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A review by rachelrozendaal
The Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
5.0
To be completely honest, characterizing the Divine Comedy as a slog is being charitable. The endnotes are the same length as the books themselves, and trying to comprehend the invective Dante serves against the politicians and nobility of his day can be tiresome. I now know far more about 13th century Italy than I ever planned on or wanted to.
However, I personally found the struggle worthwhile in the end. (Though the first question I often received from others when I told them I was reading it was, "WHY??") The poetry is beautiful and intricate. The scenes Dante sets up are variously dark and intense, and light and airy. Growing up in the Protestant tradition, I learned an enormous amount about traditional Catholic beliefs from these books and found them fascinating. I (embarrassingly) had thought that Limbo and Purgatory were interchangeable names for the same place - not so, it turns out. I had never heard of the Harrowing of Hell before. The heaven and hell of Catholicism are much more fleshed out than the Protestant versions I learned about in my church.
Paradiso in particular is replete with tirades against the papacy, angels, disciples, and all of the familiar faces one learns about in Sunday School. Truthfully, I was looking forward to this book in the trilogy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) the least. Inferno and Purgatorio are gritty and feature lots of brutal punishments that keep the curious reading, but Paradiso just sounded...boring to me. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The lofty images of God and the heavenly hosts were not as stale as I feared they would be, and I end the Divine Comedy equal parts thankful I decided to finally pick it up and thankful my days of reading about Italian politicians are over.
However, I personally found the struggle worthwhile in the end. (Though the first question I often received from others when I told them I was reading it was, "WHY??") The poetry is beautiful and intricate. The scenes Dante sets up are variously dark and intense, and light and airy. Growing up in the Protestant tradition, I learned an enormous amount about traditional Catholic beliefs from these books and found them fascinating. I (embarrassingly) had thought that Limbo and Purgatory were interchangeable names for the same place - not so, it turns out. I had never heard of the Harrowing of Hell before. The heaven and hell of Catholicism are much more fleshed out than the Protestant versions I learned about in my church.
Paradiso in particular is replete with tirades against the papacy, angels, disciples, and all of the familiar faces one learns about in Sunday School. Truthfully, I was looking forward to this book in the trilogy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) the least. Inferno and Purgatorio are gritty and feature lots of brutal punishments that keep the curious reading, but Paradiso just sounded...boring to me. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The lofty images of God and the heavenly hosts were not as stale as I feared they would be, and I end the Divine Comedy equal parts thankful I decided to finally pick it up and thankful my days of reading about Italian politicians are over.