Harriet Rubin is a strange bedfellow of Dante. Her book contains elements of a self-help book, and yet it also seeks out the inner meaning of Dante's quest.

Rubin's ardor, enthusiasm, reflective, intense and erudite illuminating insights in stylish prose will certainly inspire countless readers to embark on the revelatory,
life-changing journey of reading "The Divine Comedy."
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BOOK REVIEW
Dante in Love: The World's Greatest Poem and How It Made History;
Harriet Rubin; Simon & Schuster: 276 pp., $23.95

Los Angeles Times
By Merle Rubin
Special to The Times
May 24 2004

Strange bedfellows? Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), author of "The Divine Comedy," arguably the world's greatest poem. Harriet Rubin, modern-day media consultant, publisher, columnist and author of a recent bestseller enticingly entitled "The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women."

Rubin's media savvy is evident in the appellation of her new book as well: The title, "Dante in Love," hints at romance; the subtitle, "The World's Greatest Poem and How It Changed History," makes attention-grabbing claims on a global scale.

If Machiavelli's pragmatic political advice for Renaissance princes could be shown to apply to the modern career woman, does Rubin envision a similar role for Dante? Should aspirants to the boardroom be studying "The Divine Comedy" to learn how they can advance from the purgatory of middle-level management to the proverbial, paradisiacal "Room at the Top"?

Not quite. Although "Dante in Love" contains elements of a self-help book, it also represents an effort to go beyond the confines of that genre by seeking out the inner meaning of Dante's quest:

"Poets say love and words can reverse failure and loss; Dante discovered how. His method is revealed to those who walk his hells and purgatories. It is why Dante, though considered a Catholic poet, has as his greatest converts artists who have reached the end of technique and are eager to look for a new depth in the soul. Art without artifice: The 'Commedia' makes the human being the text or canvas or song, and shows how one can oneself be revised."

"Dante in Love" is a curious hybrid, inhabiting an uneasy limbo between self-help and literary criticism, more reflective, intense and erudite than the average self-help guide but certainly not on the same high level of such popularizing scholar-critics as C.S. Lewis or Roger Shattuck.

One thing is clear, though: "Dante in Love" is the product of great enthusiasm, and Rubin's ardor for her subject can be contagious. She plunges us into the thick of the politics and culture of Dante's era: the intellectual and religious legacies of such figures as Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi and Bernard of Clairvaux; the ambition, violence and unscrupulousness of Boniface VIII (a.k.a. the Warrior Pope); the ongoing conflicts between pope and emperor, between Guelphs and Ghibellines and among the many rivalrous Italian cities.

Caught up on the wrong side of one of these conflicts, Dante was sentenced to exile from his native Florence in 1302. It was during this 19-year period of wandering that he wrote most (perhaps all) of his epic masterpiece.

Not only has Rubin immersed herself in "The Divine Comedy," following Dante on his transformative journey down through the circles of Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory and into the empyreal realms of Paradise, she has also devoured a wide range of secondary material to light her way: literary criticism, medieval history, art history, not to mention all sorts of histories of culture, religion and aesthetics.

She is also fully aware of the many illustrious artists, including T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Osip Mandelstam, who have taken Dante to heart, and she quotes liberally from their writings.

It's a heady brew, and sometimes it seems as if Rubin hasn't adequately digested the fruits of her voracious reading. Or, even if she herself may have assimilated the material, she does not always succeed in recasting it in a form that is sufficiently cogent and coherent. There's a slapdash quality to the book that undermines the reader's confidence. Illuminating insights exist cheek-by-jowl with ill-considered sweeping statements; stylish prose is interspersed with clumsy writing that poorly expresses the author's meaning. "Economic opportunities in the town," she writes, "gave men new careers beyond that of a knight or a monk. Women could find an alternative to marriage by entering a monastery." And elsewhere: "More often than not poets become leaders — and leaders become poets." (It's the "more often than not" that renders this observation ridiculous.)

"Dante in Love" is full of genuinely interesting ideas, many of which are not original with the author, as she readily and quite properly acknowledges. But there's an energy, a sense of excitement, in her engagement with these ideas and in the way she brings them to bear on her reading of the "Divine Comedy": She reminds one of a bright student who's just heard a series of brilliant lectures and is trying to share her new knowledge and enlightenment with friends.

What's lacking is the sense of authority that comes from long and careful study. This lack is not fatal, however, and Rubin's book will certainly inspire countless readers to embark on the revelatory, life-changing journey of reading "The Divine Comedy."

calendarlive.com: Ardor leaps from the pages
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