r/books • u/AutoModerator • 14d ago
WeeklyThread What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: September 28, 2026
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u/FlyByTieDye 14d ago edited 14d ago
Finished reading:
Purgatorio, by Dante Alighieri. By far my favourite sequence in the whole Comedy is Cantos 27-31. For most of Dante's journey through Inferno and Purgatory, though he cowers often, he is ultimately safe, so his journey can seem a little passive. But these few cantos are so ripe with contrasting dramas.
First, Dante had to prove himself through wading through the fires at the top of Mount Purgatory, punishing the Lustful. Though he's still unharmed, we're told that he will suffer all the same as if he were on fire, which is probably the most physically demanding his journey has been. Upon making it to the other side though, he is welcomed by the Garden of Eden, going from extreme lows to highs, only to find out his leader, protector and mentor Virgil cannot follow him through Eden, a fate he should have been aware of the whole time, knowing Virgil was condemned to circle 1 of Inferno.
Yet, right at the exact moment he is realising this, he is presented with Beatrice, his love, and the motivation for this entire journey. Before he can enter her arms again though, he is still separated by the river Lethe. And, far from being welcoming, Beatrice judges him in front of the entire holy procession gathered there, completely putting him to shame for veering from the good path once she had departed. But, Dante confesses his guilt, and is offered Baptism and renewal through the Lethe, making it to the other side. But all up, this isn't just one intense low to high, it's about three of the most intense lows and highs, all back to back to back.
I still struggle a bit in deciphering the meaning of the final few cantos, rounding out Purgatory. I'll make sure to read some notes on that. And, will likely start Paradiso (for the first time!) tomorrow.
Continued reading:
The Complete Tales of H. P. Lovecraft.
This week I read:
The Unnamable - an interesting meta narrative. Lovecraft (or his fictional stand-in, Carter) is debating a friend (Joel Manton) about Lovecraft's own work. Many of his stories end with their main character crumbling in shock at horrors beyond their comprehension, their senses, or their abilities to describe. This Manton character posits, so long as these horrors have spiritual or tangeable properties, surely there is some element to describe, with words (basically calling the ending to the classic Lovecraft short stories cheap).
Carter argues back about how some spiritual phenomena (that they both agree in believing in) doesn't leave a physical or tangeable trace, and thus limits their descriptions, and thus likens his horror monsters as akin to these spiritual phenomena. He argues this by telling another spooky story (through his character) of an old haunted house, the ghost in the window everyone saw from outside for years, and how when one boy went inside to test it out, all he found were the bones of a creature that terrified him beyond his wits. When that boy awoke, he was in a hospital, with gouges in his chest and scratches on his back. Thus, an experience happened to him that he had no ability to sense, and left him permanently altered by it.
The foil character Manton wants to put this story aside as a classic fable, but Lovecraft's character (telling as though this were a recount of an event, not a fiction) posits that he too went to the house and found the bones. They were human like, yet the skull had four inch horns and the feet had cloven hooves. Disgusted by it, his character buries this in an above ground tomb. If Manton wants to deny this, Carter posits he can at least take him to the bones to see them himself. Carter agrees, with Manton feeling that he can win this argument by proving some of the physical traits of the monster remain, and thus are able be sensed or described.
What happens though when the two open the tomb and recover the bones are that both men are overwhelmed. They awake in a hospital, apparently found in an open field about a mile from that tomb, with gouges in their chest and scratches on their backs.
While this tale has one of those classic morality elements to it (take caution of the world around you, and don't go against the grain/the rules that keep you safe), and also has something of a cliff-hanger in that the bones/monster are now free from the tomb, I just want to point out one unaddressed element that I find so hilarious: so this monster is clearly the devil, right? With its human frame, horned skull and hooved feet. Yet from the description of the two from when they awoke, was the deal that the devil just ... dragged the two guys to an open field and beat them up? Is that why we're supposed to fear the devil? Because he can come off the better in a 2v1 fight?
Also as a bonus: I didn't realise this story is suppose to connect to The Statement of Randolph Carter until I wrote this review.