Search - The Dante Club

Story about a murderer who kills people with methods described by Dante. The book is set in the 1860's, and focuses around a group of poets. The writing style is "old" and period appropriate. I enjoyed this, but the writing style made for a somewhat difficult read. None of the characters are particularly moving or endearing. They don't seem to have a lot of depth, either.

HATED IT. I only finished it because my bookclub was discussing it. It is written in a period appropriate vernacular and very difficult to get through. The murder scenes are incredibly grisly, not for the squeamish at all. I just found the tone condescending and was somewhat taken aback that the author thought he could perceive the thoughts and actions of such iconic historical/literary figures like Longfellow. The one good thing - it has inspired me to read Dante and it was nice to have it under my belt when I read Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle (which I did enjoy).

Set in Boston of 1865. Longfellow and several of his poet-friends (Lowell, Holmes) are translating Dante's "Divine Comedy" (against resistance from Harvard functionaries). A series of murders happens, which are basically reenactments of some of Dante's punishments in hell. The "Dante Club" helps the first mulatto police officer in Boston to find the murderer.

Even though this book is very well-written (old style), I had a hard time "getting into it". On the one hand, the book is filled with details - you learn a lot about post-civil-war Boston, on the other hand, it feels as if it is an account by an impartial observer. The characters show no emotions, sometimes it is hard to figure out who is speaking or why someone acts a certain way.

I liked the story idea, and the writing is excellent, but the characters are too flat.

It is 1865 and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow works on finishing his translation of Dante Alleghieri's Divine Comedy with the help of four of his friends, some of New Endland's brightest literary stars, when Boston becomes the scene of the most gruesome murders they've ever heard of. The police are baffled and only the members of the Dante Club know that the killer has taken a few pages out of the Divine Comedy itself and it is up to them to stop him.

"John Kurtz, the chief of the Boston police, breathed in some of his heft for a better fit between the two chambermaids." This is the first sentence of this book and it gives us a glimpse into the style of Matthew Pearl's writing. It's clever and witty but not simplistic and at a time when majority of books are written in such a conversational language it's a pleasant change of pace. It also fits the period and serves to create the atmosphere of the formality common in the higher levels of the 19th century society even in familiar company. And what a company it is! Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell were the rock stars of their time and yet Pearl paints such intimate and vivid portraits of them that by the time I turned the last page I felt like I knew them and their doting families. Of course this wasn't accidental - the author perused the poets' personal archives as part of his research for the novel. It still is delightful to see historical figures come to life the way they do here.
With amateurs acting as investigators it would be easy to categorize the book as a cozy mystery but I would say it falls somewhere between that and a hold-on-to-your-seat thriller, thanks to the fast pace and the gruesomeness of the murders, which are described in rather graphic detail. Of course this is 19th century poets being detectives so they were more horrified than majority of us readers would be, what with TV being what it is nowadays.
I appreciated that Mr. Pearl included some information on the plot and characters of Inferno as part of the story - I haven't read Dante yet and this saved me from having to put down the book to look things up online or wonder whether I've possibly missed something. It may seem a bit odd that Longfellow would need to explain what happened in the poem and why to his colleagues, all Dante efficionados, but it kept me reading so I'm not complaining.
What also kept me reading is the elusiveness of the killer's identity. I like to guess who the culprit is as more clues are revealed and here there were plenty of candidates yet the real murder managed to hide in plain sight until the very end. Bonus points to Mr. Pearl for keeping up the suspense.
This books is not just about Dante and murder though, it is also about the effects of war. The events take place after the Civil War and the effect it has on the American people as a whole and the separate individuals is very similar to what is happening in our country now with the veterans of the war in the Middle East coming home scarred for life, them and their families dealing with the consequences of their experiences every day. The gravity of this subject creates a stark contrast with the rest of the story. Granted, there are the horrors of the murders but the fact that it goes much deeper than the effects of literature on an unstable mind I think is as much a startling revelation for Holmes and the rest as it was for me, the reader. It helps demonstrate just how little their daily lives as litterateurs prepared them for the realities of life outside of their gloved circle, the realities of hunting a killer.
I would recommend this book to fans of historical fiction who appreciate a suspenseful mystery, intelligent storytelling, compelling characters and a villain you can't believe you missed.

Read my other reviews at bibliophilescorner.blogspot.com

'The Dante Club' - novel, or plot to get people to read Dante's Inferno? Well, both! And quite effective as both, apparently!
I was a bit loath to read this book, because it sounded a little too similar to Arturo Perez-Reverte's 'The Club Dumas'. I can't say that the one does not owe a debt to the other, but I did very much enjoy this book, which is a well-researched, well-written historical mystery of the sort that leaves the reader wanting to do more research to find out more about the characters, the time period and the books mentioned - always a good thing! The plot concerns a group of poets - including the historical figures of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell, who are devoted to, against university bureaucracy, translating Dante and bringing his works to an American audience for the first time. But, when some vicious and bizarre murders of highly-placed society figures occur in Boston, they are the only ones who notice that the men have been killed in ways which correspond to the tortures of hell described in the Inferno. Can they bring this information to the police without throwing suspicion upon themselves and their work? Or can they solve the crimes themselves?

Well-reviewed murder with a literary flair. As the cover blurb says: "Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante's INFERNO. . . "