Dante Mania

 There is a way for me to find out how many people are looking in on this journal every day: a blog statistic. I am baffled by the fact that many people keep looking in every day, although I have been quiet for weeks now. I don’t know who you are of course, but I am pleased and genuinely touched, albeit slightly mystified. The problem is that I really don’t think I have anything interesting to talk about. I feel inadequate to provide you, dear unknown people who so faithfully check out this space every day, with the entertainment you deserve...

When I lived in Mali and ran my hotel every day seemed to be brimming over with worthwhile experiences and interesting facts worthy of communicating. I am sure these days are too, if I only discovered from which view point to observe this London landscape of mine.  Everything is only a matter of perspective. I know that it is all ready to sparkle, if I could just catch the right angle...mind you these grey February days seem to cover everything with some sort of reasonable and dull ordinariness to which  I am unaccustomed. OK, OK, so I can’t expect life to be extraordinary the entire time. Let’s settle down to some normal London life, there is much to commend it.  (and after all, I will be on my way to Mali again in a month or so...)

I keep going to lectures: I have been wrapped up in a sort of Dante mania, together with a few like minded friends for the last few weeks, and this I am quite enjoying. All spring there are excellent (and free) Monday evening lectures at the Warburg Institute as we journey through the Divine Comedy with two inspirational guides- Alessandro Scafi from the Warburg who reads the text in Italian first in the most mellifluous voice which makes it immaterial that I don’t understand Italian. Then John Took, a professor from UCL goes into the whys and wherefores before we are all allowed some questions.
 

That is not all: these two also appear at the Italian Culture Institute every other Tuesday evening, for something called ‘ Dante: a Man for All Seasons’, expanding Dante beyond the Divina Commedia: Dante as theologian and philosopher; Dante and Love etc.
 

 And, as if this was not enough Dante, we did finally start that promised reading group here at my place too last Wednesday: it will meet every first Wednesday of the month, with four cantos a time in the sublime translation by Dorothy L Sayers.

 Now, this last expression of our collective Dante mania took quite a light hearted shape, and our little group of six enthusiasts managed the seemingly impossible task of making the first cantos of Inferno quite a jolly occasion with plenty of wine and laughter:

Before arriving at  the first circle in the Inferno, there is a dreadful place called the ‘Vestibule of Hell' which I had forgotten about, where Dante and Virgil come across the  ‘Futiles’.  The unhappy souls that inhabit this place are those that  have lived such totally useless lives that both Heaven and Hell reject them. They will therefore spend all eternity hanging around in the Vestibule, like those sad people who hang around outside happening night clubs  in the forlorn hope  that the bouncers will eventually let them in. The Futiles are those who have never bothered to live at all and have thrown away every opportunity even to sin properly. This really is the ultimate put down. To be so insignificant and worthless that one is snubbed by Hell itself!  That reminds me of the fabulous script of Casablanca:  The slimeball Ugarte says to Rick: ‘You despise me don’t you?’ And Rick replies: ‘Well, if I gave you any thought I probably would’. 

Anyway, let’s hope we do not end up with the Futiles...

For more Dante mania, please check out David's excellent commentary on his blog as he dives into Cantos 26 and 27, which was explored at the Warburg last Monday:

'Flaming frauds and frivolous flibbertigibbets':

http://davidnice.blogspot.co.uk/ 

.....and this coming Monday we look forward to descending into deepest Hell ...