Where Grimdark Got Its Start

The Divine Comedy, Volume 1: Inferno by Dante Alighieri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My score of 4 is a bit of a fudge. As a world classic, you'd think it deserves a time-tested 5. Based on how fun it is to read (not very) it's probably a 2 or maybe a 3, and even that is due more to curiosity more than genuine reading pleasure. But the version I read--the Penguin classic--is very useful, with excellent notes throughout and helpful drawings, making the reading much easier, and that support makes me give this volume an overall 4. You wanna read the Inferno? This edition works for that.

As a story, it reads like fantasy, though there's no real plot--no main conflict, no real danger or trouble for the main character. But at least it's in a fanciful, exotic setting, if horrible, and that imagination is probably the most interesting part of the work for me. It wasn't meant to be taken as fantasy, though. Even in its time, people knew the story wasn't literally true, of course, and could read it like a dream or vision or guess about hell, but Dante treats his work as if it really could be true, as if the whole thing was mere extrapolation from church teaching. That hell existed was a given. That sinners (as defined by the church) would go to hell was also a given. That they would be punished eternally was the same thing. Exactly what that looked like was an open question; I don't know whether Dante thought he was even in the ballpark, but my guess is he kinda did.

The work serves as spectacle, like reading cosmic horror along the lines of H.P. Lovecraft, allowing the reader to imagine more fully a barely-glimpsed idea of a hidden universe. That alone is a pretty good selling point, back in the day anyway. But it also teaches religious lessons like you'd only find in fire and brimstone preaching like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Do the right thing or you'll end up like the liars or the gluttons or the scammers in the Inferno. Probably scared a few straight.

For me, though, it reinforces the emptiness of that kind of faith, the kind of faith motivated by fear of eternal, horrible, unrelenting punishment, an idea so evil that it's hard to imagine it held in the same brain as the idea of virtue. What could be more evil than subjecting a sentient creature to horrible pain, not just for a moment or an hour or a year even but for all eternity? Be good or god will have you tortured. Forever. It's beyond my imagination, though it made perfect sense to Dante and a lot of other people for centuries.

There's a lot to think about, anyway, from art to religion to history to government, and even if you've read it before, or pieces of it, Present You might see more here than Old You did. Who knows?

View all my reviews

Where Rome Seems Terrifyingly Real

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I expected this to be good, since I'd read a historical novel by the author before and liked it (set in 17th century Poland), and this was his most popular book by far. The people are right--this is very good.

I'll explain.

More than anything, Sienkiewicz has done an amazing job with world-building. I've read many books of many genres set in Rome, and they always gave me a claustrophobic feeling; either it's all palaces and parties or it's all poor people in the tenements. Usually there's little sense of scale, little color, little true complexity. But this has all of that. This Rome is full and complete, with all levels of society, with temples and streets and slaves and tribunes, with Greeks and Jews and Germans and Poles and Egyptians, with people at work and people at play. I now understand (intellectually) what it's like to be a slave there, what it's like to be a freedman, and what it's like to be a member of court. It is a believable world, richly imagined, and a terrifying place to live, and I can't say whether he got it right or not, but it sure gives me a lot to work with.

It tells the story of a rich young tribune who has encountered and fallen in love with a northern woman, Lygia, living in Rome as a hostage. Vinicius is no better or worse than other men of his rank, which means he's horrible, willing to punish slaves for nothing, kill men for very little, and use every ounce of his power and authority to steal a woman from her protectors to take advantage of her--all without reservations, without any trouble to his conscience. Through the course of the novel, he falls in love with her for real, gradually growing a conscience and converting to Christianity, all while trying to rescue her from Nero and the persecution and destruction of Rome's Christians.

(The least interesting aspect of the novel, and it's a significant fraction, is the religious stuff. Peter and Paul are here as minor characters, though actually pretty good characters, and there's quite a bit of elevating Christianity as a breakthrough religion, all of it clearly written for a Christian audience. Fortunately, IMO, the novel is still largely secular, telling a love story in the midst of a historical novel, and though I think most Christians over the last 100 years would feel pretty good about reading it, I think those of different persuasions as well as post-religious people will find a very interesting novel under the churchy veneer. Much of it reads like modern fantasy. I mean, there's sex and violence in here that would make Game of Thrones look mild, just f'rinstance.)

Vinicius is a great character, with a long arc that feels earned, going from being a cruel narcissist to a caring, empathetic human. It takes the whole book, and it doesn't feel forced. His uncle Petronius, who is his main ally throughout, is brilliant and fearless and so clever, constantly hatching plans to help Vinicius, constantly handling Nero at court, fending off adversaries. Some of the minor characters are really cool, like the Greek Chilo, who is a devious sort-of-philosopher they hire to track down Lygia among the Christians. He's clever and scheming but he also succeeds with every job he's given. Nero is the main villain of the novel, but Chilo becomes a secondary villain, betraying the Christians, who he has to watch die by the hundreds. He has a cool arc, too, leading [spoiler--but this is 100 years old, so....] to a change of heart and his martyrdom in the end.

Two events dominate the second half of the book. The first is the great fire, which I never understood until now. The action there, with Vinicius trying to help Lygia escape from it, is brilliant and goes on for chapters. It's a great action sequence. The second event, or group of events, is the persecution of the Christians, who they are blaming the fire on. This takes up the last quarter of the novel at least, and it's so much more complete than any other depiction I've ever seen. The author imagines these events so fully, with so much detail, with so much action and drama, that I have to tip my hat. It's impressive. It's also horrible at the same time as being absolutely compelling.

So, despite the overt religious themes of the novel, which I don't care for, this is a 5-star book. Some of the history might be wrong, but as a work of fiction, it doesn't make a wrong move. Highly recommended.

View all my reviews

Where I Learn Some Stuff and Unlearn Some Other Stuff I Didn't Know Wasn't So

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whenever I read Reza Aslan, I always think he does so many things well. I am particularly impressed by his scholarship, his clarity, and his evenhandedness, all of which are very much in evidence in this book.

As always, he has excellent command of his subject matter. Aslan speaks authoritatively on the history of Islam and religion in general, on the origins and development of various sects, and the broad range and unique character of many different modern Muslim communities. I found both his narrative and his analysis informative and reliable.

For a novice in the area of religion, this book is a useful guide. Aslan writes in a way that assumes the reader is intelligent but largely uninformed. (Me... also me...) He starts at the beginning, explains the content in plain and straightforward language, including sensitive matters of deep spiritual significance, and trusts the reader to keep up thereafter. I found he offered just about the right amount of support to make the material comprehensible and digestible. An added benefit of such clarity is that the book is entertaining, which is not a given with the subject matter. Sometimes it's a pleasure just to learn things, and I felt like I was learning.

Key to the success of this book is the sense that the author is not slanting his presentation; regardless of his personal feelings, he praises what most readers would find praiseworthy (IMO) and condemns what most would condemn. He writes as objectively about the many disparate elements of Muslim society and history as he does Christian or Hindu, and always with a view to inform, not persuade. I do feel informed, and I appreciate that. I don't feel propagandized, and I appreciate that, too.

There's a lot to learn here, and I feel like this books helps the reader make a good start. In addition, the book is engaging, and it models excellent behavior. I wish it were more common to speak so rationally, objectively, and yet passionately about religion. If more of us could develop this ability, we could do a much better job of spreading peace rather than war, acceptance instead of intolerance, inclusion rather than hate.

It's a pretty dream.

Recommended.

View all my reviews

A Well-Known Religious Person (WKRP) Blows My Mind

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you want to find an engaging book about religion written with clarity, objectivity, and audacity, find this book (or any other) by Reza Aslan. He does not disappoint.

God: A Human History is fairly short book, with almost half of its pages given to notes, but it is filled with big ideas, and it tells a story about religion in a way I've never seen before. I don't think anything here is original scholarship (thus the lengthy notes) but the book does a wonderful job of imposing narrative order on the chaos of the story of human religion. It explains the universal tendency toward certain spiritual beliefs, and the trajectory from seeing gods in all of nature to gods representing qualities or realms to, eventually, a single god--from animism to polytheism to monolatry to monotheism, by stages. It shows how pantheons are created, how gods rise and fall, how one god or another becomes preeminent among a people and even eliminates all others, and it all seems so obvious after he as explains it.

The description of the way gods are humbled when the people who worship them are defeated by another people worshipping another god was instructive; seeing how the Israelites, defeated and carried away into Babylonian captivity, overcame that setback by seeing their god a different way, a bigger way, was revelatory. (I remember learning about the Deuteronomic history of Israel way back in college, with punishment and reward for the nation depending on its righteousness, but this finally lets me take a step back so that idea makes sense to me historically, not just theologically.)

Though the author is a well-known religious person (WKRP), he writes with an academic's objectivity. His summaries of the stages of development in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are so direct and clear and unflinching, unhampered by hand-wringing or apologies, that they not only answer questions I didn't realize I had, but they do so in a deeply satisfying way. Stories out of the Old Testament (for example) that I always understood in a poetic or metaphorical way now make sense in a literal way; Aslan shows how they can represent an earlier stage of thought, one superseded by later teachings (from monolatry to monotheism, or the blending of Yahweh and El, for example), and once they are seen that way it all adds up. Religion, like politics and economics and every other aspect of society, is understood then to exist in a historical context, telling a story of change over time.

There is a lot here that is new to me, new information which I found interesting and entertaining, but what I like most is the way he has made the history of religion into a coherent story. There is a clear trajectory (I removed "progression," because of its connotations) in the religious thought of humans, one that is driven by our makeup, and having it analyzed and spelled out is very illuminating and very satisfying.

Recommended for eye-opening clarity.

View all my reviews