I have read Dante’s Inferno a couple times, but it is part one of the trilogy titled the Divine Comedy. The first part is Inferno, then Purgatorio, and lastly Paradiso. So, when I finally got a hard copy that contained all three parts I was excited to check out the other pieces of it. First things first, these books are very difficult to read for two main reasons.
Language The language in this book can be very tricky. That is because the whole book is a poem written in (3-line stanzas) also in Italian. This makes the job of translator especially difficult to try and maintain the rhythm of the poem. On top of that since it is poetic there are many times where a very simple action like: person A asks person B a question can span paragraphs and therefore make it difficult to always keep track of what is going on.
References This book is littered with references to Italian, Roman, Greek historical, political and mythological figures spanning from before Christ to Dante’s modern era. If I was to buy another hardcopy, I would probably try to find one with annotations as I spent a lot of time googling, which was time consuming and annoying because it would break the flow of the story. Here is an excerpt for example
“So came he with deductions to this point; Then he concluded: “Therefore it behoves The roots of your effects to be diverse. Hence one is Solon born, another Xerxes, Another Melchisedec, and another he Who, flying through the air, his son did lose. Revolving Nature, which a signet is To mortal wax, doth practice well her art, But not one inn distinguish from another, Thence happens it that Esau differeth In seed from Jacob; and Quirinus comes From sire so vile that he is given to Mars
Paridiso Canto VIII
Here we see an Athenian Statesmen, Persian King, Old Testament characters, Greek mythological characters, a Roman aristocrat and a Roman god all mentioned in a single paragraph. Sometimes it isn’t necessary to know all the references to understand the text, but other times the text doesn’t mean much if you don’t. This also demonstrates a common writing style of Dante’s which was to obliquely refer to a character based on details “everyone” would know. Like the above reference to Icarus and Daedalus. With this in mind the book was pretty difficult to get through but is so foundational to western literature it almost seems like you should climb up saint peter’s steps on your knees once, and maybe you can learn something.
Story The story starts by Dante being lost in a dark wood where he gets corned by three wild beasts. Unable to get away from these animals all is almost lost until Virgil shows up and saves him from the beasts. This scenario is an allegory for the redemption of the soul. Virgil then becomes Dante’s guide as they start their journey that out of necessity begins in hell. Hell is described as concentric rings going deeper and deeper into the earth. This section contains Limbo where Virgil is from and where all virtuous pagans live. They can’t go to heaven, but they were good people, so they aren’t tormented. They just chill doing nothing for eternity. Of course, this is also where all the damned souls reside with no chance of redemption. After going through hell, they must ascend the mountain of Purgatory which is a place where souls are cleansed of their earthly faults before being received into paradise. At the top of the mountain is the garden of Eden which must be crossed through, and the last stop to Paradise is the river Lethe. When one enters the river all bad things they did in their life are forgotten and all their virtues are strengthened. This is as far as Virgil can take Dante due to the fact that he is a pagan. Dante gets a hot new guide named Beatrice who takes over. They then ascend to paradise which is in the sky. Going back to a concentric circle schema heaven too is segregated like hell, but by virtue instead of vice with the highest heavens being in the center.
Thoughts This reminded me of the matrix, where the first installment was best, and the rest were just ok. I guarantee that most of this is due to the stupidity of the reader and not the book itself. The book is full of genius allegories and cosmological ideas. I can’t imagine being in a state of mind where I felt confident enough to sit down and just write out such a titanic description of the afterlife. Especially when people were still getting burnt at the stake for not toeing the line. There is a formula where Dante and Virgil are walking through a place, and they stop and ask someone in the place how they got there. This is efficient but is used so often it gets a little repetitive IMO. Also, since Dante was the only living soul in purgatory the souls that they would come across would always freak out that he had a shadow (indicating he was still alive). Again, the first time, I thought this was cool but by the end of that book it was run into the ground. Purgatorio was probably my least favorite book until the end. The section on crossing through Eden to get to paradise is a brilliant idea to me. Paradiso’s repetitive theme was that as he ascended into higher and higher heavens the glorious light emanating from the characters got brighter and brighter. Again, makes sense, but by the end a little played out. Something else that struck me as funny in Paradiso was that in each circle of heaven there was almost always a character complaining about how bad something was on i.e., corrupt the popes were, lame the Dominican friars had become, etc. I guess even in Paradise you are still annoyed by “kids these days”. In Canto 28 of Paradiso Dante sees a geo centric version of the solar system in the reflection of Beatrice’s eye. The planets are replaced by rings of Angels. These angels orbit a single impossibly bright point of light. The closer the angel’s orbit to the center the higher ranking it is. This Canto stuck out to me for some reason, not positive why but there is something interesting here. Probably a connection to Philip K Dick or Emerson’s idea of the infinite inside a finite point. One last thing that was interesting to me was just how interwoven Greek mythology was in Dante’s view of Christianity. He in one breath recognizes its subordination, but at every turn leans on it for explanation and allegory. I feel our friend Brian Muraresku from the Immortality Key would have some things to say about that. Overall, it was mostly a slog to get through but had little gems in there that were nice to find. Additionally, I think it is one of those books where the more acquainted you become with poetry and Greek mythology, the more you will find to enjoy in this book. It also helps to have an IQ of 420 instead of 69.
PS Turns out Dante was promised to a girl for marriage at the age of 12. But unfortunately, for that lady he had met Beatrice at age 9 and devoted his whole life to her, although she was married to someone else. In Dante’s writing Beatrice functions as a muse who is as close to divine as you can get.
Rating 7.0/10