Weekly Reading Response #2

NAME: Mauro Chavez DATE: 2/5/10
TITLE: The Inferno of Dante TIME: 2 HOURS (I timed it with my iPod again)
AUTHOR: Robert Pinsky PAGES: 67-147
TOTAL PAGES THIS WEEK: 80

QUESTION 1: 10. What advice would you give to a particular character? Why?

RESPONSE 1: Dante is an interesting character. He knows that he is just trying to pass through hell to get to the love of his life Beatrice. Beatrice is in heaven and Virgil is guiding him to her. As Dante passes through hell and its 9 circles he acts as if he is there to write a book about it. When I say that I mean he asks a lot of questions and tries to understand things to the fullest. He is constantly asking Vergil why someone acts like this, or what happened to all these people. So far it hasn’t done anything to him other than make him the victim of a demons rage. About twice now he has been rudely talked to and yelled at by a creature who does not like his never ending questions.

A piece of advice that I would give Dante is that he is there to travel, pass through, and not learn. He needs to stop asking questions to expand his knowledge of hell. The evil creatures of hell may be under the impression that he is a threat to them and learning about hell in hopes of attacking it later. Also the creatures that dwell there are probably easily offended or angered. If he acts as if hell is an interesting place and wants to understand it, he may annoy its creatures by paying attention to them. These creatures were stuck in a dark place, suffering, and no one cared about them. They became familiar with the situation and grew to deal with it. Someone came in and walked around their dark place wanting to understand it with an open mind; they can become annoyed and get mad. This person had no idea of what they had to go through and what they did. They know that they are evil beings and want to be left alone, to never be reminded of their sins. They don’t want to open up and go back to having someone care.

QUESTION 2: 12. Do you think you would read another book by this author? Why or why not?

RESPONSE 2: This isn’t a question if I would ever read another book by this author. It is a question of whether or not I will read another story written in poem format. For this independent reading project I picked a book that I wasn’t familiar with. I knew small bits and pieces of the plot line and characters, but I had no idea how difficult it is to read a story that is entirely told through a poem. However, before I picked up this book I knew it was a poem, this meant a few things to me. I thought it was formatted funny and things are going to rhyme. While reading the foreword, this book tried to explain the way in which it would rhyme. I had no clue what it was trying to explain and decided to read the book as if I was reading Lord of the Flies or Of Mice and Men. This seemed to work out okay but it was a pain. The real big pain exposed its self in the metaphors. The book starts out with Dante lost in a dark forest. I literally thought he was in a forest. After researching the book more on the internet, I learned that he was actually saying that he was at a point in his life where he was lost and confused. This is only one metaphor that I have learned about but I bet there are many that I haven’t noticed yet.

Because of its constant metaphors and annoying format I don’t like this book. I can’t say I will read another big poem that tries to tell a complex story in the future. Its metaphors leave me with false ideas about the story and it avoids explaining the plot line. I like stories that have long dialogue scenes and well explained environments. There is only one reason I continue to read this book, at the end of the poem there are notes that explain every unclear spot in the book. I want to have that feeling of great relief by finally understanding the story and seeing it for what it really is.