The Club Dumas
by Arturo Perez-Reverte
List Price:
Our Price: $1.49
You Save: $13.46 (90%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Arturo Perez-ReverteTranslator: Sonia Soto
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-01
ISBN: 015603283X
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of The Club Dumas
Book Review: great start, great story, inexplicable ending
Summary: 3 Stars
I have enjoyed Perez-Reverte's The Nautical Chart, The Seville Communion, The Fencing Master, and The Flanders Panel, so it is clear that I like his somewhat obscure brand of thriller. I think, however, that he went too far in "The Club Dumas," the ending of which left many important questions unanswered and this reader unsatisfied.
Maybe my lack of satisfaction with the conclusion was exacerbated by the quality of the story that preceded it.
Lucas Corso is brilliantly presented, with little snippets of characterization dropped here and there to eventually comprise a coherent pattern ... he talks fast, gets his hands dirty, has a prodigious memory, appears fragile yet solid as a concrete block, has features that are sharp and precise, and alert eyes. He's ready to express an innocence dangerous for anyone who was taken in by it, seems slower and clumsier than he really is, looks vulnerable and defenseless, and is attractive to women.
Later, Corso is described as saying something casually, as if he had no opinion on the matter, slyly goading you to react, inducing you to give out more information than you had intended.
And still later (not until p.175), he is thin and hard like an emaciated wolf. A well-trained, patient wolf.
But there's a problem with all this. We are set to believe that Corso is dangerous both mentally and physically, someone who is not what others see him to be. This is excellent, but then Perez-Reverte does not have Corso act in a way consistent with these characteristics. Instead, he acts weak and unsure, and he's as often manipulated as he is the manipulator.
Now for the ending.
The story concludes with major unresolved issues, which are not even acknowledged as unresolved. Who is the green-eyed girl? Why does she follow Corso and help him? What happens to Varo Borja, who has committed murders but is not sought by the police? I found this enormously frustrating. Did I miss something?
Even more serious, Perez-Reverte has launched Corso into two unrelated stories, both of which are fascinating. I fully expected everything to come together into a single complex but coherent plot. But it never happens. I reached the concluding chapters with great anticipation that the loose threads would be integrated, and then felt great disappointment when they were not.
Perhaps I would be less frustrated if Perez-Reverte were not such a good storyteller. That also makes me wonder if it was me. Did I miss things I should have understood?
I read "The Club Dumas" differently than I read Perez-Reverte's other books. Having now published two novels --- A Good Conviction, a NYC-based legal thriller which tells the story of a young man wrongly imprisoned in Sing Sing for a murder he did not commit by a Manhattan ADA who may have known he was innocent, and The Heretic (Library of American Fiction), a historical novel describing the persecution of a family of secret Jews by the Catholic Church on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition --- I have undertaken a self-education project to see if I can improve my skills as a novelist. "The Club Dumas" is one of the novels I have read as part of this effort.
If you'd like to see more of my comments about "The Club Dumas" and other novels, I invite you to my "Education of a Novelist" blog, which you can reach by searching the web for "weinstein education of a novelist".
LEW WEINSTEIN
Summary of The Club Dumas
A provocative literary thriller that playfully pays tribute to classic tales of mystery and adventure
Lucas Corso is a book detective, a middle-aged mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found dead, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. He is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas's masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle heroine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris on the killer's trail in this twisty intellectual romp through the book world.
Fallen angels, satanic manuals, and a passion for the works of Raphael Sabatini and Alexandre Dumas among others--this is the stuff of Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte's engrossing novel The Club Dumas. Set in a world of antiquarian booksellers where dealers would gladly betray their own mothers to get their hands on a rare volume, The Club Dumas is a thinking person's thriller: in addition to a riveting plot, the book is full of intriguing details that range from the working habits of Alexandre Dumas to how one might go about forging a 17th-century text. Woven through these meditations is enough murder, sex, and the occult to keep both the hero, Lucas Corso, and the reader hopping.
As in his previous novel, The Flanders Panel, set in the world of art restoration, Mr. Pérez-Reverte has written a literary thriller to tease both the intellect and adrenaline gland. Lucas Corso makes a complex, ultimately sympathetic hero, and there's plenty to delight in the intricate twists and turns the story takes before the mystery of The Club Dumas is finally solved.
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.20
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.85
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Fencing Masterby Arturo Perez-Reverte
Mariner Books; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Queen of the Southby Arturo Perez-Reverte, Arturo Perez-Reverte
Plume; Published: 2005-05-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
The Reader (Oprah's Book Club)by Bernhard Schlink
Vintage; Published: 1999-03-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.90
Price in other shops:
Sweet Hereafter: A Novelby Russell Banks
Harper Perennial; Published: 1992-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
Foucault's Pendulumby Umberto Eco
Ballantine Books; Published: 1990-11-13; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
The Bedbug and Selected Poetryby Vladimir Mayakovsky
Indiana University Press; Published: 1975-10-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.22
Price in other shops:
The Flanders Panelby Arturo Perez-Reverte
Harvest Books; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.47
Price in other shops:
The Seville Communionby Arturo Perez-Reverte
Mariner Books; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.49
Price in other shops:
The Fencing Masterby Arturo Perez-Reverte
Harvest Books; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.12
Price in other shops:
The Flanders Panelby Arturo Perez-Reverte
Harvest Books; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.67
Price in other shops: