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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
The concept is quite clever. It is well researched. It potentially could have been a superb novel. As a mystery, however, it's not very good. I think the author breaks nearly everyone of the rules for writing mystery fiction.
Not a book to read at a meal either. Just be forewarned.
Not a book to read at a meal either. Just be forewarned.
This is hands down one of my favorite books! I read it for my mystery group a few years ago and was completely captivated with the story. This is a must for those that truly love literature.
This book wasn’t as good as I had heard. The story was interesting, if not original, and Pearls characterizations didn’t always ring true for me. It might have helped if I had re-read The Inferno before hand.
This book was recommended in a comment section somewhere in the vastness of the internet. I can’t remember where but I’m glad I stumbled upon the comment. Post civil war Boston and Cambridge have never held much interest for me and I confess that I only know of Oliver Wendell Holmes because he has a sweet 3 part name that my middle school mind locked onto. Longfellow I know existed and that people like his poetry but unless your name is Homer or TS Eliot I don’t care about poetry.
I almost put this book down for good because the first chapter is a exceedingly slow. We get bogged down because the author cannot just call his characters Holmes or Longfellow, oh no they must be called by their full names because Pearl needs us to know who he’s writing about. But stick around a few chapters after that and it gets better, I promise.
The mutters are good and so is the twist.
And hey, it’s the first fiction book I’ve read this year by a dude. Weird.
I almost put this book down for good because the first chapter is a exceedingly slow. We get bogged down because the author cannot just call his characters Holmes or Longfellow, oh no they must be called by their full names because Pearl needs us to know who he’s writing about. But stick around a few chapters after that and it gets better, I promise.
The mutters are good and so is the twist.
And hey, it’s the first fiction book I’ve read this year by a dude. Weird.
adventurous
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I did really enjoy this by the end and I'm glad I perserved with it. To begin with I did find it slow going - I suppose because the murder mystery side of things hadn't really got going. And worse, there was a lot of meetings between the Dante Club - a group of middle aged academics, publishers and poets born into rich, well-to-do society who were pompous and self-gratulary either about themselves or each other - so they did become tiresome and annoying. And they were arrogant and irritating, the way they looked down their noses at the lower classes, foreigners, women etc... the women in this book are pretty dolls to be petted, one can't expect understanding of a higher calliber from the lower classes, and seemingly foreigners don't deserve their help, as seems to have happened when an Italian tutor was pushed out of his position at the university. Snobbery not as bad as some of the people in this book - the attitude to the living and dead languages, that dead languages are worth learning, are worth twice the credits of a living language, which is regarded as a waste of time. Of course, this is set in the late 1800s, so I suppose some attitudes have changed since then. Some anyway.
So this is a ficitonalised account of the actual translation of Dante's Comedy from Italian into English by the poet Longfellow, with assistance from his Dante Club. The murders and the whole investigation subplot are fiction, but I liked the way this was twisted into the state of mind of the soldiers settling back into civilian life after the Civil War, and latching on to Dante as he was suffering from a kind of post traumatic stress syndrome. The flies randomly are also interesting. I am so glad I live in a cold place where a lot of these nasty types aren't able to survive. Maggots needing living flesh to eat... ugh. Grim stuff.
The plot is perhaps slow-moving, but I thought it was well-written for the most part (aside from a few twirling-arounds, and sudden plot twists like the flipping of a flapjack - one of the old men says that, not my words!) but you can see that the writer obviously knows his stuff and has found an inventive way of doing something with all his knowledge about Dante and the translation. I've only read Inferno, and it was many years ago, but it's made me think I'd like to read the other two books now as well.
So this is a ficitonalised account of the actual translation of Dante's Comedy from Italian into English by the poet Longfellow, with assistance from his Dante Club. The murders and the whole investigation subplot are fiction, but I liked the way this was twisted into the state of mind of the soldiers settling back into civilian life after the Civil War, and latching on to Dante as he was suffering from a kind of post traumatic stress syndrome. The flies randomly are also interesting. I am so glad I live in a cold place where a lot of these nasty types aren't able to survive. Maggots needing living flesh to eat... ugh. Grim stuff.
The plot is perhaps slow-moving, but I thought it was well-written for the most part (aside from a few twirling-arounds, and sudden plot twists like the flipping of a flapjack - one of the old men says that, not my words!) but you can see that the writer obviously knows his stuff and has found an inventive way of doing something with all his knowledge about Dante and the translation. I've only read Inferno, and it was many years ago, but it's made me think I'd like to read the other two books now as well.
I started reading this book on a Sunday. I would have had it finished on Tuesday but took a break from reading that evening. So, I finished Wednesday. It only took a few days to read as the first 300 pages really kept my interest. However, at the end I found myself more or less skimming the pages and just wanting to finish it. It was a good book, disturbing at times, but not one I would read again.
Oh boy, what to say about this book. I was looking on Amazon.com and it came up in my 'recommended for you' section. I clicked on it and found the summary to be interesting as well as the comments of those who already read the book. I borrowed it from a friend and absolutely could not get into it. Some parts were ok, but they were overwhelmed by parts that were not. I struggled through the first half of the book and found the plot to be moving slower than molasses. At that point I decided to only read some of the dialogue and skim through the rest, but I couldn't even do that. I ended up giving the book back half read, not really caring that I hadn't finished.