters remain both stuffy and Victorian throughout the book. The major character issues are not resolved. Basically it ends on a yawn. The book might have been better with less emphasis on the authors and more on Rey, the black patrol man, who struggles both against racism and the murderer.
Another problem is that I didn't learn much about Dante. This book doesn't have to be another "Davinci Code", but theming murders on Dante's writings is less interesting than if the writers knowledge of Dante, perhaps some poetic clue, was effective in solving the mystery.
One last issue is that I found the pacing slow at the beginning. It picks up about mid-way through.
I finished to book to find out "whodunit" without that issue, I might have stopped. I will say in defense of the author that the book is very well written and his historical research is top notch as well.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not bad, might make a good movie
Comment: As I currently attend college in Boston and have read the whole of Dante's 'Divine Comedy', I intrigued by the title and the synopsis of the book. I rarely read mysteries, so I couldn't say if this was predictible for its genre. However, I think as a first attempt by an author, 'The Dante Club' can be a fairly enjoyable read for those familiar with 19th century Boston, Dante, or any of the historical figures mentioned.
I agree with the assessment that the beginning is slow. I felt the first part or 'canticle' really served mostly as character building and that slowed the pace a bit. However, once the author feels he has established the murders and our heroes, the story picks up fairly quickly. Despite the character building, I couldn't help but feel I should have had some knowledge of the characters such as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Longfellow prior to reading the book. I had also hoped more Dante would be included, but I think the author used the 'Comedy' well for the story's purposes.
I'd like to see this made into a movie. However only with careful attention to Dante, the historical time period and figures, and the book itself, and not a typical book to movie adaption which rarely does justice to the original work.
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Title: The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by ERIK LARSON ISBN: 0609608444 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 11 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Coffee Trader : A Novel by David Liss ISBN: 0375760903 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: A Conspiracy of Paper : A Novel by DAVID LISS ISBN: 0804119120 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde ISBN: 0670031909 Publisher: Penguin USA Pub. Date: 31 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Winter Queen : A Novel by Boris Akunin, Andrew Bromfield ISBN: 1400060494 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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