Litsy

The Great Divorce: A Dream | Clive Staples Lewis

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I‘ve read this book before, but it has been at least 15 years, so it was good to go into it with fresh eyes.
I think Lewis most shines in this one when he is describing the nuances of different types of love, pity, creating, etc.
It was especially interesting to read this book with my study group after reading a more modern view on Hell & the afterlife. Lots of good thoughts & good conversations.

31 likes3 stack adds

Tamra

The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation, Bilingual Edition | Dante Alighieri, Robert Pinsky, Nicole Pinsky

so-so

Ready for book club tomorrow! It‘s a funny group, so I‘m looking forward to their takes on Dante & the filth, stench, and all around beastliness of his hellish creation.

I‘m glad I read it. Did I enjoy it? Parts were creative and engaging, others read like a contemporary political revenge rag for which I have no context. Very thankful to Ciardi & his notes.

It‘s a bit like a collection of short stories, some Cantos are a hit and others a miss.

Cathythoughts Enjoy Bookclub, should be interesting 👍🏻❤️ 1w

sarahbarnes Congrats to you for reading it! 7d

52 likes2 comments

Tamra

Inferno of Dante: Reader's Guide | Robert Pinsky

Next IRL book club pick 🔥😈

We have three translations in the house, but I‘m going with Pinsky since he‘s a poet. 🤞🏾

quietlycuriouskate Dante! ❤️ 2mo

Tamra @quietlycuriouskate I‘m looking forward to it! 2mo

48 likes2 comments

Kristy_K

Sign Here | Claudia Lux

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The whole time I thought I had all the twists figured out and so I was pleasantly surprised at how many I got wrong or didn‘t see coming!

Lesliereadsalot Really liked this one! Didn‘t see that twist coming, right? 4mo

Kristy_K @Lesliereadsalot Not at all! I was completely fooled. 4mo

70 likes2 stack adds2 comments

suvata

Sign Here | Claudia Lux

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4 Stars • "Sign Here" by Claudia Lux is a novel that blends dark humor with elements of the supernatural. The story revolves around Peyote Trip, a character working in Hell's bureaucracy. Her job involves managing the intake of souls in a highly bureaucratic afterlife system. The plot thickens as she navigates through the complexities of her job and a peculiar case that could potentially change her eternity. ⬇️

suvata Lux employs a sharp, witty narrative voice, with a lot of dark comedy. The writing is engaging, making even the mundane aspects of Hell's administration amusing. 4mo

Magpiegem I really enjoyed this one too, clever and funny! 4mo

suvata @Magpiegem very clever indeed 4mo

39 likes2 stack adds3 comments

Luke-XVX

Sandman Slim: A Novel | Richard Kadrey

I loved The Pale House Devil so I‘m diving into Richard‘s other works.

32 likes

paxton.tucker

Dantes Inferno in Modern English | Dante Alighieri, Douglas Neff

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Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy in the early fourteenth century after being on the wrong side of a political argument and being exiled from Florence by Pope Boniface VIII. It is an epic poem which is divided into three parts that are: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. In the first section, Inferno, the reader follows the protagonist, Dante, as Alighieri imagines what it would be like if he were forced to travel the circles of hell.

paxton.tucker Writing in the first person and using graphic imagery, Dante describes each circle of hell and interacts with the people he observes there. As they travel, Dante and Virgil discuss man‘s innate sinfulness, and Dante stresses that living a Christian life and seeking forgiveness is the only way to avoid God‘s retribution. 4mo

paxton.tucker While warning people of the fate they may endure, Alighieri exposes his enemies and judges their actions. The poem references people and political and religious events of the time. It alludes to mythology, literature, art, the Bible, and the religious structures of the time making it very complex with many connections and levels of meaning.
4mo

paxton.tucker Inferno is divided into 34 cantos and describes the nine circles of hell. Dante, the traveller, finds himself lost in the dark woods unable to find the straight path. This symbolizes that Dante has lost his way and isn‘t following God as he should. He follows his guide, Virgil, through the circles to the depths of hell to where Satan lives. 4mo

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paxton.tucker On the way, Dante learns the sinners put in each circle and sees the punishments given. Dante faces the consequences of unrepented sin, standing beside sinners yet seeing the humanity in them. Alighieri asks what makes the sinners damned to hell any different from us. 4mo

paxton.tucker The sixth circle of hell is in the City of Dis. Dante and Virgil are anxious about finding a way to enter the city. They meet three beasts who want Dante turned to stone but are rescued by an angel who opens the gates to the city. Sinners in this circle are the heretics, people guilty of denouncing and contradicting Christianity or the church. 4mo

paxton.tucker Virgil explains many are followers of Epicurus, who believed that the soul dies with the body. Heretics are put in tombs that are on fire and will be covered over on judgement day. Dante is recognized by the father of another poet and learns people on this level can know the future but not the past or present. A horrible odor is making them sick so Dante and Virgil leave.

4mo

paxton.tucker The seventh circle of hell is for the violent who are split into three groups: violent against neighbors, violent against self, and violent against God, nature, and art. Those who are violent towards their neighbors are put in boiling blood because their heated anger causes bloodshed. 4mo

paxton.tucker Next, Dante and Virgil enter a forest of trees with black leaves and poisonous thorns. Dante hears sinners crying but can‘t see them. Virgil tells him to break a branch off a tree to prove that the trees are actually the sinners who were violent to themselves and committed suicide. 4mo

paxton.tucker Since they destroyed their bodies in life they are not given human bodies in death and are picked at and tortured by harpies, creatures that are half woman and half bird. Dante listens to the story of Pier delle Vigne who committed suicide and feels sorry for him. 4mo

paxton.tucker After leaving the forest, the travellers enter an area of burning sand and burning rain. Those who commit violence against God are stretched out naked on hot sand, those who are violent to nature run naked in circles, and those who are violent to art are crouched naked and weeping on the sand. 4mo

paxton.tucker The travellers walk on the edge of the woods to avoid burning their feet. A group of sinners who were prominent people in Florence recognize Dante. Dante knew and admired all of them in Florence and feels badly for the way they are suffering.
4mo

paxton.tucker
Dantes and Virgil ride a beast to descend into the eighth circle separated into 10 different trenches that are narrow but deep. Each trench is for different types of simple fraud. Panderers, people who flatter others for self gain, those who sell positions in the church, fortune tellers, corrupt politicians, hypocrites thieves, fraudulent advisors, those who cause chaos, and falsifiers.
4mo

paxton.tucker The 9th and final circle treachery is again split. There are 4 rings around the center. for the traitors of family, traitors of their country, traitors of guests and the traitors of their lords, and finally the worst act, traitors of God, where the devil lies. 4mo

paxton.tucker There are many themes in Dante‘s Inferno. The most prevalent theme is that the consequences of man's actions, although not always seen in life, will be seen in death. Many people he meets on his journey, political leaders, famous philosophers and popular socialites, had prosperous and rewarding lives, yet are tortured in hell. 4mo

paxton.tucker Dante is writing this not for the reader's amusement but to force the reader to confront his own mortality and consider his judgment in front of God. Dante is a believer who wants to warn all people about the tortures of hell so they can save themselves.
4mo

paxton.tucker Dante wrote in the common vernacular instead of Latin so that all people would be able to read the poem and understand his message.Dante's Inferno, in the end, is about a man evolving through life and getting a second chance.
4mo

paxton.tucker Another underlying theme of Dante's Inferno is the hypocrisy and corruption of the upper class who have the power in society. He names politicians, elites, and the popes and learned in the Catholic church who he believes use their power to benefit themselves instead of doing what is right and moral. 4mo

paxton.tucker Although Dante was a faithful Christian who followed the Catholic Church, he did not believe in the pope's infallibility which caused him to often oppose people in power. Dante found the corruption in the church an affront to God and called it as such.
4mo

paxton.tucker In many ways Dante's Inferno is unlike any book I've ever read. Although he does not choose, Dante takes a hero‘s journey to find the answers he seeks similar plot devices, thematic statements, and writing style to other books it's unique in the way it looks to confront the issues of the time through a fictitious journey. 4mo

paxton.tucker If you enjoy researching words, context and deeper meanings this book would be a challenge for you. Often Dante references current events and people that can only be understood with a deep knowledge of 1300s italy. Poems such as Homer's the Odyssey, Milton's paradise lost, and many of Shakespeare's works share elements of storytelling, themes and writing styles with inferno.
4mo

3 likes20 comments

SmartBookWorms

The Scarlet Gospels | Clive Barker

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Clive Barker is a master of dark fantasy and horror. When he emerged on the scene back in the early 1980s with the domestic release of his short story anthology THE BOOKS OF BLOOD, American horror master Stephen King was quoted as saying, “I think Clive Barker is so good I am literally tongue-tied.:

1 like

MatchlessMarie

A Short Stay in Hell | Steven L. Peck

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#12Booksof2024 This book had the biggest impact on me this year, as it relates to producing a visceral reaction. In retrospect, this was probably my trauma being triggered by the existential horror of it all, but I don‘t regret finishing it. This one will have you thinking about what it really means to “shuffle off this mortal coil”.

Honorable mention to How to Make Friends With a Ghost which I adored. 🥹👻

Andrew65

Andrew65 That sounds a read and a half! 5mo

36 likes1 comment

Schnoebs

Sign Here | Claudia Lux

bailed

This as a weird book but I was honestly intrigued by all the different POvs and how they were connected. I also loved the weirdest of hell. Things started getting kind of too weird for me halfway through and I realized this just wasn‘t for me. #dnf

MatchlessMarie I think the corporate hell side of the story was my favorite part too. 5mo

Schnoebs @MatchlessMarie it was honestly the main reason why I was reading it, also the mom‘s perspective. 5mo

Booksblanketsandahotbeverage #hailthebail 5mo

18 likes3 comments

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