Dante's Daughter by Kimberley Heuston

Goodreads: Dante’s Daughter

Series: None

Published: 2004

Source: Library

Summary: Antonia Alighieri’s world turns upside down when the Black Guelfs invade Florence and force her family into exile.  Separated from her mother and her brothers, Antonia travels with her father, the famous poet Dante, through Italy and France.  The people she meets and the places she experiences will help her find her own place in the world and give her the courage to follow her dreams.

Review: Heuston paints a vivid picture of pre-Renaissance Italy, taking the few known facts about Antonia’s life and transforming them into a story sure to inspire readers and warm their hearts.  Though she writes about the daughter of a man who will one day be recognized as one of the world’s greatest poets, Heuston does not allow Dante—or the political forces surrounding him—to overshadow her protagonist.  Anotonia has her own life, her own needs, and her own vision.  Her navigation through adolescence and young adulthood in a male-dominated world will resonate with readers long after they close the book.

Since historians know so little about Dante’s family, Heuston had a liberal amount of poetic license with which to work while writing Dante’s Daughter.  My limited understanding of Dante suggests, however, that Heuston stayed remarkably true to those facts even while she used them to make assumptions about the way in which events may have unfolded.  Thus, Heuston utilizes speculations about an unhappy marriage between Dante and his wife Gemma (in part due to his poetry about another woman—Beatrice) to create a fully three-dimensional woman who feels hurt by her husband’s emotional betrayal yet still provides for her family and their interests.  The dynamic between them drives a lot of the story and provides for some interesting speculations about the how a man so preoccupied by intellectual pursuits may have related to others.

Dante springs to life as a complex man who loves his family, but whose idealism and divine inspiration sometimes cause him to neglect the worldly sorts of tasks that might keep them fed and clothed.  Antonia loves her father in return and craves his affection and protection, but finds that he has difficulty relating to her.  In part, the book suggests, Dante lived too much on his own to understand the needs of others, especially children.  However, Dante does not only experience difficulty in speaking to Antonia simply because she is a child, but also because she is a woman.  She, like him, possesses a quick wit and a keen sensitivity for beauty, but she lacks his education.  There exists between them a fundamental inability to communicate because Dante thinks in terms of the great poets and philosophers who came before him—and Antonia does not yet know them all.

Dante’s attitude toward his family—particularly his wife and daughter—thus serves as a springboard for reflections on gender roles.  As the daughter of a great poet, Antonia will learn Latin, hear the stories from Virgil, and even learn to paint.  However, she remains a woman, and society expects her not to create great art like her father, but to make a home and care for a family.  She does not deny this calling, or even its validity (Antonia’s aunt in fact provides a lively defense of the occupation of women in her society, asserting that men can accomplish so much intellectual work only because the woman take care of their practical needs).  However, she does recognize her need to find her own calling, rather than to follow the path laid out for her by others.

Heuston’s nuanced and varied depiction of woman is completely refreshing.  She presents a wide spectrum of strong women, from Antonia’s aunt who loves being a wife and mother to the Beguines, a group of lay Christian women who lived apart from men and could earn their own livelihood.  All of these women have different gifts and different strengths; Heuston does not assert the primacy of one vocation over another, but illustrates the various ways women can serve God and others.  Antonia ultimately takes the best from all these women, forging her own destiny where she can love freely and be true to herself.

Dante's Daughter possesses a rare beauty, bringing to life a fascinating woman who chose to accept her struggles and use them to make herself stronger.  This book will leave readers feeling refreshed and inspired.

C. S. Lewis Read-Along at Pages Unbound

Check out the C. S. Lewis Read-Along taking place during the month of February at book blog Pages Unbound.  You can read any book by or about C. S. Lewis during February and your review will be added to the Master List.  Other fun posts so far have included discussion posts, a cover poll, and a personality quiz.

Habemus Papam!: Pope Benedict XVI by Regina Doman, Illustrated by Sean Lam

Goodreads: Habemus Papam!

Series: None

Published: 2012

Source: Borrowed

Summary: Growing up in Bavaria, Josef Ratzinger finds his faith tested daily as the Nazis shut down schools, force the young men into the army, and persecute Christians and Jews.  However, he places his trust in God and fulfills his dream of becoming a priest.  Josef enjoys his new life teaching and longs to spend his days as a scholar, but God still calls and His plan is larger than anything Josef could have imagined.

Review: Doman and Lam’s manga presents a biography of the pope in a manner both fun and accessible.  Benedict  XVI, or, as he was known before receiving the call to lead the Catholic Church as the Vicar of Christ, Josef Ratzinger, comes to life on the page, no distant figure waving from a balcony, but a flesh-and-blood man who faced terrible opposition in  his journey to become a priest but never lost his faith.  Readers will not only learn interesting facts about the pope (for instance, he loves cats) but will also feel themselves inspired by the example of man who placed all his trust in God, even when he feared the road God might set him on.

I have never read manga before, so I can only judge Habemus Papam! on its own merits.  I thought the illustrations were very well done.  Some beautiful Catholic architecture made appearances and the level of detail (for example, a glimpse of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel) gave the story a sense of realism.  The range of emotion exhibited by the characters also helped draw me into the story.  I especially enjoyed the young Josef—there is an adorable picture of him sitting with his teddy bear—and found myself marveling that the pope was ever a child who got into trouble and fought with his siblings.  The fact that the pope likes cats became a sort of recurring theme, so it was fun to pick out all the cats in the pictures. 

Enjoyable as the illustrations were, however, I never felt that they were integral to the telling of the story.  I got the impression that the creators of the book designed it more as a marketing tool to reach young people and make the faith seem cool.  Doman conceivably could have written the same story, fleshed out with some description, and made it into a short biography.  Enough action and suspense occurs that readers will keep the pages turning.  

Despite this criticism, I do not mean to suggest that the book seems didactic.  Rather, it presents itself a a loving portrayal of a man whose dedication to God and desire to spread His message cannot fail to move readers.  The struggles he faces as he tries to accept God's will for him make him seem so delightfully human, but the fearlessness he exhibits as he searches out truth makes him seem like the obvious pick to lead the Church in the modern era.  Readers should close the book with one message: those who seek the truth will always find it.

Looking For...A Valentine's Day Read

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

After discovering that she is the last of her kind, a unicorn sets off a journey to find the others.  Rumor says that the dreaded Red Bull has captured all the unicorns and holds them captive in his castle by the sea.  Added by an inept magician and a bandit's wife, the unicorn will confront the bull, but she cannot return home unchanged.

Confessions by Saint Augustine

In chronicling the story of his conversion to Christianity, Augustine famously wrote, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."  His book actively reflects on his life explores the process of memory in understanding a life in context of a divine plan.  His works would inspire countless other writers.

The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis

Lewis explores the nature of love in four of its forms: affection, friendship, eros, and charity.  His insights on friendship are especially relevant in a world that seems to place romantic love about all other loves; he suggests that modern people have difficulty appreciating friendship because they have never experienced a true one.

The Lion and the Land of Narnia Compiled by Robert Cording

Goodreads: The Lion and the Land of Narnia
Series: None
Published: 2008
Source: Purchased

Summary: Cording compiles testimonials from authors, professors, children, and more about the effects C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia have had on their lives and their faith.  Illustrated by Cording.

Review: The Lion and the Land of Narnia functions sort of as a coffee table book--something which readers can flip through, admiring Cording's paintings and occasionally pausing to read a letter from Lewis or a testimony from one of his readers that looks particularly interesting.  The testimonials cover largely the same ground, so readers need not feel obligated to go through them all at once.  However, the book does contain some gems, notably writings from such people as Michael Ward (author of Planet Narnia) and Walter Hooper (personal secretary to Lewis). The range of writers emphasizes the impact Lewis's Chronicles have had on generations of readers, from those who grew up with Narnia to those who discovered it only late in life.

Cording does a nice job of compiling the contributions to his book, interspersing deeper reflections with fun letters from Lewis to his readers or cute writings from children.  The book covers a lot of ground, with contributors variously discussing Lewis's role in their conversions or faith, their understanding of how Lewis's writing works to convey truth and beauty, or simply their emotional and intellectual reactions to Narnia.  Some of the younger contributors prove especially eloquent, explaining how much they love Narnia and why.  Anyone who has entered through the wardrobe with Lucy will respond to the musings of these contributors and feel that they have found kindred spirits.

Though only about 60 pages, The Lion and the Land of Narnia provides a lot to think about in regards to Narnia and the ways in which stories speak to us and transform us.  It is a heartwarming look at the way in which one man's imaginary world changed the lives of countless readers.

Dante in Love by A. N. Wilson

Goodreads: Dantein Love

Series: None

Published: 2011

Source: Purchased

Summary: Wilson provides an account of the social and cultural forces that shaped Dante’s world while also exploring Dante’s concept of love and how it inspired his Divine Comedy.

Review: By summarizing the cultural, political, and religious forces at work in Renaissance Italy, Wilson works to expel some of the fear that approaching Dante’s Divine Comedy may inspire in his readers.  The work is so rife with allusions to the events and people of Dante’s day that readers can find themselves feeling as lost as Dante in that dark wood.  Do they need to understand all the allusions?  Are they missing out on some of complex layers of the work if they merely follow the main plot?  Wilson takes these concerns and, in answer, writes the book that just about every Dante novice wishes they had.

Wilson’s explanation of the confusion he felt when reading the Divine Comedy should make readers feel immediately at ease with him as their guide through Dante’s world.  He knows personally the difficulties readers will encounter and does not suggest these difficulties are the fault of the readers.  Rather, he notes that the Divine Comedy is a complex work—but an approachable one, if readers have the right tools.  He thus jumps right in to explaining the pertinent background information, and does not bog down his readers with more facts than he thinks necessary.

Despite Wilson’s desire to make an extremely complex subject simpler, however, he sometimes seems to impede his own efforts.  The book does not progress in a strictly chronological manner, but jumps around so the author can explain the effect events will have in the future or note the differences between works written by Dante at different times.  Wilson also interjects his historical account with a small amount of literary criticism, occasionally diverging from the subject at hand to expound upon some facet of the nature of love.  I would not have minded these digressions if I felt that Wilson ever truly clarified where he wanted to go with them. 

Wilson also intersperses his book with some personal references.  Some of these are fruitful, such as the ones where he explains his own journey through Dante and thus encourages his readers to take the plunge and experience their own transformative reading.  Others are mere asides about his personal opinions on the current state of society and the Catholic Church.  These are really the weakest points of the book.  It is easy for Wilson to criticize the Church for such things as the opposition to artificial birth control, but he provides no arguments for his beliefs, and they are unlikely to resonate with anyone familiar with the lengthy, nuanced answer of the Church as explained in Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body.  Since this is a book about Dante and not a forum to discuss the merits of birth control, such commentary seems out of place.

Despite its flaws, Wilson’s book is an invaluable guide to the world of Dante and his Divine Comedy.  If it does nothing more than let readers know that they are not alone in feeling intimidated by Dante, it will have done good.  I firmly recommend this book to anyone about to read the Divine Comedy.