A review by whimsicallymeghan
The Divine Comedy II: Purgatory by Dorothy L. Sayers, C.W. Scott-Giles, Dante Alighieri

2.0

I’m having a really hard time with this volume (hence the lack of updates recently 😅). There’s something about it that is not drawing me in or captivating my attention. I’m finding the writing is harder to follow; this volume is translated by someone different, Dorothy L Slayers, and it’s reading more old-timey to me in comparison to Inferno. I’m also finding this one is more heavily influenced by religion. Don’t get me wrong, Inferno was also, but there were also other references to other classical works such as Homer or philosophical teachings from Plato or Aristotle, this one is straight the bible. I’m intrigued by the fact that there are also layers to purgatory, as there were to hell, so I’m going to keep plugging away, hoping it will get better - although I have a feeling it won’t. We shall see! 

 

I have to say, we’re climbing up the Purgatory mountain pretty quickly. One minute we were in ante-purgatory, where the excommunicates and late repenters resided, now we’re in lower purgatory, where the proud and wrathful reside. It’s been an interesting journey… but I’m still not fully engaged or really care what’s happening. Again, the writing feels very old timey and is hard to follow with. Even the notes aren’t helping. I’m trying really hard to focus and understand the depths but it’s really dragging. Part of me thinks that maybe because this feels like a repeat of inferno, and mixed with the writing style that could be why I’m not enjoying this. But I will keep climbing my way through purgatory because it’s got to get better than this… right? 

 

Like I said last week, we are moving up Purgatory’s Mountain really quickly! We have now pushed past lower and mid-purgatory and are now in upper purgatory where the covetous, gluttonous and the lustful stay. We still have 12 cantos to go… and not a lot of mountain left to climb so I’m very curious where we’re going to go from here. This has already started talking about the soul’s release from purgatory, maybe we’ll get more details on that. I’m kinda curious, but that’s the only thing that’s really keeping me going here. I’m still not really enjoying this. We have gotten more references to Greek mythology and different works through time, so that has made the experience a little better, but not by much. I’m almost there nearing the end, I can do it! 

 

We have reached the top of Mount Purgatory and we’re now entering the forest of paradise. As much as going through purgatory has been quick, it took the characters roughly four days to get through it all, it really hasn’t felt that way reading it. It’s still slow going, that hasn’t changed and I feel like a broken record saying it. There were parts in a few of the cantos where I was actually pretty captivated, but there weren’t enough of those moments to keep me going. I am curious how the last few cantos will prepare me for the final volume, paradise. 

 

I made it! It took time, but I made it to the end! I have to say, reading the glossary really helped put more perspective on purgatory and seeing the references Dante used, I don’t know, to me I found it helpful and enjoyable to read. This book has a lot of high ratings on Goodreads and I feel bad giving it a 2, but this just did not work for me. Most of this was a slog and I really couldn’t connect with it. I really wanted to, and I really tried, but this volume was not for me. The concepts were interesting, but they weren’t enough to keep me fully engaged. I do still look forward to Paradise. I made it this far, I’m not giving up now!