The Dumas Club

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Club Dumas is a novel by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte , published in Spain in 1993 under the title El Club Dumas . The title of the English edition is The Club Dumas .

The action takes place in the world of the antiquarian ; The author takes up a theme of his earlier novel The Secret of the Black Lady , which is about the uncovering of the secrets of an old painting and which was filmed in 1994 under the title Secrets .

content

A certain Boris Balkan narrates the adventures of the bookseller Lucas Corso, who has been commissioned to examine a rare manuscript by Alexandre Dumas . His research leads Corso to three editions of De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis ( The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows ). On his journey he encounters a variety of bizarre personalities, including devil worshipers, bibliomaniacs and a hypnotically tempting femme fatale . The trips take Corso to Madrid (Spain), Sintra (Portugal), Paris (France) and Toledo (Spain).

The book deals with topics as diverse as the forging of ancient books, the life and love life of Alexandre Dumas, the Inquisition's handling of heretics and the evocation of the devil .

Fictitious documents

To a certain extent, two documents play the main role in this book. This results in two intertwined storylines whose inner connection is sought in particular by the main character Corso until the end.

De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis

Aristide Torchia is the fictional author of this book. He was born in 1620. In 1666 he wrote the book De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis , which translated means "The Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows". He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1667 . During his execution, he announced that there was exactly one real copy of the “Nine Gates”, while experts later know of three surviving copies. Each of the three copies contains nine picture panels that only look the same at first glance and are all depicted in the novel.

In the specialist literature it is mentioned that the ninth plate is said to be missing from one of the copies, which Corso refutes. Nevertheless, one could assume (as a reader of the novel) that the real ninth picture plate was taken and was later supplemented by a perfectly forged picture plate based on the model of the other two books.

Le vin d'anjou

This is the lost original manuscript of the chapter from the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas .

people

  • Lucas Corso is a book hunter looking for valuable books, original editions or manuscripts for wealthy customers. Like most of the actors, he is very well read. He may seem naive and needy, but in reality he is unscrupulous.
  • Irene Adler is the main female character in the book, her eyes shimmer diabolically green and her name is that of the opponent of the detective Sherlock Holmes . In Corso's search for proof of the authenticity of the Musketeer's manuscript or the mysterious connection between the two works, she is usually noticeably passive and disinterested. Outwardly, it may be estimated at around 20 years, but it is suggested that it must be a few centuries old. It is reminiscent of the devil in love from Jacques Cazotte 's play of the same name.
  • Flavio La Ponte is a well-known Corso; he received the chapter of the Three Musketeers from its original owner Taillefer shortly before his (alleged) suicide, which is at the beginning of the story.
  • Boris Balkan is contacted by Corso to verify the authenticity of a manuscript by Alexandre Dumas that is said to contain an unknown chapter of the Three Musketeers . He is particularly interested in Dumas' work, in which he is considered an expert in specialist circles. He is the (fictional) narrator of Corso's experiences and tries to be as distant as possible.
  • Varo Borja - his name likes Rodrigo Borja, better known under Pope Alexander VI. remember - is an eccentric book collector. He is particularly interested in books about Lucifer and evocations of the devil. He owns one of the three known specimens of the Nine Gates , and assigns Corso to check which of the three surviving specimens is the real one. Like Corso, he is described as unscrupulous, but appears much "more negative", so he is a person who walks over corpses and has probably already done so. Since he is very wealthy, he can afford to have others do this dirty work for him and cover the traces of his more than criminal machinations.
  • Victor Fargas is an obsessed, perhaps the most obsessive, but now impoverished book collector who owns the second of the three editions of the Nine Portals . He tells Corso how much agony it is to have to sell another book. He is murdered, the perpetrator remains initially unknown.
  • Lianna Taillefer is the widow Enrique Taillefer , described as intelligent, beautiful and calculating , a book collector whose alleged suicide by hanging the story begins.
  • The brothers Pedro and Paolo Ceniza , two antiquarians, not only have a good theoretical knowledge of restoring, forging or falsifying antique books, but also practice this craft in a practical way. As experts, you give Corso important information on how the authenticity of the Nine Gates can be determined. One can assume that restoring (and possibly the falsification and falsification of books) is not just a livelihood for them, but a passion in which they want to be as perfect as possible - and probably are.
  • Rochefort is a protagonist named after a character in a novel Dumas', whose name only became known late. Similar to Rochefort from Dumas' novel, he also has a noticeable scar on his face and is in league with "Milady" (in this case Lianna Taillefer).
  • Baroness Frida Ungern is the owner of the third copy of the nine portals , who says she had a liaison with Lucifer as a young girl and thus became a witch.

Some of the main characters from Club Dumas have parallels to characters from Dumas' Three Musketeers (Milady deWinter, Richelieu, Rochefort).

filming

The novel was filmed in 1999 by Roman Polański with Johnny Depp in the lead role.

expenditure

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literature

  • Nina Waldkirch: The trend towards the mystery genre in new novels and film adaptations: Dan Brown, Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Wolfgang Hohlbein. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8288-9365-8 , pp. 70-101.
  • Carolyn A. Durham: Books beyond borders: intertextuality in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's “El Club Dumas”. In: Anales de la literatura española contemporánea. Boulder, Colorado, Vol. 26, 2001, 2, pp. 61-78. ISSN  0272-1635
  • José Manuel López de Abiada, Augusta López Bernasocchi: Para una gramática del best-séller desde el canon literario: El club Dumas como paradigma. In: José Belmonte Serrano, José Manuael López de Abiada (eds.): Sobre héroes y libros. La obra narrativa y periodística de Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Mausicaa, Murcia 2003, ISBN 84-95450-81-X , pp. 185-237.