In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches


finished 6/25 ......... contemp US ........ rating 6

Well, I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It certainly was different. Pretty good in some ways, not so hot in others and I felt way out of my league in many places. I'm not familiar enough with Dante to be able to follow the reflected story although I think I grasped the basics (maybe).

Nick Tosches uses first person to describe his coming across the original manuscript of Dante's Commedia. This part is extremely "gritty" and similar, I suppose, to The Inferno as he deals with basic hoodlums on the streets of New York. Tosches plays himself, a writer of various things.

I know Dante originated the contemporary Italian language in about the 14th century? I know he wrote The Commedia, now known as The Divine Comedy and that it's a trilogy going through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Beatrice is the recipient of Dante's courtly love (a medieval to romanticize love from afar - to keep it pure?) and there's much more about Dante's wife in Tosches' book than there is in Dante's. Dante's wife is never mentioned by him, that I know of (not that I'm the scholar!) I know that the poem is written in first person with Dante himself visiting these places and reporting to us. His guide is Virgil. There are three animals involved - the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf but I have no idea why - they're in The Inferno. That's all I know. What I've read has been very enjoyable but it's slow and difficult because I understand so few of the allusions.

The story of Nick is pretty good and I see where it parallels the story of Dante in the Commedia. The story of Dante is more complex, confusing, hard to read and so on. I almost had to skim the Dante parts but I didn't. That said, I don't know what I got out of them as they were kind of a chore. As a whole it's pretty interesting and definitely well-written.

Posted: Mon - June 25, 2007 at 05:38 PM        

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