The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (Book Review)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow feels unable to write poetry after the death of his beloved wife Frances (AKA: Fanny). He decides to concentrate his time on a life long ambition he has had to do the first American translation of Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy). This is seen by his friends as a way to keep him busy and also pay tribute to his beloved Fanny. Joining him in his quest are James Russell Lowell (poet and professor of languages at Harvard University); Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (poet and Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard, also father of the Supreme Court Justice); George Washington Greene (historian and minister) and James T. Fields their publisher. Together they called themselves The Dante Club.

During the time The Dante Club was working on their translations some strange murders start to occur in the Boston area. After the first murder the police round up the usual suspects. One of the men brought in for questioning grabs Nicholas Rey (a fictional character) who is the first African-American policeman in Boston by the neck, he whispers in Rey's ear what sounds like Deenan see amno atesennone turney ahurnodur lasheeato nay and then jumps through a window killing himself. Most of the police think what he has said is just the ravings of a drunk or madman, but Rey knows there is something to it. Rey goes to Harvard to find someone who can translate the phrase into English. One of the students directs him to the home of Lowell. By the time Rey finds Lowell at Longfellow's home The Dante Club is starting to have a notion that there may be a connection between Dante and the murder. Thus The Dante Club gets involved in a string of bizarre murders that becomes clearer with each murder that there is a definite link.

All of the victims are high profile members of society. The Detectives Bureau in Boston at that time was notorious for being corrupt. They are also presented with Rey's intelligent and instinctive (and largely unaided) police work. Given these facts they fear that the police will eventually make the connection between the translation of Dante's poem and the murders and one or all of them will be arrested for the murders. The Dante Club decides to start their own investigation. You are lead into a world of the politics of Harvard University, the corruption of the police, the devastation of the many civil war veterans and much more, including the occasional duck chase.

I have to say I loved this book, it was a real page turner. Pearl brings his characters to life. This intelligently written book has action, suspense, mystery and yes even humour in it. The Dante Club is Matthew Pearl's first novel and most of the characters, places and circumstances are real, though not the murders. Longfellow did indeed translate Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia with the help of his friends in The Dante Club, though Pearl has changed some of the members of the club which also included William Dean Howells, Charles Eliot Norton and other occasional guests. Longfellow's translation was published in the spring of 1867. In 1881 The Dante Club became The Dante Society of America.

Matthew Pearl went to Harvard where he graduated summa cum laude in English and American literature in 1997. He also got a law degree from Yale in 2000. Interestingly he is also the editor of the re-issue of the original 1867 Ticknor and Fields edition of Longfellow's Divina Commedia translation. His second book The Poe Shadow is out and I will definitely be reading it.

I added links to Wikipaedia articles for those who many not be familiar with some of the character's or with Dante's work, just press Ctrl and then click the words that are in blue to follow the links.