Another puny three-book week. By far the best of the three was Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club. In 1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the century gather to help H.W. Longfellow translate Dante's Divine Comedy. They also join forces with the only mulatto on the Boston Police force to help track down a serial killer whose methods mimic circles in Dante's Inferno.
Gruesome murders, historically accurate characters and events, well-plotted and plausible mystery all contribute to the superiority of this book, but what really clinched it for me was the reverence for Dante and his work. I've never even been able to get through two circles of hell with Aligheri and his guide, but Pearl makes me want to try again.
3 comments:
Have you read Jonathan Franzen? With all the hype, I feel like I should read his new one. But I never read "The Corrections."
I've not read Franzen, but I have The Corrections on my "to read" list. I'll make a decision on his latest after that.
I ended up getting "Freedom." I'll let you know what I think when I'm done, but I have to say, I found the first chapter a bit annoying.
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