protagonist Dante Alighieri
In one of my now habitual binge reading "theme" in recent weeks I have made out a few books waited a long time on the shelves of my library and have as their denominator common figure of Dante Alighieri as the protagonist, or at least co-star.
The first to the Great Poet the protagonist of literary works was, of course, Dante himself first in the "New Life" and then in his "Divine Comedy" alongside Virgil and Beatrice.
From those early years between the thirteenth and fourteenth century, as far as I know, no one has used the "Ghibellines fugitive" as the star of poems or novels. Only at the end of the twentieth century and I Giulio Leoni , ignari l'uno dell'altro, abbiamo avuto probabilmente in contemporanea l'idea di fare di Dante Alighieri un investigatore ante litteram . Leoni, più o meno mio coetaneo, ha terminato per primo il suo lavoro, presentando “Dante Alighieri e i delitti della Medusa” nei primi mesi del 2000 al concorso per il Premio Tedeschi del Giallo Mondadori , di cui è risultato vincitore. Io ho terminato il mio “S'i' fosse morte...” solo nell'estate di quell'anno, condannandomi all'inevitabile runner-up position!
Leoni has so far written three other novels with protagonist Dante. I stopped the first that came to light only in 2009 for publishing types Cartoon Club
If the idea is the same, the results are obviously quite different. Leoni is staging a Dante a bit 'too angry for my taste, framed in the period in which it was prior of Florence, language and thematic rather "modern". I opted for a younger Dante, just twenty-one, as well as more thoughtful and taciturn, but with lovely temper. Then having to cite a few works of Dante is that of Cecco Angiolieri co-star, so that the language of the fourteenth century stridesse those with normal speech of the characters, I chose to write the dialogue in a common-like a cross between the "new life" and Brancaleone, and writing has inevitably also a rhythm quite classical.
Who wants to have fun to compare the two outcomes will find books in Library Lion, published by Mondadori, and in my comic shop or from the publisher (Tel. 0541.784193 e-mail: fdc@fumodichina.com ).
Since 2000, the novels protagonist Dante have multiplied. Not a downpour, but a good rain.
Del 2002 è “La mano di Dante” (“In the Hand of Dante”) di Nick Tosches , Mondadori, 18,00 euro. La vicenda si svolge su due piani temporali. In quello odierno, in chiave noir , lo stesso Tosches è protagonista della vicenda, in veste di malavitoso che entra in possesso di poco plausibili manoscritti danteschi e cerca di venderli a collezionisti privati. In quello storico, un Dante quanto mai insoddisfatto e tormentato va “a lezione” di vita da un “maestro” giudeo, mentre sua moglie Gemma vive problematiche romantico-femministe. Un'idea dell'Alighieri e della sua famiglia abbastanza “da americani”, se posso dire. I personaggi tratteggiati da Tosches mi sembrano decisamente poco veritieri e alcuni elementi biografici addirittura errati, almeno da quel che posso giudicare in base alle biografie dantesche che ho letto per scrivere il mio romanzo e “La vita” di Dante a fumetti. A cominciare da quella di Giampaolo Dossena (“Dante”, Longanesi, 1995, Lit. 30.000), che consiglio caldamente a tutti gli interessati. Un vero spasso intellettuale.
Tosches' book, then, lives on a variety of styles ranging from yellow to pamphlet , the religious-historical essay, not to know what else. I took each one to himself, all very enjoyable (the letter writer to his publisher Tosches is an anthology), but overall they do a little animal food to digest. However, the Infinitum Nihil, film production company founded by Johnny Depp , acquired the rights to draw a film of the same Depp in the role of Tosches, so it affects our speech.
of 2006 and "shooting star" in Alberto Costantini , Urania Prize winning work, which appeared in Urania No 1516. This is an investigation into a mysterious object plunged into a swamp near Padua. Although this novel, science fiction, of course, takes place on multiple planes of time. In the first, the expedition sent in 1303 by Bartolomeo della Scala to investigate the matter during a certain part also from Florence. The idea is that by the "journey" in the depths of the soil and within the alien artifact, Durante (Dante's full name) has drawn inspiration for the hell of his Comedy.
The writing is smooth, pleasant reading.
2008 and then "The betrayal of the Templars" of Franco Cuomo (Baldini Castoldi Dalai Editore, € 17.50), a novel that sees Dante Alighieri operate alongside Templar Esquieu de Floryan Squinn said. The author draws on little verifiable tradition that Dante belongs to the heretical sect of the Faithful of Love. Cuomo even imagine the Grand Master of the sect. Little lover as are the mystical Freemasons, paratemplare or sectarian in general, from reading this tome I abstained.
To close it is worth to mention "The Dante Club" ("The Dante Club", 2003, Rizzoli) of Matthew Pearl though not starring, but Dante his "Divine Comedy". The story, set in Boston in 1865, focuses on a murderess who killed his victims is inspired by the infernal punishments under the law of retaliation encoded by Dante. On the trail of the criminal, alongside the black policeman Nicholas Rey, there is a group of translators americani ottocenteschi della “Divina Commedia” capitanati dal poeta Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . L'idea è decisamente bella. La trama che l'autore ne ha tirato fuori risulta invece a tratti un po' farraginosa, e la scrittura (o la traduzione, non so) non sempre scorrevole. Meglio, da questi punti di vista, la seconda opera di Pearl “L'ombra di Edgar” (“The Poe shadow”, 2006, Rizzoli), che si occupa invece del mistero che circondò la morte dell'autore de “I delitti della via Morgue”.
C'est tout. Se qualcuno fosse a conoscenza di altre opere con Dante protagonista, lo invito a segnalarmele ringraziandolo anticipatamente.
