[EnWorld Book Club] The Club Dumas: Discussion.

nikolai · Oct 14, 2004

Discussion of the ENWorld Book Club's October selection, The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, starts here. Thanks to everyone who's gone to the trouble of reading it.

The Randomhouse website gives a list of questions intended to kickstart discussion of the novel, these are copied below:

1. "My name is Boris Balkan, and I once translated The Charterhouse of Parma. Apart from that, I've edited a few books on the nineteenth century popular novel, my reviews and articles appear in supplements and journals throughout Europe, and I organize summer school courses on contemporary writers" [p. 5]. What is unusual about the way Balkan introduces himself? Does his description of himself reflect his actions in the novel?

2. Corso is frequently described as resembling a wolf or a rabbit. Is either description an accurate depiction of his personality? Does Corso's character undergo a transformation by the end of the novel? And if so, what causes it?

3. Is Balkan a reliable narrator? How do you account for his detailed knowledge of Corso's activities? Why did Arturo Pérez-Reverte choose to use Balkan as a narrator? Is Corso also a narrator of the story? Who is in control of the narrative?

4. When Corso visits Varo Borja at the beginning of the novel he hears a "jarring sound, warning him. . . . He was no longer sure he wanted the job" [p. 51]. Why does Corso take the job despite his reservations? How do his feelings about books differ from Varo Borja's or Boris Balkan's?

5. Corso immediately notices Liana Taillefer's resemblance to Kim Novak, the actress who portrayed a beautiful witch in the 1958 film Bell, Book, and Candle. Does Corso use a literary and cinematic lens to view the other women he encounters in the book? How does he see Irene Adler?

6. What do the rooms in which Liana Taillefer, Boris Balkan, Corso, Varo Borja, and Victor Fargas live say about each of them? Are the rooms in any way deceptive? With what settings do you associate Irene Adler? What does the home address she gives say about her?

7. Balkan is very opinionated when it comes to the kind of writing he deems worthwhile [see pages 5, 98, 313, and 322]. Do you think Balkan would consider The Club Dumas a worthwhile piece of literature? Why?

8. The Club Dumas does not establish a precise time period. What era do you imagine The Club Dumas to take place? Do certain characters seem to exist in their own historical periods? If so, how does this effect the way characters construct their identities and how they perceive one another?

9. What are the sources of evil in the novel? Is Pérez-Reverte's interest in the presence of evil in modern history conveyed in his depiction of Varo Borja's desire to raise the devil through magic? Is Borja naive in believing that summoning the devil requires secret knowledge?

10. To what extent do the engravings in The Book of the Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Darkness illustrate Corso's quest for the truth about the two books he is trying to authenticate? What do you think engraving number VII, of a king and a servant playing chess, might represent in terms of Corso's adventure? And how does engraving number IX, of a woman riding a seven-headed dragon, illuminate Corso's discoveries?

11. Who is Irene Adler? Do you accept her explanation of her identity? How does the identity she constructs affect your understanding of the opposition of God and the devil in the novel?

12. Balkan tells Corso that "games are the only universally serious activity" [p.314]. How does Balkan's attitude to "the game" compare with that of Corso, Liana Taillefer, and Irene Adler? Does anyone win the game? Has Corso's attitude to the game changed by the end of the book?

13. Boris Balkan argues that he never led Corso to believe that there was a connection between "The Anjou Wine" and The Nine Doors: "It was you who filled in the blanks on your own, as if what happened were a novel based on trickery, with Lucas Corso the reader too clever for his own good. Nobody ever told you that things were actually as you thought. No, the responsibility is entirely yours, my friend. The real villain of the piece is your excessive intertextual reading and linking of literary references" [p. 334]. Is Balkan right? To what extent are Balkan and Corso responsible for the violence that occurs in the story?

14. Is the Club Dumas justified in its mission to protect the reputation of Alexandre Dumas by withholding evidence about his collaboration with his assistant Auguste Moquet? Why does Balkan care so much about Dumas's reputation? Does Balkan's attitude toward Dumas influence your opinion of Balkan?

15. Corso and Balkan argue about whether children and young people raised watching television have the "spiritual heritage" they themselves received from books and old movies [p. 325]. Could The Club Dumas have been written about television devotees? How would the characters and plot differ?

16. Corso recalls Nikon telling him, "Films are for everyone, collective, generous. . . . They're even better on TV: two can watch and comment. But your books are selfish. Solitary. . . . A person who is interested in books doesn't need other people and that frightens me" [p. 210]. Is Corso a frightening person because of his obsession with books? What about the other characters who share a passion for books? Is it significant that Irene Adler reads cheap paperbacks [p. 138]? Why doesn't Corso want to join the Club Dumas party?

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0679777547&view=rg

Next month's selection is On Writing by Stephen King, discussion of this will start on the 15th of November.

shadoe · Oct 14, 2004

I have some thoughts on some of these topics:

For question 2 I allways thought of Corso as a wolf, that was particularly good at looking inocennt. I never realy thought of his as the other way, but I as I think about this more, I think that my initial impressions of him were worng. He is very much the scavenger, throughout the book. He always seems more viscious than he is. In fact he is only violent once, and in most cases his first choice is to run away.

3: I think that Balkan is as reliable a narrator as we can get. I don't think that Corso is very reliable as a narrator to Balkan, so I think that any inconsistancies should be blamed on Corso.

8: If it were not for the computer in Corso's place, I would think that it was set in the early 70's, which would point to the main players in the drama being born before TV became a common household appliance. Which is were I see there love of books coming from. I find it harder to imagine that poeple would behave the same way if they were born after the 70's, even though there are some exceptions to that.

9: I think that the source of evil in the novel is man. Without poeple doing evil to other poeple, none of the events in this novel would have happened. I think Borja did not need a ritual to summon the devil, he was the devil incarnate for this story.

I think I will stop here, as I think about this some more, I will probably put more thoughts on this out here.

nikolai · Oct 14, 2004

I'll post my thoughts in more detail later. I was very impressed by how cleverly the book was constructed, particularly in self-conciously using the devices of serial fiction and the detective novel, the two plot strands, and the way the engravings and diagrams were integrated into the text. I also thought it was very clever and subtle how the pictures from the Nine Doors reflected upon the story. I got the sense (on my second reading) that Borja's doom was inevitable, right from the start. I thought if was nice how the author had Corso drinking glass after glass after glass of gin, all the way through the book, but never eating anything.

Wombat · Oct 14, 2004

I'll come back with some specifics later, but I need to start with this comment:

The book is clever, terribly clever, self-consciously clever.

In that way I find that it fails.

Overall, the book is so intent on being clever, that both the characters and the plot suffer. I never felt pulled into the book, but rather into the writing style and the puzzle. I was more caught up with the notion of clever author, rather than of the story.

I've read a lot of clever, even difficult, authors in my time -- Robertson Davies, Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milorad Pavic. I enjoyed their books much more so than this one, and for this I felt very sad.

As I said, more details when I get my book back in front of me.

Berandor · Oct 14, 2004

I'm not going to answer textbook questions (of course, I can't reference the book at work and my home computer is broken)

However, I enjoyed the book for several reasons - and I still like the movie.

I really had fun with the Dumas angle of the story; Corso as D'Artagnan, the widow as Lady, (I don't have the book in front of me, so excuse any mistake on names, please), even the antiques book dealer as Porthos. I think that's one helluva cool society, even if a little elitist, to be in.

I think the narrative perspective is interesting: Balkan tells us what Corso has told him, which is one step away from making my head explode. Who tells the truth? Does anybody? Nobody? Better not to think about it.

I liked the ending better than the movie. I also liked that the correlation between Irene and the Devil is stronger, whereas someone on imdb made a very convincing argument that at least the movie Corso was the devil, himself.

Corso himself was an interesting figure. Very reactive, but not so much that you start to dislike him. I enjoyed the deliberate manipulation he used - according to Balkan. Corso is very much an anti-hero, but sympathetic nonetheless. He's also very much a man of the devil, with his manipulation, smoking, drinking, ruthlessness, and whatnot. I like him, still

More later, when work slows down again.

mmadsen · Nov 1, 2004

Wombat said:
The book is clever, terribly clever, self-consciously clever. In that way I find that it fails. Overall, the book is so intent on being clever, that both the characters and the plot suffer.

I agree completely. It felt so contrived that I never found myself caring. And that upset me, because I was really looking forward to this book.

shadoe · Nov 2, 2004

mmadsen said:
I agree completely. It felt so contrived that I never found myself caring. And that upset me, because I was really looking forward to this book.

I never felt that the author was trying to force the cleverness, but that Corso was putting too much of his own cleverness into things. He assumed that he knew more about what was going on that what he realy knew, and it caused all kinds of troubles for him. :uhoh:

mmadsen · Nov 2, 2004

Randomhouse said:
8. The Club Dumas does not establish a precise time period. What era do you imagine The Club Dumas to take place? Do certain characters seem to exist in their own historical periods? If so, how does this effect the way characters construct their identities and how they perceive one another?

I found this question peculiar, because I felt the story did establish a time period. On the technological front, the protagonist has a personal computer, but no Net connection, has a phone, but no mobile phone, etc. That narrows it down to the late 1980s or early 1990s. On the sociological front, he has casual sex with a couple different women, he goes to a bar with an openly lesbian bartender, etc. That implies a fairly modern setting too.

shadoe · Nov 3, 2004

I allways pictured it set in the mid 80's myself. Computers are just becoming the big thing and the police networks are not interconnected like they are now.

nikolai · Nov 3, 2004

Overall, the book is so intent on being clever, that both the characters and the plot suffer. I never felt pulled into the book, but rather into the writing style and the puzzle. I was more caught up with the notion of clever author, rather than of the story.

Personally, I think that the Nine Doors part of the story line was very well done. It was cleverly put together, in what I thought was a very subtle unshowy way. I think the Musketeers story line was probably needed to raise the level of mystery and suspense in the novel, but I can see how this addition (particularly the level of self-consciousness involved) makes the book more of a game.

I did think the Nine Doors plotline, with the mysteries involving the woodcuts, was really very well crafted. What did everyone think of the ending? And did anyone spot the final twist,

involving the forged woodcut

, before it happened?