The Dante Club

By: Matthew Pearl

Narrated by: John Siedman

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Words can bleed.

In 1865 Boston, the members 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 and preparing to unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions onto American bookshelves will prove as corrupting as the immigrants living in Boston Harbor.

As they struggle to keep their sacred literary cause alive, the plans of the Dante Club are put in further jeopardy when a serial killer unleashes his terror on the city. Only the scholars realize that the gruesome murders are modeled on the descriptions from Dante's Inferno and its account of Hell's torturous punishments. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and outcast police officer Nicolas Rey, the first black member of the Boston police department, place their careers on the line in their efforts to end the killing spree. Together, they discover that the source of the murders lies closer than they ever could have imagined.

The Dante Club is a magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante, his mythic genius, and his continued grip on the imagination.

©2006 Matthew Pearl. All rights reserved. (P)2006 BBC Audiobooks America. All rights reserved. Audioworks is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Expertly weaving period detail, historical fact (the Dante Club did indeed exist), complex character studies, and nail-biting suspense, Pearl has written a unique and utterly absorbing tale." (Booklist, Starred Review)
"Absorbing and dramatic...Pearl has proven himself a master." (Library Journal)

Slog

I can’t believe the high hopes I had for this one.; what a fantastic premise! Very original, excellent characters, historical vignettes, biographical sketches! Yeah, well...something got lost along the way. How could something so poised for greatness end up bogged down with such a slow pace, flat dialogue, impossible, unbelievable side characters, and a tedious writing style. So sad. I gave it three stars because I hoped it would catch at some point, so I did finish it. Read if you wish, but not highly recommended.

Booooooring!!

Truly a must miss. The narrator tries but OY this is a meandering mess of a story.

not at all what I was expecting and I should lik

I should like to remove this book from my list.... but I don't seem to be able.

Not a good driving book

Would you try another book from Matthew Pearl and/or John Siedman?
I might try another book from these writers but this one was so slow and boring to listen to driving back and forth from Nevada to California and back.

What was most disappointing about Matthew Pearl’s story?
Too slow and too complicated

Did the narration match the pace of the story?
The narration was fine.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
It sounded interesting if I was listening to it at home without having to concentrate on my driving.I missed alot of what was said and had to constantly rewind which is hard not to mention dangerous.

bevzab

I could not get into this. The story just did not grip me.

I could not make myself listening to it

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I live in the neighborhood where the story is playing, not far from the Longfellow House. Someone in the street mentioned the book as a local historic fiction so I thought I ought to give it a try but a few hours of the Victorian era style writing that felt like the author wanted to indulge in his Harvard insider, period literary history and Cambridge authenticity I got bored and deleted the audio book from my phone.

What was most disappointing about Matthew Pearl’s story?

Not a lot happened in the first could of hours of listening. A judge got murdered, an almost perverted description of the maggots and flies feasting on the body, period Cambridge literati are chatting in period manner.

What three words best describe John Siedman’s performance?

Articulate and adequate reading.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Dante Club?

Probably a lot but I stopped listening. I wonder if an editor read the script before publishing.

Confusing

A hard listen. Difficult to keep track of the characters. I am very familiar with Dante's Inferno and this was way to convoluted to be enjoyable. Narrator was good; all those Victorian era Boston fussbudgets were well characterized.

deadly dull

Literary snob-dobbery is what this book is...perhaps a good read but definitely a sleeper for audible fans. I listened to the first hour, or so, and couldn't get into it. I decided to start over and give it another go, but no go. I'm well read enough to recognize the authors and books referenced by the narrator but too bored to go on. I've only returned two books to audible. This is the second.