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The Dante Club
- Thread starter Worm
- Start date
Idril Silmaure
New Member
I've read it and I did enjoy it - probably particularly because it was well researched and involved a lot of factual things, plus many references to the fantastic Divina Commedia. However I wouldn't say it's anything spectacular or mind-blowing. It did hold me till the end, if not a stay-up-all-night-to-finish read. But I'd recommend it anyway.
KristoCat
New Member
I think it fits into the arcane thriller genre. As far as I know arcane thrillers involve a group of academics who must use their intellectual problem-solving skills to solve a mystery/stop a crime. I wouldn't call The Rule of Four the most thrilling of thrillers; Tess Gerritsen and Jeffrey Deaver, not to mention classic authors like Poe and Conan Doyle, may do a bit better in the suspense aspect of it. But I still put Rule of Four into the genre, because it follows the conventions.
Stewart
Active Member
I didn't see it as a thriller at all since it was a coming of age tale which shops saw fit to market as a thriller due to the unlikely success of The Da Vinci Code. It has no pace, no thrills, and spends its pages depressing the reader with who-gives-a-shit? details of Princeton. Indeed, the "action" never leaves campus. The Rule of Snore or The Rule of Bore would have been more appropriate titles.
Coprahypnomachia, perhaps, could be alternative title.
Coprahypnomachia, perhaps, could be alternative title.
peacefield
New Member
The Dante Club is one of my favorites. We saw Matthew Pearl speak a couple of years ago and just hearing him talk about the research he had to do for that book was amazing. I'm signed up for his email updates, and received one the other day where he talked about his new book "The Poe Shadow." Here is the email:
Here is the very first glimpse at the story of The Poe Shadow...
Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a crusade to salvage Poe’s.
As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with vital unanswered questions the police are ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, inspiration strikes Quentin– in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection.
In a race to stop a treacherous imposter also claiming to be the real Dupin, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving international political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade and the secrets of Poe’s final hours. In order to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe, Quentin must himself turn master investigator.
The Poe Shadow’s groundbreaking research *- which has uncovered material related to Poe never published until now -- opens a new window on the truth behind Poe’s demise, literary history’s most persistent enigma. I hope readers of The Dante Club will enjoy a follow-up novel that once again looks to fuse literary history with mystery.
In the months to come, I'll be in touch about a brand new website for The Poe Shadow at MATTHEWPEARL.com and details on book tour dates around the country (as well as outside the US), our special companion edition (a selection of Poe's detective stories, entitled The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales, to be published by Modern Library) and more news... I'm excited about this book, and excited to include my friends and readers in the process. In the meantime, best wishes for the holiday season!
Here is the very first glimpse at the story of The Poe Shadow...
Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a crusade to salvage Poe’s.
As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with vital unanswered questions the police are ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, inspiration strikes Quentin– in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection.
In a race to stop a treacherous imposter also claiming to be the real Dupin, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving international political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade and the secrets of Poe’s final hours. In order to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe, Quentin must himself turn master investigator.
The Poe Shadow’s groundbreaking research *- which has uncovered material related to Poe never published until now -- opens a new window on the truth behind Poe’s demise, literary history’s most persistent enigma. I hope readers of The Dante Club will enjoy a follow-up novel that once again looks to fuse literary history with mystery.
In the months to come, I'll be in touch about a brand new website for The Poe Shadow at MATTHEWPEARL.com and details on book tour dates around the country (as well as outside the US), our special companion edition (a selection of Poe's detective stories, entitled The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales, to be published by Modern Library) and more news... I'm excited about this book, and excited to include my friends and readers in the process. In the meantime, best wishes for the holiday season!