2015 Book-I-Appreciated-That-You-Might-Be-Interested-In Award
The 2015 Book-I-Appreciated-That-You-Might-Be-Interested-In Award goes to Rod Dreher’s How Dante Can Save Your Life.
I’m very excited about students in the Millis Institute reading Dante’s Divine Comedy—I even have in mind a weekend retreat where they immerse themselves in “history’s greatest poem.” So I was pleased to discover how seamlessly Dreher weaves the Divine Comedy into his own experience. If anyone wonders “what good reading old books” can do—or what benefit there is in studying the liberal arts—here’s a great answer! Dreher tells the true story of how, after becoming a well-known author and columnist in Washington, DC, he moved home to Louisiana to be with his family in need. Let’s just say that things didn’t go so well, and Dreher soon discovered that “There is no exile quite like being a stranger in the midst of your own family.”
At this point he picked up the Divine Comedy, which Dante conceived in the 13th Century while in exile from his beloved hometown of Florence. As Dreher reads about different characters inhabiting different levels of heaven and hell, the insights he acquires are life-transforming. For instance, in the circle of hell reserved for the violent, Dante encounters Brunetto Latini, who had lived as one of Italy’s most distinguished statesmen and scholars. Brunetto counsels Dante that the purpose of writing is to win worldly fame. Dreher, a writer himself, learns an important lesson from this episode and concludes:
How much happier would young people be if they began their careers thinking not of the fame, fortune, and glory they will receive from professional accomplishment but rather of the good they can do for others. … I knew now that we condemn ourselves to misery not so much because of what we hate but because of what we love and the way we love … loving and desiring good things in the wrong way.
Along the literary journey, Dante teaches Dreher not to despise the disappointment and depression he experiences, but instead to use it as an opportunity to evaluate his (misplaced) loves and to direct his desires and expectations toward God. “Suffering comes to everyone. It’s the human condition. What you do with that suffering determines whether or not you remain an earthbound caterpillar or metamorphose into a butterfly.”
That’s pretty good advice from an old poem, and we look forward to exploring it further with our students at the Millis Institute.
