The Club Dumas

Rating:
Summary: Book snob? You'll love this.
Review: Intriguing plot-within-a-plot. Don't let your self-esteem suffer if you can't figure out what the heck Perez-Reverte is talking about--keep on plugging. The translation is excellent, but the story is weak in spots. My rating would have been higher if it were not for an unnecessary sexual violence scene--the point could have been made without it. (Let's not debate whether it's sexually violent. It was to me.) Even so, I'll eagerly await the release of more Perez-Reverte here in the States

Rating:
Summary: Perez-Reverte comes undone.
Review: The Flanders Panel was book with such a compelling story that many of the ridiculous idiosyncaries could be masked. Not so with Perez-Reverte's second effort. The absurdities are blown up ten-fold, showing the style for what it is -- basic noir. As with the last book, it's well wrapped in "art". The first, great paintings; with this, great literature (What next -- a Mozart scandal? Rand?). But the booze and cigarettes, guys on the run, sympathetic dames with big breasts in seedy bars, men with too-young women, show the fine line that the author has been treading. This time, he went to far. The story is interesting, but at times totally ridiculous. Pass on this one. And find out with the third book what this author is really worth

Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable story in the gothic tradition.
Review: The Dumas Club will grab the reader's attention in the first paragraph and hold it quite successfully until the very end. The author brings the reader into the obsessive world of antiquarians and bibliophiles in a way that inspires the reader's excitement and curiosity. The catalogue of the protagonist's peregrinations around the world in search of the truth about The Nine Doors and the perceived relevance of the Dumas manuscript make an engrossing storyline and also provide a beautiful backdrop for the appearance of certain characters from The Three Musketeers. The framed narrative style is traditional gothic at its best. The idea of summoning Satan is a concept far removed from most of us in this modern time, but The Dumas Club makes the idea immediate to the reader. However, despite the wonderful writing, plot and character development, The Dumas Club is not a mystery in the standard sense. If one reads the plot summary on the back of the book, the question of who is orchestrating the drama is already answered before one opens to the first page. The real fun in the story, as is the case in some of the more fantastic mysteries, is discovering not who commands the action, but how and why the person arrives in that position. The Dumas Club is a must-read for anyone with fond memories of Dumas or a bit of a bibliophile hidden inside.
Rating:
Summary: A Mystery that finally provokes thought!
Review: Arturo Perez-Reverte should be applauded for the imagination and pace of his latest novel, "The Club Dumas". The characters were interesting, although mildly eccentric, and unlike any the literary community has seen in the last few years. The unique interweaving of multiple storylines with the works of Dumas and all manner of rare occult books, combined for a most amusing and riveting read. Sonia Soto should be commended on a fine translation from the original Spanish. Unlike Varo Borja, the book did not loose its soul in the translation

Rating:
Summary: An elevation of popular romance
Review: The Club Dumas is an infuriating, compelling and always fascinating novel that bridges the gap between "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction. Poe, Christie, Doyle and many others receive homage within this story, which connects them with the long line of romance dating to Dumas and beyond. Borges and Eco are also included, suggesting that the gap between literary and genre is an artificial construct. The novel toys with the "highbrow" concepts of contemporary literary theory in establishing a tantalizing contest between reader and author that mirrors the contest between hero Lucas Corso and the mysterious figure(s) behind the novel's events. The novel delights in old books and playfully uses time-honored techniques from alluded-to works that still manage to challenge how we read and what we expect out of a story. Like the mysterious members of the Club Dumas, "sophisticated" readers are given the opportunity to savor an "escapist" fiction without the negative connotations usually associated with that term. A rare breed, The Club Dumas is a page-turner that will have you pondering it long after you've turned the last page.

Rating:
Summary: A most unusual and satisfying mystery
Review: Superbly translated, exquisitely written, highly literate mystery/thriller set in the world of high-dollar book collectors and the people who ferret them out. The characters are brilliant and mysterious, the action moves steadly. In the tradition of mystery fiction, all of the pieces (well, most of them) are laid out for the reader to see, but I doubt that anyone would have any better luck than Corso, the noir hero, had solving it before the end. One of the interesting devices the author uses is a couple of chapters in which one of the characters relates his part of the story in the first person, providing a certain perspective on the principal character, whose story is told in the third person. The technique is startling but effective. There is an hallucinatory quality to this book, like a fever dream, which I found very appealing: anchient forbidden magic, the Devil, a book publisher burned in the Inquisition, a string of murders, a mysterious young woman, a determined book hunter, decite, betrayal, love and humor, this story is literate, sly and very enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: For mystery readers looking for something different.
Review: "The Club Dumas" is the perfect change-of-pace work for mystery fans who are tired of the same old-same old. Presumably, everyone here at amazon.com loves reading, and loves books. "The Club Dumas" provides us with a gripping mystery set in the high-brow literary world, surrounding the reader with tales of the literary classics and vibrantly giving life to long-dead authors and long-forgotten deeds. Though written in Spanish, the English translation of the work far surpasses most of the genre in its beauty; the words lyricly flow past the eyes in an exceptionally hyperliterate structure. Anyone who has ever read Alexandre Dumas will be surprised and delighted by the similarities in the style of prose.

Rating:
Summary: A worthy follow-up to "The Flanders Panel"
Review: "The Club Dumas" is a moderately intricate first step towards a book such as "Foucault's Pendulum" - there are even a couple of pointed jabs at William of Baskerville from "The Name of the Rose". Fans of those two books will not be disappointed. Even though the books resorts to the typical noir characters (Femme fatale, hard boiled investigator, mysterious tough guy), the conflation of the two genres makes for some unforgettable reading

Rating:
Summary: Reading, we read ourselves
Review: After watching the film "The Ninth Gate," I began The Club Dumas with the expectation that I would become immersed in the world of rare books. I wasn't disappointed. Perez-Reverte conveys the tactile pleasures of fragile pages, leather bindings, and the printer's art with the adoration of an antiquarian. But the author goes beyond the physical nature of books to explore how a story unfolds within a reader's mind. I was surprised that the plot, unlike in the movie, revolves around Alexandre Dumas' body of work rather than a tome on the occult--or does it? We the readers become as confounded as Corso once we agree to follow him through what seems to be his scripted fate. As we lose ourselves in the story (any story), we choose our assumptions about what is happening in the text.

Besides the wonderfully subtle exploration of reader as audience/actor, I also recommend the book because of the humor and Perez-Reverte's beautiful language. I wish I could have read this in the original Spanish!

Maybe the literal gloom of the movie is a projection of the mental confusion we feel when we read a story and try to understand every aspect of it. Can we stand apart from a book in order to analyze it when, by involving ourselves in it, we become part of it? This is a great "Hmmm, I wonder" book.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: This is my second Perez-Reverte novel, and I enjoyed it equally as well as my first (which was *The Seville Communion*.) It would seem, from my Perez-Reverte experience to date, that he has a gift for immersing memorable, well-rounded characters in an absorbing, unusual mystery.

The mystery of *The Club Dumas* surrounds a rare book--well, actually, three slightly different copies of the same book-which, when used together, are reputed to enable one to summon Satan. Lucas Corso, a rare book "detective", is hired by the owner of one of the books to authenticate his copy and to track down the other two. As he travels throughout Europe on the case, he's hunted by a mysterious stranger with a scar on his face, and he keeps running into a mysterious (and, of course, beautiful) young student who "coincidentally" turns up in many of the places Corso does.

Throughout it all, Perez-Reverte weaves in multiple literary references to Sherlock Holmes and The Three Musketeers and keeps the reader wondering just how all of the plot strands can possibly tie together. Well, they do, quite brilliantly. There is definitely more Perez-Reverte in my future.

(A side note: As has been mentioned, the Polanski film, *The Ninth Gate*, was based on this book. I thought the film did a terrific job of bringing the book's thrilling atmosphere to life, with hints of evil throughout and Johnny Depp made a fine Corso--until the absolutely preposterous and greatly changed ending. A great film, until its last twenty minutes or so.)

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