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The
Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
is the author's first novel — an imaginative and extremely
erudite work from a Harvard summa cum laude.
It definitely helps if one is already familiar with Dante
Alighieri's The
Divine Comedy, as well as being on at least nodding
terms with some of Longfellow, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell
Holmes' works. Throw in a basic understanding of the Civil
War horrors and its dark aftermath — post-traumatic stress
syndrome, not to mention rampant unemployment and, voilà!
— one is ready to go.
At the risk of being strung up from the nearest Harvard lectern,
dare I suggest that this book would make one hell of a terrific
movie? — shot in alternately sepia tones and the stark
blue and white of a New England winter. Good lines from the
very interesting and diverse cast (not only 1865 Boston's
famous literati but a potpourri of bums, cops, and "foreigners").
Ghoulish pre-CSI
type of murder scenes, gloomy church crypts and tunnels, dingy
rooming houses and seedy bars, formal drawing room and elegant
dinner tables — it's all there: a visual and aural feast
for the critical moviegoer.
If only Hollywood had
the tried and true stable of well seasoned character actors
that the British film industry has always been able to rely
upon! This is no time for a cutsey blond Valley girl starlet,
leading men with Spicoli accents, or aggressive kick-ass types
of either gender. Intelligence, intelligence, and more intelligence!
In the right hands,
the moviegoer will be led through the deepest and darkest
circles of Dante's Inferno.
"Lasciate Ogne
Speranza, Voi Ch'intrate."
("All abandon hope, ye who enter.")
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