The Inferno Review
The Inferno follows Dante on the start of his journey to get back to his love, Beatrice. It is the first canticle in the Divine Comedy which consists of The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In this canticle, Dante must travel through the nine circles of Hell with his guide, Virgil, and renounce sin.
Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:
I was required to read this book for my English class, and I think it is the first book I was forced to read that I was genuinely excited about and that I ended up actually liking (sorry to all the fans of The Great Gatsby). My teacher from last year discussed it even though she was not supposed to at the time. I am not sure if her excitement over it was contagious or if it was simply because it has an interesting concept, but I became very excited to read it myself. My only worry was that it would not turn out to be all that I hoped. I ended up not loving it, but definitely enjoying it and I am glad that my classes introduced me to it.
Looking at the title alone, you may think that it is a scary book that focuses on the negative side of religion. However, this is actually the start to a love story between Dante and Beatrice. It is actually a very charming love story. I mean, Dante took the expression of going to Hell and back for someone to a whole new level. Not only is he literally going through Hell for her, he is also going through Purgatory. I love the romance aspect of the poem. It is definitely an epic romance story.
The best (and worst) thing about this poem is how creative Dante was with the idea of Hell. I am not sure why, but dark things have always been fascinating to me (give me anything horror related and I will most likely love it). Therefore, his idea of Hell captured my interest for sure. He was very creative when making the nine circles and the punishments involved in each. The only reason I added on that this is the worst thing about the poem is that I am slightly concerned with Dante's mind being able to come up with such horrendous and gruesome things. They were genius, but at least a little concerning.
Dante was descriptive enough to make me physically cringe at times. There were quite a few moments when I was reading that I made a face or actually commented to my empty room how disgusting or sick the scene was. However, this shows Dante's skill level when it comes to description.
Here is how you know I was enjoying the read. For my class, I was not required to read the entirety of the poem. For example, I was supposed to skip the entire eighth circle plus a few cantos scattered here and there. I made it a priority to find time to give myself extra "work" and read the cantos I was not required to read. If this were any other book I was required to read, I would not have done this, but this book was interesting enough to make me.
The only thing I wish was a little different was the last circle with Satan. I was hoping to get a little more out of this scenes than we did. I understand that Satan was not the point of the book, it was simply something I was interested in and was hoping to get a bigger scene with more description or climax from.
That concludes my review for The Inferno itself, but I wanted to comment on this edition's translations and notes. I think the translator did a great job. The summaries at the beginning of each cantos was extremely helpful in understanding what would be occurring in the next bit of reading. The notes at the end were beyond helpful in understanding who all of the characters were because, let's be honest, most people are not experts when it comes to knowing people that are from Dante's time. I certainly am not and would have been missing out if it weren't for the notes at the end of each cantos. There were still times when I was slightly confused as to what was being said, but more often than not I understood very well what was going on.
Overall, I think this poem may be an acquired taste. It may not be for everyone because of the gory descriptions and brutal punishments of Hell. However, I would recommend giving it a try if you are on the fence of whether you think you will like it or not or if you are like me and tend to like darker things (and in reality the overarching storyline is bright, not dark). If you are being required to read this in school and are dreading being forced to read another thing, maybe don't dread this one quite as much.
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