Kirkus Style Review

DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY: A GRAPHIC ADAPTATION

SEYMOUR CHWAST, DANTE ALIGHIERI

A wildly fresh interpretation of all 100 Cantos - condensed into 127 pages of minimalistic, fantastical illustrations.

The renowned Italian poet takes on a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven with his mentor, Virgil - both a tragic and elated transcendent adventure has most popularly been depicted by the translated poem in its entirety alongside Gustave Dore’s famous illustrations. Chwast invites the reader into a condensed world of Dante’s creation, where the agonizing picture of Hell is paired with the frivolity of a comic artist’s imagination. The reader witnesses Hell through the scope of an abysmal 1920s lens, canes and flapper dresses both suffering in the pits of an inferno, as well as casually decorating the heavens in jazz and blues style, celebrating their eternity. Chwast opts to sacrifice the literature that Dante had so painstakingly crafted. In lieu of creative, strict Italian verse, Chwast finds that a picture paints a thousand words. The atmosphere of the rings, the waiting room, and the ascension into Heaven in his rendition prove not to diminish the severity and grand visual of the story, but rather reshapes it into a narrative that can be more easily comprehensible to the average, modern reader. Not to replace its original work, Chwast reinvents imagery in methods the modern man can understand. God’s messenger is a paratrooper descending from the skies, Satan himself looks more like a contorted dandy stuck in a golf hole than an ever-present, ever-suffering devil munching on Cassius, Brutus, and Judas for all eternity. With still plenty in its illustration left to be interpreted, Chwast resolved to fabricate a Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven we were yet unfamiliar with - breathing new air into a timeless, frightening and inspiring classic.

Pub Date: SEPTEMBER 01, 2010

Page Count: 127

ISBN: 978-1-60819-084-3

Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING