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stefhyena 's review for:
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
At the risk of being seen as a Philistine I don't get what's supposed to be so great about this book. The theology sucks. If I had more faith I would have lost it reading this petty and biased account of how God supposedly favours some of the weapon waving narcissists over the others and creates and evil expansionistic empire in the sky complete with horrendous tortures for the masses.
The poetry...well to be fair I read it in translation. A good and careful translation which explained some of the scansion and other decisions that were kept in, as well as why the rhyme was not. The notes were invaluable for actually understanding some of this nonsense. But apart from the offensively bad theology (to be fair probably normal in his day) and his obvious self-aggrandisement throughout (there's been a good meme on this which turns out to have been exact) the pace is very slow and tedious. I forced myself to read 2 cantos a day over many months. I do want to learn what is great poetry and to be a better poet myself and this is meant to be one of the best.
From the perspective of old white men who like empires I guess...
The poetry...well to be fair I read it in translation. A good and careful translation which explained some of the scansion and other decisions that were kept in, as well as why the rhyme was not. The notes were invaluable for actually understanding some of this nonsense. But apart from the offensively bad theology (to be fair probably normal in his day) and his obvious self-aggrandisement throughout (there's been a good meme on this which turns out to have been exact) the pace is very slow and tedious. I forced myself to read 2 cantos a day over many months. I do want to learn what is great poetry and to be a better poet myself and this is meant to be one of the best.
From the perspective of old white men who like empires I guess...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Murder, Colonisation, War, Classism