The Club Dumas

Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: I enjoyed the book The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The pace of the book quickly moved me through the story, keeping me interested throughout. The characters are the cornerstones of the story. The personality of the protagonist, Lucas Corso, is easy to identify with. He is a lonely man who, although selfish and cutthroat, still holds at least some of the reader's sympathy. The most interesting and fascinating pieces of the book are Corso's dialogues with Boris Balkan and the mysterious girl. These conversations are often thought provoking and filled with discussion on good and bad. The antagonist, Boris Balkan, is a less interesting character, conforming to a standard literary archetype of the old, wealthy man, obsessed with a dream that takes it too far.
Much of the plot revolves around the story and characters of Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers. The personality of The Three Musketeers characters and plots are so intertwined with The Club Dumas that I would recommend this book mainly to those who have read The Three Musketeers. Although fans of mystery and suspense novels may still enjoy the book, to receive the greatest understanding and delight from the book a reader should read both.

Rating:
Summary: Club Dumas
Review: The Club Dumas is written for the true book-lover; for those who love the physicality of the novel as well as the knowledge it promises. Arturo Perez-Reverte?s novel delivers on its promise--it?s main character entertains while philosophizing on weighty subjects as morality, friendship, and love between shots of gin. Lucas Corso is a trader of books. While this man of wolf-like appearance and dizzying intellect will openly admit his sole purpose in the profession is for financial gain, it?s truly a veil for his true love: books. The 40-something Corso takes on the financially profitable and intellectually fascinating task of tracking down the only three copies of The Nine Doors, a text that supposedly has information necessary for summoning the devil. While the novel is as much a search for what many of the characters consider ultimate enlightenment (for the devil is associated with knowledge) as it is an exploration of Alexander Dumas? The Three Musketeers. From the start of the novel, Corso makes connections between his own experiences to those of Dumas? novel. This text-within-a-text becomes ironic, for the character Corso begins to question his own ?reality?; he questions whether he is a person or a character in a novel. Sometimes it?s hard to tell whether Perez-Reverte is parodying the often melodramatic cliffhangers common to serial novels such as Dumas?: (One example: ?[Corso] felt tender, like the soft center of a candy.) In general though, the writing is lucid, intelligent and at times, beautiful. The following is an example of Perez-Reverte?s precise prose, but it also speaks to all writers and all those who appreciate the written word: ?[Corso] was looking out the window at the streets and seemed to be searching in the night in the silent flow of car lights reflected in his glasses, for the lost word, the key to uniting all these different stories that floated like dead leaves on the dark waters of time? (107).

Rating:
Summary: A Refreshing and Entertaining Read
Review: I read this book many years after seeing the movie "The 9th Gate" several times. I had always been intrigued by the movie and finally managed to read the book. It should be noted that the movie didn't follow the book all that closely. The Club Dumas is much more intriguing and complex. If you liked the movie, you must absolutely read the book, as the characters are much more interesting. Perez-Reverte's writing style is astoundingly refreshing. As an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, I have to admit that I have not encountered such a rich writing style before. Reverte's attention to detail is stunning and astonishing without being dull. It hearkens back to the old 'dark detective' style of writing while remaining invigorating throughout. I am now hooked and will begin reading some of Reverte's other works.

Rating:
Summary: Bibliophiles love this one!
Review: Having read The Flanders Panel, I couldn't wait to read another one of Arturo Perez-Reverte's books. This great author strikes gold again with The Club Dumas. Based on Dumas' masterpiece The Three Musketeers, Perez-Reverte weaves his own tale of rare book collecting and the history surrounding the Musketeers. While I suggest that you read The Three Musketeers first, (I didn't and for that reason I often lost track of the plot, hence the four-star rating) the novel was still interesting without any knowledge of Dumas' work. But this novel is full of the clever and dark writing that I loved in Panel. Perez-Reverte is one of the most brilliant authors of today and I look forward to reading more of his stuff. Bibliophiles swear by this book. Highly recommended...

Rating:
Summary: Fun and Games
Review: It doesn't hurt to know a little Latin and to have read Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but it is by no means a prerequisite for delighting in Arturo Perez-Reverte's meta-thriller The Club Dumas. Like the best kind of intellectual puzzles, the novel features a scattering of charts, diagrams, and pictures which invite the reader to actively participate in the solving of the mystery. Holding it all together is a sweeping and self-referential narrative that always amuses and entertains. Protagonist Lucas Corso is a savvy, pragmatic dealer in the exclusive and erudite world of book collecting. He is paid to find rare editions for collectors and to authenticate found fragments of original manuscripts. When, in the course of his searching, he also starts discovering dead bodies and links to satanic practices his mission becomes magnified greatly. The solution to textual mysteries takes on greater implications when his own life and the cast of characters around him start to resemble something out of a 19th century action-adventure book. Perez-Reverte is wily in the way he explores the themes of literature as taking on a life of its own and being the key to the ultimate mysteries. By employing a kind of intertextual motif he forces us to examine anew the way we, as readers, interpret and contextualize

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing odyssey involving Dumas, satanism, and murder.
Review: Lucas Corso, a world-weary finder of rare books, sets out to ascertain the authenticity of three copies of a mysterious book published by a seventeeth century Italian burned at the stake for satanism. The books may hold the key to summoning Lucifer. Along the way he encounters a host of interesting characters, including an impoverished Portugese nobleman, an expatriot former Nazi doyen, a mysterious, angelic girl, as well as "Rochefort" and "Milady." What Corso actually finds is an increasingly complex and murderous confluence of the real and the imagined. Perez-Reverte successfully portrays Corso, a man more in line with the hard-boiled likes of a Philip Marlowe or a Lou Archer than with those of a book-sleuth. Although the journey itself and the supporting characters are not as successfully realized and the murky end is less than satisfying, "Club Dumas" is certainly a page-turner and an excellent summer read. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Really good but could have been great
Review: The Club Dumas is really a good and surprisingly fast read. I thought the story was clever and was certainly as dark as advertised. The upside includes excellent "literaturesque" prose and a wealth of knowledge about Dumas, his writings, The Three Musketeers, and arcane occult practices. My only critique is that I was a little disappointed that it was not written like the Dumas serials it is mostly about and had barely any action in it. To me the writing style was more like that of Hemingway for example. I was hoping for a good Dumas styled swashbuckling conclusion with maybe even a good sword fight but instead the ending was more or less flat. Had the ending had more of a confrontational and victorious "good over evil" conclusion it to me would probably have made Dumas quite proud -a homage to his writing and legacy. Instead the reader is left with a story and ending surrounding the world of Dumas and with characters reminiscent of Dumas' Three Musketeers, but certainly without the flair, style, and feel of Dumas' work. Though perhaps this was not the author's intent or cliche, he certainly had the opportunity to end his story much like the Dumas he centers his story around and did not take it. All in all a really good book and accurately billed as a "beach book for intellectuals." I'd recommend this book as it is fun and interesting but to me could have ended better.

Rating:
Summary: A Refreshing and Entertaining Read
Review: I read this book many years after seeing the movie "The 9th Gate" several times. I had always been intrigued by the movie and finally managed to read the book. It should be noted that the movie didn't follow the book all that closely. The Club Dumas is much more intriguing and complex. If you liked the movie, you must absolutely read the book, as the characters are much more interesting. Perez-Reverte's writing style is astoundingly refreshing. As an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, I have to admit that I have not encountered such a rich writing style before. Reverte's attention to detail is stunning and astonishing without being dull. It hearkens back to the old 'dark detective' style of writing while remaining invigorating throughout. I am now hooked and will begin reading some of Reverte's other works.

Rating:
Summary: A shot in the dark
Review: While searching around inside of a bargain bin I found this book.It took a little to get into it,but it ultimately pays off in the end.It never hurts to know a little latin to understand this book all the better but once you read it once you'll read it over and over.The style is amazing and the cynicism of the lead character keeps the slight humor off to the side for just the opportune moment.The mystery,murder and links to some of the greatest literary works of all time keep you coming back chapter after chapter. Sic Luceat Lux...

Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: I enjoyed the book The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The pace of the book quickly moved me through the story, keeping me interested throughout. The characters are the cornerstones of the story. The personality of the protagonist, Lucas Corso, is easy to identify with. He is a lonely man who, although selfish and cutthroat, still holds at least some of the reader's sympathy. The most interesting and fascinating pieces of the book are Corso's dialogues with Boris Balkan and the mysterious girl. These conversations are often thought provoking and filled with discussion on good and bad. The antagonist, Boris Balkan, is a less interesting character, conforming to a standard literary archetype of the old, wealthy man, obsessed with a dream that takes it too far.
Much of the plot revolves around the story and characters of Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers. The personality of The Three Musketeers characters and plots are so intertwined with The Club Dumas that I would recommend this book mainly to those who have read The Three Musketeers. Although fans of mystery and suspense novels may still enjoy the book, to receive the greatest understanding and delight from the book a reader should read both.