danbooksit 's review for:

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso by Dante Alighieri

2.0

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On a misguided journey through the classics I decided on this as my next try, and wow is it a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, there are a few interesting passages here and there, and some startling use of language (at least in the translation). The opening is the part people know for a reason. But the book is mostly dull and boring, through all three parts, and not worth the few good moments. The preachiness is probably to be predicted given the topic and time; what I didn't expect was the immersion in forgotten, now irrelevant and uninteresting Italian political feuds that Dante delves into. Every sinner he meets in hell and purgatory turns out to be some rando he knew in life who has passed on--some people he liked and is sad to see turned out bad, others he hated so is happy to chastise while he passes by. The Purgatorio may be the best, with lots of breaks from talking to people for biblical visions, culminating in a series of chapters at the end that dive into scrambled allegory worthy of Salvadore Dali (or a poetic equivalent). Speaking of which, the allegory tends to be a little strained, or maybe it is just very dated: reading the explanations of how the various punishments of hell are appropriate to the sin, I struggled to make two and two make four and somehow wound up with less than 0. But I'm just a sinner and probably all this just means how far my sight has been clouded from the truth, beauty, and justice of all written herein.