Review: "The Club Dumas," Arturo Pérez-Reverte

By Paul Carrier

Lucas Corso is a Spanish book sleuth, a hard-boiled, gin-soaked loner who, for a fee, will hunt down old and rare manuscripts, and locate experts who can determine whether they are forgeries.
 

That may sound like a career that makes for a sedate life. But Corso finds himself immersed in a dark, brooding web of occultism and violence when he tries to authenticate two documents for bibliophiles: a 17th-century book that supposedly allows readers to summon the Devil, and what appears to be Alexandre Dumas’ original copy of chapter 42 from The Three Musketeers.

The Nine Doors, as the tome with Devil-worshipping overtones is called, belongs to a well-to-do book lover who claims it is a forgery and hires Corso to learn the truth, which requires tracking down the two other known copies to determine which one of the three, if any, is the original.

As for The Anjou Wine, the title of the chapter by Dumas, it belongs to Corso’s friend Flavio La Ponte, who bought it from a publisher only days before the seller was found dead, seemingly a suicide.

The deeper Corso delves into the history of these works, the more dangerous his research becomes, both to himself and others. Even more intriguing, though, is that The Nine Doors, with its satanic overtones, and The Anjou Wine seem to be linked somehow, as Corso discovers when he encounters people who resemble characters from The Three Musketeers.

In the midst of all this, Corso befriends - or is befriended by - a mysterious young woman who becomes his companion, lover and protector. She obviously is far more than she appears to be on the surface - a demon, perhaps, or an angel. But initially, Corso is unable to pin down her true nature, or why she has entered his life. She uses the pseudonym Irene Adler, which, Corso realizes, is the name of a character created by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, whose works include the swashbuckling Captain Alatriste novels set in 17th-century Spain, displays his fondness for derring-do in The Club Dumas as well, although the setting is more contemporary. (The novel was published in 1993, and seems to be set in that period.) His evocative style lends a dark, baroque edge to the proceedings, while giving readers wonderfully etched characterizations.

Corso has “an oblique, distant laugh, with a hint of insolence, the kind of laugh that lingers in the air after it stops.” His Portuguese friend, Amilcar Pinto, “would have been an honest policeman, even a good policeman, if he didn’t have to feed five children, a wife, and a retired father who secretly stole his cigarettes.” And a young, statuesque widow is “the type of woman who takes an age to light a cigarette and looks straight into a man’s eyes as she does so.”

The Dumas Club is not a light read, thanks to its esoteric subject and the fact that it is littered with references to ancient texts on magic and demonology, some of which carry Latin titles. And the link, such as it is, between The Three Musketeers and The Nine Doors is maddeningly tenuous throughout most of the novel, for reasons that only become clear in the final pages.

In a generally positive review published when The Club Dumas first appeared in English in 1996, The New York Times noted that  Pérez-Reverte launches “a considerable number of balls into the air” in the novel and retrieving them all is problematic, thanks to “the farfetched antics of the clandestine society that lies at the heart of his plot” and the “curious explanation” Adler gives Corso for her presence.

Yet I found this exotic mystery to be engaging, clever and well-paced. Pérez-Reverte is an erudite writer who focuses a spotlight on the world of rare book collecting, while also examining the art of producing forgeries, the life of Alexandre Dumas, the enduring popularity of The Three Musketeers, the bizarre workings of demonology and much bookish arcana.

It wouldn’t hurt to have English and Latin dictionaries on hand while reading The Club Dumas. Unless you’re already familiar with such terms and phrases as incunabulum and sic luceat lux.

Review: "Pirates of the Levant," Arturo Pérez-Reverte

By Paul Carrier

Diego Alatriste, a jaded but moralistic Spanish infantryman turned swordsman for hire, finds himself practicing his trade at sea in Pirates of the Levant, the sixth novel in the Captain Alatriste series. 

Accompanied by his young but rapidly maturing protege, 17-year-old Inigo Balboa, Alatriste sails aboard a 17th-century galley that is escorting a supply convey, helps capture a pirate vessel and lands at a Spanish outpost in North Africa, where he takes part in a successful raid against a nearby encampment of Arabs. 

Then the serious swashbuckling begins, with a deadly series of battles at sea. 

In Pirates of the Levant, as in the earlier Alatriste novels, Arturo Pérez-Reverte displays a fondness for the little guy, the rank-and-file soldier, the downtrodden soul who’s just trying to get by with a bit of his dignity intact in a world beset by “a bureaucratic tangle of taxes, corrupt functionaries and diverse other parasites.” 

"We Spaniards have the worst political class in Europe, but the finest people on the front line. In my novels I express love and tenderness for those at the bottom, and disdain for those in power,” Pérez-Reverte told the British newspaper, The Independent, back in 2007. “We've always had terrible rulers. An 11th-century Spanish troubadour wrote: 'What good vassals they would be if they had a good master.' That sums up the whole history of Spain. It's our tragedy." 

This time out, for example, a battle-hardened Spanish sergeant major stationed in forlorn and forgotten North Africa fights “with the sea at his back, the king in far-off Spain, God preoccupied with other matters, and the Moors only a sword’s length away.” Later in the tale, Alatriste muses that “it’s always best to talk to noblemen . . . when they’ve just been punched in the face.”

As The Independent put it in that 2007 article, Alatriste (who carries the title of “captain” even though he holds no such military rank) “strides through Spain's 17th-century golden age, fighting dirty battles, striving to protect his honour and stay alive. This is the Spain of Cervantes and Velázquez, where high art blossoms in a corrupt society run by a stupid and incompetent court.” 

With its Mediterranean setting, Pirates of the Levant introduces Muslim characters to Alatriste’s world, both as friend and foe. While the conventional wisdom among Alatriste’s Spanish contemporaries is that these “Turks” are untrustworthy, he takes a more nuanced view, judging Christian and Muslim alike as individuals, rather than by their religious affiliations. 

Thus we meet Aixa Ben Gurriat, a Moor who saves Alatriste’s life in North Africa and joins him when Alatriste, Inigo and a third Spaniard set sail yet again, this time for Malta, Naples and the Levant. 

The novel's somewhat choppy pacing in the early going finally picks up in the second half of Pirates of the Levant, giving readers a bracing dose of the heart-in-your throat action that is a hallmark of the Alatriste novels. Sadly, though, Pirates of the Levant is not the best of the bunch. 

For one thing, it’s more episodic than the earlier novels in the series, which may appeal to some readers but disappoint others. And Pérez-Reverte fully indulges his penchant for obscure historical and geographic references. That may not be problematic for Pérez-Reverte’s fellow Spaniards, but for Americans, it’s confusing and a bit tiring. Still, Pirates of the Levant captures enough of Alatriste's soldierly nobility to appeal to diehard fans.

Comparisons between the Alatriste novels and The Three Musketeers are inevitable, because of their shared focus on 17th-century derring-do featuring plenty of swordplay, but the similarities are limited. Unlike the camaraderie of Alexandre Dumas’ mutually supportive French swordsmen, Alatriste is brooding and taciturn, a man who, as Inigo tells us, “preferred sword thrusts to words."

Review: "The King's Gold," Arturo Pérez-Reverte

By Paul Carrier

This fourth outing in the Captain Alatriste series by Spanish novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte finds our swashbuckling hero, Diego Alatriste, on a mission to protect the cargo of a royal 17th-century treasure fleet as it sails back to Spain from the New World.

Politically connected thieves have a fortune in stolen gold and silver stashed in a secret hold aboard one of the ships. Alatriste, a swordsman for hire and erstwhile army officer, is contracted by agents of the king to thwart the theft, so the smuggled riches can be deposited in the royal treasury.

As always in this series, Alatriste comes across in The King's Gold as a weary and taciturn but honor-bound mercenary who remains true to himself in a ruthless world. Inigo Balboa, his young and devoted ward, serves as the novel’s narrator.

What makes this series so enjoyable, in addition to the strong characterization, the convincing period details and the inevitable swordplay and derring-do, is Pérez-Reverte’s language.

It casts a spell.

“Any ship or vessel is home to gallant legions of rats, bedbugs, fleas, and all manner of creeping things who are quite capable of eating a cabin boy alive and who observed neither Fridays nor Lent,” young Inigo writes at one point early on in his adventures with Alatriste.

American readers accustomed to historical fiction featuring British characters, as such fiction often does, will get an entertaining jolt from Pérez-Reverte’s decidedly Spanish perspective. To the chauvinistic and xenophobic Spaniards in The King's Gold, for example, Lutherans are despicable heretics and Queen Elizabeth I of England is a - well, think of a five-letter word that rhymes with itch and you’ll get the idea.

Pérez-Reverte’s seductive prose evokes the mystery and intrigue of a long-gone Spanish empire that was plagued by corruption, decay and cruelty but also blessed with grandeur and a fictional hero devoted in equal measure to duty and his own survival.

Review: "The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet," Pérez-Reverte

By Paul Carrier

Diego Alatriste, the jaded but principled hero of four previous novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte, returns in The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet. But this time, Alatriste, a weary army veteran and swordsman for hire in 17th-century Spain, may find himself up against an opponent far too dangerous even for him.

Madrid, with its dark streets, abandoned alleys, dingy taverns and glittering palaces, is as much a character here as Alatriste and his protégé, the young narrator Inigo Balboa, who is infatuated with the dangerous Angélica de Alquézar, a lady in waiting to the queen.

For his part, Alatriste is smitten by Maria de Castro, a beautiful actress who, unfortunately for him, also has caught the eye of Philip IV, the king of Spain. When Alatriste is implicated in a plot to assassinate the king, his problems mount and the novel gallops to its dramatic conclusion.

The American reader is at a bit of a disadvantage here because The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet introduces us to real-life historical figures who are far more familiar to Spaniards than to Americans, such as poets Félix Lope de Vega and Francisco Gomez de Quevedo and Gaspar de Guzman y Acevedo, the prime minister under Philip IV.

But that is a small hurdle, easily overcome. Pérez-Reverte’s graceful style transports the reader to Spain's golden age. It is a world that combines the power of empire, the elegance of the royal court, the arrogance of "hidalgos" and "grandees," the riches of the Americas and the intolerance of the Inquisition.


This is a place where sword and dagger are as much a part of a man's costume as a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat, the better to protect him from a chilly fog and shield his face from prying eyes.

To borrow a phrase from Elvis Costello, who uses it in an entirely different context in one of his songs, Alatriste’s world is awash in “complicated shadows.”

If this conjures up images of The Three Musketeers, the comparison is inevitable, and appropriate. The time period is the same, although Alexandre Dumas' musketeers swagger their way through France, not Spain, In both cases, though, 17th-century concepts of honor, duty and machismo shepherd the protagonists through a world filled with treachery and deceit.

The fictional Alatriste is one of Spain's greatest swordsmen, so there is no shortage of clashing steel in The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet. By page 70, for example, Alatriste has survived two sword fights, in the process wounding at least two men and possibly killing a third.

Still, it would be misleading to suggest that The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet is all swashbuckling and swordplay. There is a brooding quality to the Alatriste novels, and this latest effort is no exception.

Pérez-Reverte offers a convincing portrait of 17th-century Spain, in part by sprinkling the text with snippets of poetry that provide an evocative sense of time and place. This is fine stuff, well-written and nicely plotted.

If you're new to the series, I'd suggest reading the novels in the order in which they were published, as they proceed chronologically. The first in the series is Captain Alatriste.