Name: The Dante Club
Rating: 2.816666666666667 (30 reviews)
ISBN: 1587244659

Pearl, Matthew

The Dante Club

A Novel

Sarah Sammis

The Dante Club is Matthew Pearl's 2004 debut novel. It's set in Boston just after the close of the Civil War. A series of bizarre and gruesome murders are hitting the city. A local club of scholars working on an English translation of Dante's Inferno begin to see striking similarities between Dante's vision of hell and these recent murders.

I usually shy away from historical novels, especially mysteries, that have major historical figures as the detectives. They often seem too contrived to hold my suspension of disbelief. Pearl, though, kept my attention with his convincing descriptions of post Civil War Boston, the popular literary culture of the time and with how he managed to keep his historical figures human, interesting and believably flawed.

The grisly murders described in The Dante Club are presented with a detached, cold and frank manner. The matter-of-fact approach makes these scenes both gripping and disturbing to read.

There were a few too many scenes of Dante devotion that get in the way of the mystery. Fans though of Dante will probably enjoy these lengthy passages. Readers who aren't all that familiar with The Inferno will benefit from learning the passages relevant to the mystery.

Having now enjoyed The Dante Club, I am eagerly awaiting my chance in 2008 to read The Poe Shadow also by Pearl.

Kirsten Simkiss

I have to start this off by saying that I am not really that large of a fan of Dante. I feel that if I had taken the time to read a translation of Dante, this book would have made a great deal more sense.

Both because of the disconnect in the love of Dante's poetry and the disconnect in that all the main characters are white males over the age of 50 (barring Rey, most likely), I found it very difficult to care about much. It takes a long time to get into the meat of the mystery and I called every twist that came to pass at least two chapters before they happened. (view spoiler)[I had called Greene's involvement since the first death. To just pass him off as a sleeping but well meaning intellectual with no concern in the murders seemed odd and dismissive. I also saw Teal being involved, especially after they realized that it was someone who had access to the translations. The fact that he was later revealed to work at the University was equally damning. (hide spoiler)]

Overall, just not my favorite read. The characters are old and boring. Fields and Rey were my favorites with Longfellow as a close third, but even then I never really feel in love with them as characters as I would have liked to. Holmes was irritating to read from the perspective of. He reminds me a bit of Wormtail in Harry Potter, though less of a turncoat. Cowardly and mouselike, I was just not a fan. This mystery isn't a huge brain twister. It just wasn't as surprising to me as I would have liked. The murders were gory and the clues were obnoxiously blatant once given the proper evidence. Still, I feel like this book fits the BBC historical fiction miniseries niche a lot of people enjoy. I feel I might have enjoyed watching it more than reading it had that been an option.

Matthew Pearl

Before Inferno came The Dante Clubâe¦the captivating thriller from the writer whose fans include Dan Brown, Jed Rubenfeld, Kate Mosse and Tess Gerritsen Boston, 1865. A small group of elite scholars prepare to introduce Danteâe(tm)s vision of hell to America. Meanwhile a ruthless killer plots in secret to do the same. When a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge, only this small group are able to decipher the clues âe" they soon realise the gruesome killings are symbols modeled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the police baffled, lives endangered and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find a way to stop the killer. âe~An immensely gifted authorâe(tm) Dan Brown, bestselling author of Inferno and The Da Vinci Code

Sarah Escorsa

One of the most tedious books I was given to read in recent years. I think the main problem here is the author himself. He tries too hard to be intelligent and erudite and ultimately comes across as being very full of himself and quite pedantic.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before The Dante Chamber, there was The Dante Club: “an ingenious thriller that . . . brings Dante Alighieri’s Inferno to vivid, even unsettling life.”—The Boston Globe

“With intricate plots, classical themes, and erudite characters . . . what’s not to love?”—Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code and Origin

Boston, 1865. The literary geniuses of the Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America’s first translation of The Divine Comedy. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing the infiltration of foreign superstitions to be as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.

But as the members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell’s punishments from Dante’s Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante’s literary future in the New World at stake, the members of the Dante Club must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.

Praise for The Dante Club

“Ingenious . . . [Matthew Pearl] keeps this mystery sparkling with erudition.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Not just a page-turner but a beguiling look at the U.S. in an era when elites shaped the course of learning and publishing. With this story of the Dante Club’s own descent into hell, Mr. Pearl’s book will delight the Dante novice and expert alike.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[Pearl] ably meshes the . . . literary analysis with a suspenseful plot and in the process humanizes the historical figures. . . . A divine mystery.”—People (Page-turner of the Week)

“An erudite and entertaining account of Dante’s violent entrance into the American canon.”—Los Angeles Times

“A hell of a first novel . . . The Dante Club delivers in spades. . . . Pearl has crafted a work that maintains interest and drips with nineteenth-century atmospherics.”—San Francisco Chronicle

The Dante Club

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