David Nall’s Reviews > The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso > Status Update

I knew it would be a morbid book, the title alone quite lends itself to that, even without the mischaracterizations of it as a torture novel. Most of it I was relatively unfazed by, but descending each level I felt my soul darkening along with the pilgrim’s vision, until that black night of the ninth level showed more horror than I’d been expecting.

It was a relief when Virgil carried us out.

It is really something to see the profound humanity with which Dante the author treats those in inferno, and how he integrates the relationship between reason and faith in Virgil and himself, yet asserts in the character of Dante the pilgrim his imperfections as a vessel of faith.

Dante’s weeping at the forsaken lovers earlier in the book really got to me.