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A review by djla2009
The Divine Comedy: Volume 3: Paradise by Dante Alighieri
5.0
A beautiful ending to Dante's adventure!
I think part of it may be that as I read the Divine Comedy, I become more familiar with Dante's(and the translator's) style and could understand what he was saying more often. It's a hard book to understand at times because it's very poetic but also presumes exterior knowledge. The biblical references were fine for me since I'm familiar with the Bible(except for the books in the catholic Bible that were sometimes referenced). The Greco-Roman references where sometimes something I knew but sometimes something totally new to me. The Italian/Modern day references I had no idea what he was talking about. Florence's political situation was very complicated in Dante's day so I gave up trying to understand what he was talking about and that helped me enjoy the book more.
The depiction of heaven was very creative, I thought. The Inferno was creative too but I feel like that version of hell has pervaded modern day depictions of hell so it wasn't new to me. But the way Dante finds to depict heaven really gave me something to visualize other than angels playing harps on clouds. Dante is obviously very cautious to say that Paradise was much more magnificent than what he's able to describe.
This is definitely an investment and big effort to get through but at the end, I feel like it was worthwhile. It's nice that Dante breaks the divine comedy into 3 parts so that I could take long breaks after completing each part.
I think part of it may be that as I read the Divine Comedy, I become more familiar with Dante's(and the translator's) style and could understand what he was saying more often. It's a hard book to understand at times because it's very poetic but also presumes exterior knowledge. The biblical references were fine for me since I'm familiar with the Bible(except for the books in the catholic Bible that were sometimes referenced). The Greco-Roman references where sometimes something I knew but sometimes something totally new to me. The Italian/Modern day references I had no idea what he was talking about. Florence's political situation was very complicated in Dante's day so I gave up trying to understand what he was talking about and that helped me enjoy the book more.
The depiction of heaven was very creative, I thought. The Inferno was creative too but I feel like that version of hell has pervaded modern day depictions of hell so it wasn't new to me. But the way Dante finds to depict heaven really gave me something to visualize other than angels playing harps on clouds. Dante is obviously very cautious to say that Paradise was much more magnificent than what he's able to describe.
This is definitely an investment and big effort to get through but at the end, I feel like it was worthwhile. It's nice that Dante breaks the divine comedy into 3 parts so that I could take long breaks after completing each part.