Last night my book club discussed Dante’s Inferno. We came to 3 general conclusions about the book.

1. Boy, it is not a fun read.

I know that this is a fact that should be and is obvious. I’m not sure what we were thinking going into it. It certainly wasn’t a book that I recommended to the group. I wanted our “classic” book to be something more fun. So, many people didn’t finish it. Many had read it years ago and just “reviewed” it. But, certainly no one finished it and was happy about doing so.

However, we did find that the translation you had made all the difference. I read the version translated by John Ciardi and it was very readable. Most other versions that people had were terrible. If you’re going to read it, I recommend that translation.

2. Dante is a pretentious ass.

I mean really. There are a number of reasons for this statement. First of all, because he has lost his way, Divinity intervenes to take him on a journey that no other living man has gone on. Sure, you can chalk it up to him being lucky, but there is more.

Secondly, when he is in the realm of the virtuous pagans, he goes and hangs out with the great poets and theologins of history and they count Dante as one of their own. Really Dante? In the midst of your poem you just decide that you belong in the same circle as Virgil, Homer, Ovid, and Socrates? A bit on the pretentious side.

Reason 3. He puts people he knows into the various levels of hell. Some of the people aren’t even dead! A number of the poor souls that he comes across are enemies of his family or are on a differing political side than Dante. He punishes those he has personal issue with. Some of the souls still have living bodies in the world above, but Dante claims that their deeds are so terrible that their souls are already in hell and the bodies above are inhabited by demons.

Finally, we thought that Dante was making a parallel between himself and Jesus. The fact that he visits 3 locations and descends into hell and rises back to the surface on Easter morning was just a bit conspicuous.

3. Does anyone care?

Though this epic poem can certainly claim to be one of the “greatest works of literature”, there was much debate on whether it has any relevance to the world today. It influenced the church’s perception of hell and divinity in the middle ages, sure. But, many of the values of that time that are reflected in the text are no longer as strong. Or, maybe my book club is just full of heathens.

Many of the lowest levels of hell are filled with traitors, liars, thieves, and hypocrites. Whereas people who created great war and genocide, are significantly higher up in hell. Now, I’m not saying that their punishments weren’t severe, but I think that this is reflective of Dante’s value system. This was written at a time where a person’s word and personal honor were their most important traits. So, people who broke that honor are the most severely punished. But, I feel like in this day and age, a general consensus would rate genocide as a worse sin than hypocrisy.

I suppose it all depends on your point of view.

All in all, I hadn’t read it since college and I guess I’m glad I re-familiarized myself with it. I guess. I’m not sure I learned anything or gained many new perspectives on the book, other than deciding that Dante was really pretentious.

What I do know is that I certainly won’t need to read it again anytime soon.