Monday, July 22, 2013

The Nine Circles of Hell

This month’s book club book is Inferno by Dan Brown.  It’s not the “typical” book club type of book, but it’s a good summer read.  I’ve read a few other Brown books – The DaVinci Code (of course), Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol.  I didn’t really care for The Lost Symbol, but the other two were fun and, so far, I am enjoying Inferno

Inferno takes place in Florence, Italy and revolves around Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, more specifically Inferno.  Since I’m not yet finished with it, I’ll save my review (if I do one) for a later time.  However, I had some thoughts as I’ve been reading.  A few pages into the book, Sandro Botticelli’s painting “Map of Hell” was mentioned.  I looked up the painting online as a point of reference while reading.  My initial search didn’t bring me to the painting, but rather an art message board thread about the painting.  I curiously read through the first few posts, and was taken back a bit about the scathing reviews of Brown’s book.  Poor writing and silly story lines were the most common complaints.  The posts, however, were not critical essays or particularly well written themselves.  Instead, they sounded like pretentious rants, almost shaming anyone who actually dared to read and/or enjoy it.  Granted, Brown’s books may not be considered great literature, but I can’t understand the utter disgust some of these posters had for the book and the fact that people read and enjoy them.  Still, as a New York Time’s best seller regardless of critics, Brown’s probably laughing all the way to the bank.

While enrolled in a Humanities class during my junior year of high school, we studied Dante’s Divine Comedy.  There are very few actual lessons or units of study I remember from my high school days, but this one I do remember.  While reading each part of the poem, the teacher had us create our own modern day version of the allegory.  After our poem was written, I believe it was then acted out on camera and presented, along with the poem as a final project.  I have forgotten most of what WE wrote (other than possibly New Kids on the Block fans playing some role in the depths), but the work that we did made this 14th-Century work more relevant and comprehensible to 20th-Century high school kids. 

11 comments:

  1. This is our book club book this month also. I have to read it soon because our meeting is in 2 weeks. : )
    I love reading in the summer. I would like to just read all night and not edit any pictures! Darn it.

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    1. It's a good summer read. It moves quickly so you should have no trouble getting through it. I'm a big fan of Florence so I'm enjoying all the city's references in the book.

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  2. It's hard to argue with the number of people who've read Brown's books for no matter how you slice it, or how precious you are about the quality of culture, Brown gets people reading. And much the same as Dirty Shades of Grey if people come away with a few new words they truly know how to deploy where's the harm.
    Now, putting on my Student of History cowl and gown, Brown set my blood boiling. The number of times I've tested the aerodynamic and the resilience of Canadian wood pulp paper on the Irish plasterers craft when pure fury at his mashing of timelines/art periods/geography. But he does tell a good story.

    What sort of school did you go to that landed you with Dante at 17. Nuns ?.

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  3. Nope, that was public school my friend. :)
    Ha ha, enjoying the book flinging picture in my head. I can see where his blurring the lines of fact and fiction would cause some frustration for a historian. But I don't think the books are billed as historical fiction or even literary fiction for that matter. They're just fun. And I agree, if a book gets someone reading, then it's doing its job.

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    1. Wow, you went to a good school then.

      And naw, it isn't the blurring that grates or even the outright erasing. What's a bit tedious is when he sets a scene and grounds it in a context he errs pointlessly. The kinda of thing like making the tallest tower in NYC black, the LA townhall yellow and sprawling or the livery of Southwestern Air green, which is the one darn colour it doesn't have.
      You just don't want to be fact checking simple stuff in your head when something goes 'wooo betsy'.

      I put in a new security system on the PC and am having trouble making it go to sleep, it keeps awakening every so often. I think I missed a box to tick when installing it

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    2. Wait, why do you want the security system to sleep? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

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    3. Not the SS, the PC. The SS is stopping the PC from sleeping when I'm away from it. What I normally do is walk away from it with everything open and normally it would sleep until I shook the mouse or hit the keys. Then I watched it light up while I was cooking so I assume it's being doing it all the time.

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    4. Ah, right. Isn't that mode handled in your display settings? I'm still using xp until I decide which hardware I'm going to upgrade to, but the screen saver/power saver is usually found in your control panel. The new software may have defaulted it to a particular setting, but you should be able to change it back through those machine settings?

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  4. I have never belonged to a book club but think I would like to join one now that I have time now that my kids are almost all moved out!!

    I did finish The End of Your Life Book Club that you suggested...and yes I did like it!

    Have you read The Book Thief? One of my favorites.

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    1. Oh, yes, "The Book Thief" is an amazing book. I think Liesel Meminger along with Lily Owens from "Secret Life of Bees" are two of the most well-written female characters.
      I'm glad you liked the "The End of Your Life BC." It's a nice book, minus the emotional wreck the last half turned me into. :)

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  5. Sometimes its not about good writing.. it's just about a good read. Not all movies we watch are masterpieces either.. we watch them for the sheer fun of them. Sometimes the really good stuff just makes you fall asleep.

    I remember doing something like that in school too

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