Books That Made You Go Hmmmm….

 

DreherIn this week’s Podcast From Hell, Rob Long made the stunning admission that he never read the Italian side of his college Dante book – putting his Ivy bona fides in severe jeopardy.  This admission came during an interview with Rod Dreher, author of How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem.

In this interview, Rod mentions how, during a dark period of his life, he was struck by the opening lines of the Inferno:

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

And thus begins an extraordinary work.  For my money, the greatest work.

I first sat down with the Divine Comedy in my mid-30s.  My 20s were a rather hellish period.  In and out of college, struggling with depression, lonely, lost… but moving.  Forward.  In those years, I had sown the seeds of intellectual and spiritual growth.  By 30, I had begun to seek out the wisdom of the Great Books.  My efforts were scattershot and the journey difficult.

Then I picked up Inferno.  Difficult, but familiar.

I pushed on.  Purgatorio.  These lines:

And he to me: “This mount is such, that ever

At the beginning down below ’tis tiresome,

And aye the more one climbs, the less it hurts.

These lines at that moment.  This is where I was.  The lines required no memorization.  They were instantly memorable to me.

Everything before these lines was familiar.  Everything after these lines was where I was going.

An extraordinary moment.  Purgatorio: Canto 4.  Unforgettable.

Have you a memorable book moment?

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  1. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta

    • #1
  2. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta

    comico

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Huck has just written a letter to Miss Watson, telling her where her property (Jim) is and how to reclaim him.

    I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

    It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

    “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”- and tore it up.

    It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

    Gets me every time.

    • #3
  4. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Casey:

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:
    ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta

    comico

    I can’t say it was the most moving part of the Divine Comedy. But somehow it’s stuck with me the longest.

    • #4
  5. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    On a more serious note:

    Giunto al finire della mia vita di peccatore, mentre canuto senesco come il mondo, nell’attesa di perdermi nell’abisso senza fondo della divinità silenziosa e deserta, partecipando della luce inconversevole delle intelligenze angeliche, trattenuto ormai col mio corpo greve e malato in questa cella del caro monastero di Melk, mi accingo a lasciare su questo vello testimonianza degli eventi mirabili e tremendi a cui in gioventù mi accadde di assistere, ripetendo verbatim quanto vidi e udii, senza azzardarmi a trarne un disegno, come a lasciare a coloro che verranno (se l’Anticristo non li precederà) segni di segni, perché su di essi si eserciti la preghiera della decifrazione.

    • #5
  6. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    It’s gonna take Rob and me a little time to work that one out.

    • #6
  7. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    That’s just what I was saying the other day, MFR.

    • #7
  8. Susan in Seattle Member
    Susan in Seattle
    @SusaninSeattle

    My memorable book moment is from childhood, and I retain this childlike wonder to this day.  It’s when Lucy discovers she is no longer in a wardrobe but in a snowy wood.

    (And, Dreher’s book just arrived in my mailbox a few days ago…)

    • #8
  9. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Susan, do you recall how you felt at that moment?

    • #9
  10. Susan in Seattle Member
    Susan in Seattle
    @SusaninSeattle

    Casey:Susan, do you recall how you felt at that moment?

    It affects me the same way each time I read it, and I just re-read it about 20 minutes ago.  Goose flesh all over, a broadening smile, and deep delight.

    • #10
  11. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    Rob never read the Italian side but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

    • #11
  12. user_278007 Inactive
    user_278007
    @RichardFulmer

    When I was in college (1974-78), I took a course on environmental engineering.  Very depressing.  We were in a race with death.  If we didn’t die from starvation as our resources became depleted – oil was going to run out in 1979 – we would drown in our own effluent.

    Then I read Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource (the first edition came out in 1983), and the future became a much happier place.

    • #12
  13. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:On a more serious note:

    Giunto al finire della mia vita di peccatore, mentre canuto senesco come il mondo, nell’attesa di perdermi nell’abisso senza fondo della divinità silenziosa e deserta, partecipando della luce inconversevole delle intelligenze angeliche, trattenuto ormai col mio corpo greve e malato in questa cella del caro monastero di Melk, mi accingo a lasciare su questo vello testimonianza degli eventi mirabili e tremendi a cui in gioventù mi accadde di assistere, ripetendo verbatim quanto vidi e udii, senza azzardarmi a trarne un disegno, come a lasciare a coloro che verranno (se l’Anticristo non li precederà) segni di segni, perché su di essi si eserciti la preghiera della decifrazione.

    OK,

    Having reached the end of my sinner’s life, while hoary I grow old as the world does, in the wait to lose myself in the bottomless abyss of silent and deserted divinity participating in the ineffable light of angelic intelligences, weighed down by my sick, heavy body in this cell in my dear monastery of Melk, I prepare to leave on this parchment testimony of the wondrous and terrible events I happened to witness in my youth, repeating verbatim what I saw and heard without venturing to trace a design, in order to leave to those who come after (if the Antichrist doesn’t come before them) signs of signs, so that over them may be exercise the prayers of deciphering.

    Italian words, German sentence length.

    • #13
  14. Capt. Aubrey Inactive
    Capt. Aubrey
    @CaptAubrey

    “The source of life is not gain, nor is it luxury. The source of life is movement, color, love and furthermore, you most work quietly and humbly to realize your delusions of grandeur.” Alessandro Giuliani in Mark Helprin’s book _A Soldier of the Great War_ not Dante but a fine novel and it stays with me.

    • #14
  15. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Capt. Aubrey:“The source of life is not gain, nor is it luxury. The source of life is movement, color, love and furthermore, you most work quietly and humbly to realize your delusions of grandeur.” Alessandro Giuliani in Mark Helprin’s book _A Soldier of the Great War_ not Dante but a fine novel and it stays with me.

    How did this strike you when you first read it?  Did it strike you, like Rod, at a particular moment?  Or was it the general wisdom in those lines washing over you?

    • #15
  16. Howellis Inactive
    Howellis
    @ManWiththeAxe

    Although I don’t follow her philosophy much these days, I was struck, as a young man, by Ayn Rand’s declaration in “Atlas Shrugged” that when we see smokestacks we should be thankful and grateful.

    • #16
  17. Late Boomer Member
    Late Boomer
    @LateBoomer

     “Let us say I suggest you may be human”

      From the first chapter of Dune.  It didn’t strike me until the 3rd or 4th time I read it.  Eventually I linked it to the idea that we are made in God’s image.  Then I began trying to figure out how to be more fully human. (Still working on it)

    • #17
  18. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    The one that leaps to mind is Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. I happened to read it during novitiate in the Jesuits, and it uniquely captured what I was feeling. The novel’s main character is a priest who is deeply aware of his own sin and yet feels a strong desire to serve the church despite that inadequacy and sinfulness.

    • #18
  19. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    I am glad you are here with me at the end if things, Sam.

    • #19
  20. user_75648 Thatcher
    user_75648
    @JohnHendrix

    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this book and its topics.

    This rather odd book is an inquiry into excellence.  The author spends much of the book talking about quality, but toward the end of the book he, at last, lets you know that the word excellence is, for his purposes, a synonym.

    This book has a philosophical, reflective bent.  Two philosophical lessons I took away from this book:

    1. Beware of the confusion that ensues from allowing two things that are different to be referred to by the same name; making critical distinctions is essential to making an argument;
    2. To be conscious of the distinction between outward appearance and underlying form.

    This book also affected how I thought about my professional life.  I am a software engineer.  Software projects have the highest failure rate of any kind of engineering.  Any number of rules, “best practices”, fads, etc., have been tried in pursuit of stopping software engineers from being such screw-ups.

    A major portion of this book is dedicated to showing how no amount of rules can “guarantee” high quality outcomes.  Instead, excellence is the outcome of people who have a vision of what the correct outcome is and who care enough about the outcome to pursuit it.  Such rules, in the hands of competent people who care about the outcome, act as a sort of check list that can remind them of a consideration they might have overlooked.  The same rules applied by drones who are unconcerned with outcome only increase the labor cost and delivery schedule without obtaining excellence.

    This limitation also applies to governance.  You cannot legislate your way to an excellent society; only an excellent culture can give you that.  Laws can provide a floor for behavior, but laws cannot generate excellent behavior.

    • #20
  21. Late Boomer Member
    Late Boomer
    @LateBoomer

    KC Mulville:The one that leaps to mind is Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. I happened to read it during novitiate in the Jesuits, and it uniquely captured what I was feeling. The novel’s main character is a priest who is deeply aware of his own sin and yet feels a strong desire to serve the church despite that inadequacy and sinfulness.

    Yes, totally changed my view of the priesthood

    • #21
  22. Ricochet Inactive
    Ricochet
    @JRez

    The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man by J. Budziszewski.  Reading this book irreversibly flipped the switch from being apathetic about about moral leadership in the political arena to following politics with much greater interest.

    What We Can’t Not Know is a compelling read from the same author as well.

    • #22
  23. Caleb J. Jones Inactive
    Caleb J. Jones
    @CalebJJones

    from Whittier’s “Maud Muller”:

    …God pity them both! and pity us all,

    Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

    For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

    The saddest are these: “It might have been!”…

    and from Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life”:

        Life is real! Life is earnest!

            And the grave is not its goal;

        Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

            Was not spoken of the soul.

        Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

            Is our destined end or way;

        But to act, that each to-morrow

            Find us farther than to-day…

    • #23
  24. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov’s journey from depravity to repentance was the first fictional tale that gripped me enough to read again and again.

    • #24
  25. user_241697 Member
    user_241697
    @FlaggTaylor

    The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology by Robert Sokolowski. I was first introduced to Sokolowski a few years ago, but I didn’t find my way to this brilliant book until this past winter. An essay of his prompted this post of mine.

    • #25
  26. Flapjack Coolidge
    Flapjack
    @Flapjack

    Crime and Punishment for me as well.  I read it at just the right time in my life – made all the difference.

    • #26
  27. J. D. Fitzpatrick Member
    J. D. Fitzpatrick
    @JDFitzpatrick

    “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” (Nietzsche)

    It made me realize that Nietzsche was not the relativist that certain interpreters had made him out to be. A bit paradoxical, but I felt that I’d found a thinker I could put my faith in. And I had the usual feeling that people have in such moments, of new horizons opening up around me, old doorframes fading into the air.

    • #27
  28. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @SaintAugustine

    Casey:Have you a memorable book moment?

    Yeah, The Lord of the Rings.  Pretty much the whole book.  And the Silmarillion.

    Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy was there long before Dante.  An ascent book, a book written for the healing of the soul.  The existence of this cartoon version is something of a blasphemy against great art.

    • #28
  29. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @SaintAugustine

    Oh, I got another one.  I was loyal to Lord of the Rings.  I had to read an abridged Lorna Doone for school.  I loved it.  I loved it–for a while–even more than Tolkien.  And I felt guilty about it.

    • #29
  30. user_75648 Thatcher
    user_75648
    @JohnHendrix

    Richard Fulmer and JRez : thank you. Your reviews led me to add The Ultimate Resource and The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man to my Amazon shopping cart.

    • #30
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