Review: The Dante Club

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

Release Date: 10 Februrary 2004

Pages: 380

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery 

Target Audience: Adult

Series: No

Source and Format: Bought; Paperback

Summary (From Goodreads):
Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante’s Inferno. Only an elite group of America’s first Dante scholars—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields—can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer.

Thoughts on The Dante Club:

Plot- I really enjoyed the storyline of this book. Pearl chooses a very unique setting- post- Civil War Boston. All of the politics of the time really help move the plot foward and you learn a lot without realizing it. The group of poets mentioned in the summary above are working on translating The Divine Comedy (the trilogy of which Inferno is the first part) and are meeting with religious and political oppostion. The group is slowly splintering apart under the pressure until a series of murders straight from Inferno begins to happen. The poets must come together to solve the murders because they are the only ones who are capable of doing so. Sound far-fetched? Actually, it isn't. The Divine Comedy was not published in America until Longfellow and these men translated it in the 1860s. The only copies available were in England and Italian was not widely taught. So, the Dante Club, as the translators call themselves, must find the killer and stop him so a) more people don't die and b) so Dante does not get a bad reputation before he can even be published.

Characters- The main group of characters were done really well. Pearl does a nice job of giving each member of the group a distinct personality. The two main characters are Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell. We spend a lot of time in these men's heads, hearing their thoughts.  We get to know the other members of the group- Longfellow and Fields- mainly through Holmes and Lowell. The killer is also a very interesting character that Pearl uses to explore issues that I cannot mention here without giving it away.

Pros- The amount of historical issues Pearl crams into this book is really impressive-  race, war, religion, and gender, just to name a few. As I said before, you learn a lot about Boston and America without realizing it. The mystery is also very well done. I was unable to guess the murderer. It was very plausible; there was no deus ex machina employed to conveniently tie things up.

Cons- The secondary characters were neglected. Some of the family members of the Dante Club members were really intriguing and I was left wanting to know more of them. I also felt like Pearl left the (small) plot line involving Holmes and his son unresolved. Also, the pacing of the book was very, very slow. It took about 100 pages or so until I was really interested and able to start putting some pieces together. Pearl introduces so many characters so quickly that it is hard to keep them straight at first.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I gave it three stars on Goodreads because it was okay; I liked it but I didn't love it. If you have the time, I would recommend reading it. If you already have a stack of books to read then I would not recommend it. The historical aspects of the book do much to recommend it, so if you are a huge American history buff you will probably enjoy it for that alone.