[Clive James translation]At the mid-point of the path through life, I found Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say How harsh and bitter that place felt to me— Merely to think of it renews the fear— So bad that death by only a degree Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear, It led to good things too, eventually,But there and then I saw no sign of those, And can’t say even now how I had come To be there, stunned and following my nose Away from the straight path.I'd just got round to having a look through this new translation. After reading the above how could I not keep going? It was near enough the perfect time for me to read it, and I bolted the thing whole in 24 hours. Joanna Kavenna's Inglorious - a modern existential novel unfortunately mis-jacketed as chicklit, which I read earlier this year - took "Dante's mid-point of life", half threescore years and ten, as its starting point. Without that accidental prequel, I may not have been so primed. (And as long as I can remember I'd seen 35 as the big crunch in the way that most people seem to see 30. Possibly the fault of Martin Amis, whom I read in my teens and who makes it a pivotal age for some characters - perhaps he took it from Dante.)Best of all, this doesn't feel like a translation: this is so good it feels like poetry itself. I've read quite a bit of translated poetry this year and the only other edition that had this effect was Edna St. Vincent Millay's Fleurs du Mal. Perhaps neither is the closest to the original; that's not, perhaps, the point: as a reading experience rather than an academic crib-sheet, each is wonderful. Of course there's the occasional off-note here - how could there not be in 500 pages? - but this really is a virtuoso work, and I think the fuss is justified. It was for a long while impossible to correlate this beautiful poetry with that loud, sarky Australian bloke off the telly. (Who also had the temerity to write multiple volumes of memoirs - a practice which, as I remembered when I read Maya Angelou's Caged Bird recently, as a kid I seem to have been brought up to look down on; egotism should not be so overt.) That perceived incongruity, the sense of "does not compute", is a compliment, really: he's able to assume different registers so completely that I could have thought he was two separate people. However! Many translators or classic authors include innuendo which appears to be unintentional. (In an interview, the ubiquitous Pevear & Volokhonsky even referred to being confronted about this by an editor and insisting on retaining it although - IMO - it's distracting.) In Clive James' Divine Comedy there are occasional pieces of innuendo, subtly associated words and sensuality which look much too carefully placed to be anything but deliberate. A writer who was mischievously grinning at it too and who understands the skill of it - wonderful!Readers who appreciate that sort of thing will probably also enjoy the little references the translator includes. Sort-of anachronistic, but not so in terms of producing a stunningly erudite epic poem which communicates with its readers. (In any case, there was no Divine Comedy translation into English until the late 18th century - if that's the only language you read well enough, it's futile to pretend towards the entirely authentick.) A few favourites I spotted: marvellous boy (Thomas Chatterton), misshapes, Bedazzled (with a capital), the fault in our stars, pale fire, late and soon (Wordsworth), the bit that put 'The Fool on the Hill' in my head though it's probably not close enough to the lyrics to quote. And, I've no idea if Clive James has any acquaintance with contemporary superhero comics, but: the sheer abundance of their flying - marvel, now – .My previous experience of reading Dante was also a little unconventional, though not in terms of reading speed: about 15 years ago I read the Penguin Mark Musa Inferno and about half of Purgatorio, mostly in stonkingly unconducive settings like a music festival and working in a nightclub cloakroom. (My powers of concentration were never as good as you might infer from this. After all, I did give up.) I don't have the Musa editions to hand; whilst I do remember them being more interesting than expected, there wasn't this scale of wow. Whether that's because of me changing, or a better book, or both - dunno. Though of course after this, I'd recommend the Clive James to others who've previously abandoned Dante and wouldn't mind another go. The Picador edition of the Clive James also has no notes. (Though some extra background info is incorporated into the text of the poem.) It's so wonderfully freeing and immediate*. I nearly always opt for notes but - and I'd hardly let anyone get away with this - I loved being told that for once I couldn't really have them. That's all very well for you to say, you're an ex-Catholic who's studied medieval history. True, but I am quite rusty and the history is a bit earlier than the stuff I know best; this was more a case of recognising lots of names whilst not being sure what they did. Anyway, on the subject of the Italian Wars (15th-16th century version, but not dissimilar to the delightfully named Guelphs and Ghibellines) I never met a tutor who didn't acknowledge that they were just a dull and fiddly background to more interesting things. Much of the time I simply let the poetry flow; poetry does that. It's straight into the vein; felt rather than thought; for me reading poetry is like being on an escalator where prose is climbing a staircase. When I wanted to look up things behind the book's back, the Wikipedia list of cultural references in The Divine Comedy covered nearly everything I wanted to know. (With the exception of: William Longsword who was kept in a cage - and none of the chaps so named elsewhere on Wiki have this in their biogs; some saints mentioned in Paradiso - perhaps the Wikipedian gave up near the end; and one that you need abstruse knowledge to query in the first place, Dante saying Aquarius is near the beginning of the year - the English year began on 25th March.) So, in brief (!), the three parts.InfernoThis is why some people tag TDC as Fantasy! It is so much like all those adventure-film journeys into molten pits with monsters. And often it made me think about how lucky I was as a child to be told in religious contexts "nobody really believes in hell any more". (Ranting old Irish priests were irrelevant and could be safely ignored). I've since known people who, in childhood, did live in constant terror of hell when they did the smallest thing wrong, experiences which make understandable Hitchens' ostensibly hyperbolic description of religion as child abuse. Dante's Inferno makes me understand anew, more deeply than ever, why and what you might be terrified of. I was hit full-on by the idea that millions of people lived their whole lives feeling that this was all true and certain, and how horrific that was - most of all that they felt there was no escape, that death may well not be an end to suffering, that extreme suffering may never end. The medieval mindset: so much trauma and brutality and loss all around. And that formed such bizarre logic, was so unforgiving and vengeful in an Old Testament style. Not what plenty of people would colloquially call "Christian" now: eternal torture for torturers, as well as for plenty of people who by many modern standards had done (practically) nothing wrong at all. (My theological history is rusty and generalised.)PurgatorioAt first it perhaps doesn't seem so exciting, or so visual, as Inferno, and the groups of residents aren't quite so clearly labelled; the poetry, though, especially the beginnings of most cantos, is noticeably beautiful. It is evident that this was a civilisation which for the most part believed in learning and change through fear and punishment: The sin of envy meets its scourge In this round, and of that scourge every thong Flaying that disposition must emerge From love. And thus the curb that speaks against The sin must sing the virtue.Feel sad for medieval people spending their whole lives that way with no choice. (Also that I'm being patronising and imposing values of l.C20th western psychology.) Wonder if many of them would seem wildly disruptive or severe, and violent and fearful if they materialised now; Genghis Khan in Bill and Ted was kind of an extreme example - like that but a bit less.Whilst its main theme is almost as universal as Christianity, a lot of TDC is about Dante's mates or people who'd have been on the medieval equivalent of the regional news in his area. (A re-read after revising some of the history would be interesting.) Clive James' introduction mentions that even soon after publication many readers needed glosses because they didn't know who all these folk were either. In this respect, Dante is much like (the bawdier, briefer, Frencher, later) Francois Villon - and both big their own talent up in their verses almost as much as the average rapper. Later medieval european poet schtick? I'd have to read more to find out. The range of references recalls the smallness of even an educated person's world before printing: the local, the Biblical, the Classical; other countries are represented only by renowned kings, warriors and saints, or vague stereotypes. ParadisoReading The Divine Comedy was also a journey upward in mood (surely intended to inspire the original audience to greater religiosity). The horrors of hell by now seemed quite far away, in another world. The final section was also a blast from the past, personally - not just because the story of a journey into the underworld is one of the oldest around, Gilgamesh and Orpheus to name but two predecessors. As I may have mentioned before - or perhaps it's only in the mega-posts about God is not Great that I never finish or actually post - I had a voluntary phase of being quite strongly religious, aged about 7-9. (Its main focus was obsessive re-reading of Sixty Saints for Girls by Joan Windham.) During this time I would experience a sort of high from thoughts of religious devotion and aspiration, or from solitary prayer and chosen small self-denials, and regardless of actual belief, that high is occasionally re-awakened now by works of art about Christian worship. They don't even have to mean it - one of the strongest effects I can recall was from Luis Buñuel's satirical Simón del desierto . I experienced it again whilst reading Paradiso: buzzy calm, a liking for certain mild asceticisms, a background sense of safety and devotion, breathing changes and all. The poetry was still beautiful but I wasn't reading it as quite the same nitpicky person, more beatific. What I did notice was how effectively the verse conveyed someone trying to describe something too amazing to describe: it really was as if he'd seen it, not only imagined it. The last third of Paradiso, though not so much the very end cantos, is really lots of ways of saying "WOW". I couldn't help but be charmed by it; it's nice to see someone made truly happy by a thing even if I disagree with it.Perhaps the most distinctively medieval-European part of Dante's Paradise (and a bizarre one to many readers, probably) is courtly love and Beatrice herself, that the loved one is ranked with saints and silently worshipped like one - and that that's absolutely fine. No cries of "idolatry!", or "unhealthy!". I for one find it very sweet, because, most importantly he never bothers her about it. And having had somewhat similar tendencies of my own towards a few lovers (a pattern almost certainly rooted in the relationship of those girl saints to Jesus in the aforementioned book), it was just nice to see someone else on that narrow little wavelength for once.Another aspect of Catholicism I very rarely think or hear about now is the geekiness: lots of names of things to learn and remember. There are plenty of saints mentioned in Paradiso (really??), some of whom I'd not heard of for a long time, and I recalled for the first time in ages how saints were, in childhood, another thing with neatly categorisable attributes to learn, and spot (on pictures in different churches, for example)- in much the same way as birds, animals and cars were. (I used to be such a geek about cars; it's easy to do when you're a kid because you're nearer the height of the badges, model names, and engine capacity labels, and once you've started remembering those hooks it's easy to stick things on them.) Anyway, unfortunately none of these lesser-known saints were on the Wikipedia list and they needed separate searches. This ability to understand parts of religion from the inside is one of the reasons I have difficulties with stricter parts of atheist doctrine. I find this understanding useful as a way of empathising with or just not much minding the devout, (who, let's face it, are not disappearing from the world any time soon) and it was probably good training for life in general to spend an hour or two a week being patiently bored with people I disagreed with in RE lessons and church services, once I'd decided, aged 10, that religion wasn't for me after all. Obviously The Divine Comedy, even if it made me emotionally re-experience some of the sensations of religion, didn't convert me back. The triumphal feeling though, of "Yessss! I've actually finished that" (dizzying and surreal because it was unplanned and so swift) was tempered with something calmer and more benevolent. This is a lovely and astoundingly skilful translation simply as poetry, and I look forward to looking back through it.*Another reviewer put it better: " the freedom and luxury of just reading the damn thing as a narrative is so exhilarating".
Speaking of Dante, Erich Auerbach stated, "we come to the conclusion that this man used language to discover the world anew." (Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 183)Psychological development of subjects in literature is far from the exclusive technique of the novel because authors like Dante were exploring it long before Cervantes. Though the Divine Comedy is a didactic poem, composed between 1308-1320, perhaps most recognized for Dante's creation of mortal terror as well as revelatory sublimity, the pilgrim experiences a remarkable amount of self-reported personal and spiritual growth on his journey. His incredible spiritual growth in Paradiso is bestowed upon him, but he struggles with doubts and questions up to that point throughout all three canticles. As a reader, it is really incredible to join with him in his grief over his city becoming something he doesn't like while at the same time lamenting his banishment from said city, the state of the church, longing for a lost love, wondering why there is such evil in the world if there is a god, trying to represent something real and lasting artistically, and trying to understand God's logic with issues such as free will and preordination. Essentially, the final answer in the Divine Comedy to many of these questions is that God is perfect and whatever doesn't seem perfect is something we cannot understand. Though I don't have the kind of faith to accept this answer or find it useful, I thrilled as a reader with the way he continued to ask these questions as he went through Infierno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.Since there are autobiographical aspects to his work, I feel comfortable adding some things that have happened in my life that drew me to this book in the first place and greatly influenced my reading of the work. My husband and I have been on a journey through Latin America this year and I was reading the book on the second half of the journey that began after we spent two months with my sisters dealing with my parents' estate. My father died in his sleep this past December two years and two months after my mother died. He was still very much in love with her and really never got over the pain of losing her to cancer. They were both people of faith. Now my reading buddies know why I cried when Dante saw Beatrice. I could just picture my father's spirit beholding my mother's after their long separation and him experiencing the love of God through her image. As far as the journey aspect, I enjoyed reading about Dante feeling tired from climbing up the mountain in Purgatorio while we were hiking in Torres del Paine. He's quite correct that looking back at where you have come can be inspiring.I had issues with Infierno. Of course, it is necessary in the whole cycle but I enjoyed it least for various reasons. Generally, the whole concept of disgusting eternal punishments is just too much for me. I don't accept this as fitting the concept of a loving God. Also, some of the sins aren't sins to me such as homosexuality or having other beliefs. I really hated the depiction of Muhammed in hell - one of the most gratuitously disgusting punishments. On the other hand, it was amusing to observe how he put certain enemies or literary rivals in hell without evidence of their crimes or sins and incredibly bold to put various arguably sinister popes there. The idea that those in hell chose their own fate and probably wouldn't even like heaven was very thought provoking. Also, his arrangement of severity of crimes fascinated me. Lust and violence are much less serious than theft or treachery. Lust and violence are natural, but theft is calculated. If penal codes matched divine justice according to Dante, executives who defraud their investors would go to jail for a much longer time than murderers. Though there was plenty of fire and torture, the stillness, silence and frigidity at the very bottom of hell was perfect.http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6...Limbo is exceedingly problematic and this is dramatized in Virgil's residence there and his very sudden return there from Purgatorio after Dante reaches Beatrice. Virgil can't reside in Paradiso because he didn't believe in Christ, even though he died before the birth of Christ, which begs the question of why someone who had no chance of knowing about Christianity should be sent to this sub-section of Hell. This question was reintroduced to my great satisfaction in Cantos XIX and XX of Paradiso. First, Dante pushes the question of why people who couldn't have known Jesus should go to hell by having the eagle, collective spirit of the souls in Jupiter, repeat a question that Dante has asked in the past:"‘A man is born in sight of Indus’ water, and there is none there to speak of Christ, . . . and he does not sin either in word or deed. He dies unbaptized and cannot receive the saving faith. What justice is it damns him? Is it his fault that he does not believe?" Paradiso, XIX, 47-52This question still haunts him most likely because of his tenderness for Virgil and he asks it even though he knows the answer will be that he cannot possibly understand God's justice and he must simply have faith. Though I really do appreciate his question, this whole line of reasoning is very messy. Dante is, of course, saying and clearly believes that Christianity is the only true religion. He isn't saying, for example, that there could be other divine paths. He might merely be suggesting, perhaps, that if Christianity is to be universal it should be spread everywhere. I guess this is some kind of call to arms for missionaries. What's odd about this question is that there wasn't any suggestion that there were any souls from the "Indus' waters" in limbo. I only recall unbaptized babies, Greeks and Romans for the most part in limbo. None of the levels of the afterworld seem to house anyone but those from Europe, Palestine, or Arabia (Biblical and Classical world and his contemporary Europe). My conclusion is that the afterworld Dante depicts is not universal to the modern reader. Though the 'world' to him was much smaller, there is still an obvious contradiction between his question about the virtuous man from India and his afterworld. Next, in Canto XX, Dante extends the theme of interrogating divine justice while also dramatizing a testing of faith by presenting a soul who went to hell and was brought back to life in order to become a Christian and Ripheus, a Trojan, as shining in the eyebrow of the eagle who speaks to him in the realm of Jupiter.Here is the discussion about Ripheus."Who would believe in the erring world down there that Ripheus the Trojan would be sixth among the sacred lusters of this sphere?Now he knows grace divine to depths of bliss the world’s poor understanding cannot grasp." Paradiso, XX, 45-48In the previous Canto, he was just told that one has to know Christ in life to be saved so it is no wonder he might be confused by this or even question God's will. He can't help but ask. "I could not bear to wait in silence there;but from my tongue burst out “How can this be?” forced by the weight of my own inner doubt." XX, 54-56He is being tested, but the answer given reveals more of the depth or complexity of Divine Justice:Ripheus "gave all his love to justice, there on earth, and God, by grace on grace, let him foresee a vision of our redemption shining forth . . . So he believed in Christ . . . More than a thousand years before the grace of baptism was known" XX, 81-83,85This revelation changes the rules just a bit and Dante is forced to accept it rather than attack the logical inconsistencies. The eagle concludes with a spiritual lesson connected to the story of Ripheus:"Not even we who look on God in Heaven know, as yet, how many He will choose for ecstasy.And sweet it is to lack this knowledge still, for in this good is our own good refined, willing whatever God Himself may will." XX, 88-91In my unorthodox interpretation, this leaves an opening for Virgil to be saved in the end of days based on God's will that surpasses human understanding. Dante isn't exactly towing the party line.Our discussion of the Divine Comedy in this goodreads groups was very much enhanced by numerous discussions of the influences of Islamic writing and Arabic scholarship on Dante's work essentially ignored by the majority of Dante scholars. I read Surat Al-'Isrā' (The Night Journey) from the Quran and could see connections to Infierno in the idea that it is the choice of the unconverted to reject Paradise and prefer Hell, but I think I need to read the Miraaj and the criticism of Palacios in order to delve deeper into this rich vein of religious writing and its literary influence. There was also a really interesting connection between Purgatorio and the Conference of Birds, a Persian Sufi text written by Farid ud-Din Attar in 1177. I have read an Uzbek version of the text translated into English and there are clear comparisons that I noted due to Dante's abundant use of imagery of birds and flight. An even more clear connection to Islam for me is that the way Dante writes about his love for Beatrice that reminds me more of the representation of God as the beloved in Sufi writing than the depiction of platonic love by Medieval troubadours. The Divine Comedy can be interpreted as a love allegory. His love for Beatrice is a manifestation of his worship of divine revelation and also functions perfectly well as love poetry. The accurate representation of his journey to the reader is a constant difficulty that Dante dramatizes even though he is imaging every last bit of it. Considering this, it is marvelous that the difficulty of representation is so poignant in the work. Rivalries between authors and artists centered on their ability to portray and beautify reality are alluded to at certain points. One of my favorite parts of the Divine Comedy regarding pride of talent and the difficulty of representation is in Purgatorio where Dante is awed by the divinely created marble reliefs that form the Whip of Pride depicting three scenes of great people showing humility. No human can compete with this art and he doesn't even try to fully describe it, but communicates his appreciation for it by suggesting that the angel is so real that he can almost hear him speaking. He goes further with the next relief by expresses that he is truly confused as to whether he can hear the choir singing or not. Dante's use of synesthesia is used to very good effect here and seems innovative. The question of representation constantly occurs to me when confronted with the amazingly rich tradition of visual artists painting scenes from the Divine Comedy. Here is a depiction of the reliefs in question by a daring painter.In the end, Dante takes a mystical direction in the end of Paradiso, and he plays with time to aid him in this project as he continues to draw in the reader. At many points along his journey, especially when he was with Virgil, he was reminded that he needed to hurry up or continue to the next level, that his time was limited. This was a rather amusing detail, seemingly irrelevant for the majority of the work. However, in Canto XXXII of Paradiso I realized that the time he was left, as he approaches the Empyrean is suddenly woefully insufficient. It is painful to think of him leaving paradise. Then Dante does something wonderful in the final canto (XXXIII). Once the pilgrim gets to the Empyrean and beholds the light of God, the narration indicates a quality of timelessness in his experience with that light. It really is mystical. However, in one of the most poignant moments of the Divine Comedy, he makes it clear that he can't fully recall this momentary transcendence, or satori, any longer. "The ravished memory swoons and falls away.As one who sees in dreams and wakes to find the emotional impression of his vision still powerful while its parts fade from his mind—" Paradiso, XXXIII, 38-40This is an evocation of the Portuguese concept of "saudade," longing for and missing something that you can't have, but feeling the love of that thing. The difference is that Dante fully expects to behold it again after his death.Thank you to Book Portrait for finding all of the pictures I use here.
What do You think about The Divine Comedy (1995)?
الكوميديا المقدسة، إحدى أعظم نتاجات الأدب الإيطالي والأوروبي عامة، والتدشين الأكمل والأكثر تعقيداً وروعةً للمزيج الذي صبغ أوروبا في كل صحواتها من سبات التاريخ، منذ قسطنطين إلى عصر النهضة وحتى الراهن، مزيج الميثولوجيا اليونانية واللاهوت المسيحي.هذه الكوميديا موسوعة معارف وملحمة شعرية ولهيب رائع لوجدان نادر.قرأتها -على مراحل متباعدة- بترجمة السوري حنا عبود، لا عن قصد مسبق وإنما حصل لي الكتاب صدفةً، وهي ترجمة رشيقة ومنسابة بحكم انحياز حنا عبود -كما أعلن في المقدمة- للسرد والتصاعد الدرامي للكوميديا على حساب الشعري والمجاز الملحمي.وهي الترجمة الثانية -تاريخاً- بعد ترجمة المصري حسن عثمان، والعراقي كاظم جهاد، وثلاثتها ترجمات ثمينة، ولكلّ ميزتها، وإن كان الاحتفاء الأكبر حظيت به الأخيرة.وبين الجحيم والمطهر والفردوس، يجمع قراء الكوميديا ونقادها على أن الجحيم أجمل أجزائها وأكثفها بالدفق الوجداني واللهيب الشعري العالي.في قاع الجحيم يُرمى أعظم العصاة الخاطئين, وأشنعهم عذاباً في مملكة الألم الأبدية, وفي هذا القعر لا ترى اللهب وإنما بحيرة الزمهرير كما يصفه دانتي, هناك يرمى الخونة, لأنهم فقدوا في حياتهم العاطفة, تخلّوا عن الدفء, فكان عذابهم لا لهيب النار وإنما برد الزمهرير الذي يشبه أرواحهم. بين تلك الأجساد التي اقتحمت الشياطين أرواحها, مغرقة في الجليد حتى الأفئدة, بينما أبقي أعلاهم مشرعاً لليباب, بوجوه محنّطة بالصقيع, جُمّد فيها مسار الدمع من المآقي, حتى يبقى الألم هناك, في الجوف الذي لا قعر له,في الداخل المعتم المكتظّ بالألم والوحشة. يتضرّع أحدهم لدانتي أن يمسح خيط الجليد ليمكنه أن يتحرر وينعتق بالبكاء, ليستردّ روحه بالدموع, ولو محض ثانية قبل أن تردّه الإرادة العليا جليداً, ولكن دانتي يتركه ويمضي. كان أقسى عذاب في مملكة الألم ألا يستطيعوا البكاء, ألا يكون لهم دموع.في ضريح رمزيّ لشاعر إيطاليا الأعظم دانتي اليغييري , في مدينته فلورنسا, التي نفتْه في الخلافات السياسية التي اصطلت بها , و رفضت حكومتها -و كنيستها- أن يعود إليها إلّا بعد أن يكتب رسالة اعتذار و يمشي حافياً ذليلاً على مطلع من الناس كعلامة على الندم, رفض دانتي ذلك طبعاً حتى مات بعيداً عنها في المنفى في طريق سفر التهمته فيه الملاريا, قبل أن يكتشف الأوروبيون عبقريته بعد وفاته بعقود من خلال الكوميديا الإلهية, الأثر الأدبي الكلاسيكي الأعظم لأوروبا ما قبل النهضة. في هذا الضريح , تجد تمثالاً لفتاة تحني ظهرها و تبكي على القبر الرمزيّ للشاعر العظيم ...أبو اللغة الإيطالية كما سمّوه , هذه الفتاة هي فلورنسا ,في علامة على ندمها على ما صنعتْه لدانتي , و كأنّها تطلب الصفح منه . كثير من هذه المدن تحتاج فقط أن تعود -كما كانت- فتاةً ... و تبكي على أبنائها و عشاقها الكثيرين الذين ملؤوا المدافن و المنافي و العتمات.
—أحمد أبازيد Ahmad Abazed
Me gustó mucho más de lo que esperaba, porque cuando lo empecé creí que me ganaría y lo odiaría. Es una lectura ardua e intensa que merece la pena, siempre y cuando uno esté algo acostumbrado a esta clase de libros. Al empezar a leerlo ya induce a pensar que no será fácil, que hay detalles que uno lee y pierde al mismo tiempo y que Dante Alighieri no tenía ganas de que entendiéramos ni un pedacito del libro. Pero poder, se puede.Dante se construye como protagonista en este recorrido por el Infierno, el Purgatorio y el Paraíso. El motivo por el cual está en el umbral (no es el “umbral”, sólo lo uso a modo ilustrativo) del Infierno abre interpretaciones y hay que buscarlo en su biografía real, aunque dentro del libro se desliza varias veces. Y Virgilio, el autor de La Eneida, es quien aparece para guiarlo (enviado por Beatriz, personaje que particularmente me encanta). Los tres lugares tienen estructuras propias en donde hay personas cumpliendo con su condena o con su premio (otra vez hago un uso ilustrativo, es un poco más complejo de explicar). Dante erige la biografía de varias de ellas, hayan sido contemporáneas a él o no.Si ya se me hizo difícil intentar reponer el argumento de una forma sencilla pero un poco más detallada que la que se podría hallar en alguna contratapa, hablar de qué me gustó (y qué no) es una tarea aparte. Me fascinó bastante la idea de contar la vida de otros (y, en varias ocasiones, dejar que la cuenten con una voz propia) desde una perspectiva tan personal, al punto de incurrir en ciertos errores en el intento. Alighieri se puso en un lugar bastante elevado para discernir, desde su punto de vista, quién va a dónde, en una suerte de clasificación subjetiva. Es muy interesante recorrer las biografías e intentar descubrir (o, al menos, tratar de esclarecer un poco) la razón de sus decisiones, aunque muchas veces el mismo personaje se encargue de aclararlo. Me sorprendieron las denuncias a la corrupción de la Iglesia y del poder. Italia, en los tiempos en los que Alighieri vivió, era bastante tormentosa. Alighieri siempre tiene la vista en su Florencia y mantiene una relación de amor-odio con esa ciudad, así que también la menciona.Dante, Virgilio y Beatriz son los personajes que más se desarrollan en la Comedia. Lo curioso es que los tres fueron reales (bueno, quizá la existencia de Beatriz se haya puesto en duda más de una vez), uno de ellos es una representación del libro, el otro es un poeta latino a quien Alighieri admiraba y Beatriz era el amor de su vida, idealizado a la quinta potencia. Una locura. Lejos de asemejarse a los libros plagados de personajes que no tienen ninguna función aparente, estos tres simbolizan distintas cosas e intervienen bastante, incluso cuando los cantos parecen estar protagonizados por otros. En cuanto a la escritura, Alighieri es muy poético (de hecho, él es parte de una escuela poética, con características particulares), cada canto tiene un tono distinto. Algunos son horrorosos por la clase de condena que describe y otros, como los del Paraíso, están cargados de luz. Los simbolismos son habituales y hay una gran cantidad de referencias religiosas. Por suerte, existen las ediciones anotadas. Son tan molestas como necesarias. Si no fuera por ellas, también pasarían desapercibidas las referencias a hechos de público conocimiento en el 1300, así que uno termina aprendiendo algo de Historia en el camino. Nada que no pueda investigarse, mucho más con Internet a mano, pero requeriría un tiempo considerable hacerlo con cada dato nuevo. Eso es lo único malo: que Alighieri da cosas como sabidas, pero no es así. Si bien uno podría leer los versos e igual comprender el libro, no sería una lectura profunda. Si es para entretenimiento, tal vez el lector no se haga problema, pero si existen otros fines La Divina Comedia se vuelve todo un desafío rodeado de otros libros inspiradores y de alegorías que surgen de la propia sabiduría del autor. Se nota muchísimo que Alighieri le dedicó mucha energía (y talento, por supuesto) a este poema. Por eso es imposible entenderlo o captar todos los detalles en su totalidad con una sola lectura (al menos, esa es la impresión que me causó). Más allá de los obstáculos, es un gran libro y tiene pasajes e historias muy bellos, además de interesantes. Es una de las lecturas “pesadas” que más disfruté. A grandes rasgos, eso es lo que puedo decir del libro… aunque al cerrarlo uno se quede sin palabras.
—Yani
Sure--why not write a trite, pithy review of one of the great works of Western Literature? Fuck it! Yes, it's beautifully poetic, but Dante is also intolerably self-righteous and hilariously bitter in it, skewering, roasting, and tearing to pieces (quite literally) his detractors, enemies, and some people that he maybe just didn't like much. The tortures are sometimes hilarious and in no way biblical...it is disturbing to think that people used to believe a lot of this silliness...oh, and that some people still do. Although surely most modern Catholics (excepting, perhaps, the Appenines) don't think that the herds of Satan's chattel are so swollen with old Italian aristocracy. Funny to think of the same old people STILL being tortured now...maybe even Cain, and of course, Old Scratch himself, still locked in that sheet of ice. I'd be mad too. I think I'd probably cut a Vanni Fucci figure in hell...you're going to be tortured forever anyway...why not give god the finger and scream and fart every minute of the day and let everybody know what a bastard he is? The losers falling into line and cowering under the black pitch might as well grow some balls...Are you allowed to use naughty words on Goodreads?
—Solomon
