Recently, I've read the Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. It id about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendel Holmes, James T. Feilds and George Washington Greene. These 5 people are the Dante Club. Headed by the famous poet, Longfellow, they translate Dante Alighieri's Divina Comedia(Divine Comedy).
While in the middle of their translation of Inferno, the first of the Cemodias by Dante but last to be translated by Longfellow, a murder happened. A week later, another murder which Dr. Holmes, Poet and proffessor of Harvard is asked help for an autopsy. He recognize the murder as one described by Dante in his Inferno. He began to think about the first murder and realized that it too was described by Dante. When the 4 out of 5 Danteans were awre of this, they bring upon themselves to catch the Lucifer of the New England Killings.
This was not as easy as they proposed. With Harvard trying to stop the translation because it was Catholic and "Obscene" and the police were having trouble among themselves, the Dante Club are on their own.
The third murder fell upon a close friend of Dr. Holmes sending the good doctor to release himself from Dante. George Washington Greene's health was failing leaving three Danteans to solve the murders themselves.
We can learn in this novel that friendship is important in doing anything. If Lowell had not talked to Holmes and the rest recount everythign to Greene, then the murders wouldn't have been solved. They had their extra little helpers of course. Who else would be there but family. It was thanks to Mabel Lowell, daughter of James Russell Lowell, and little Annie Alegra, daughter of Henry Wadworth Longfellow, that help had turned out.
There is a breaking of borders in this story. Nicholas Rey, the only person outside the Dante Club eager to solve the murders merges with the Dante Club soon after he realizes that only these Boston Brahmins know the key to solve the Inferno Murders. Rey is the first black police man. Due to his color, restrictions slows his aid. Never giving up like the Dante Club, they six men bond in friendship and hunt for Lucifer in 1865 Boston.
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