Purgatorio- Dante  (1321) 
Continuing through Purgatorio 

Canto 5  
Ante-purgatory: the late repentant, who died by violence 
Dante and Virgil continue through the landscape climbing at the base of the mountain. They are still technically outside of Purgatory, in what is called Ante-purgatory. Here they meet more of the late repenters, these were all murdered and repented as they were dying. 

The first they meet is Jacopo del Cassero. The second is Bonconte da Montefeltro, and the third is known only as “Pia”.  

Each asks Dante to inform their loved ones when he returns of their condition, and asking their loved ones to pray more so their time in Purgatory can be shortened. They tell how at their deaths, they were each ‘afflicted’ with a burning desire to see the Lord, so they are longing to pass through Purgatory. 

Virgil also exhorts Dante to listen to them, but keep moving as he does, so his own progress isn’t slowed down by the curiosity of the different groups of souls. The canto contains some more geography lessons, with Dante giving precise details about where Bonconte died, but thankfully, none of the astronomical lessons. 

Canto 6 
Ante-purgatory: the lone soul Sordello 
After the travelers break free of the group, Dante questions Virgil about his writing that the prayers of those alive don’t move God about the fate of those dead. Virgil replies the prayers of the living actually do satisfy the requirements of God, but more importantly, when Virgil wrote that, Christ still hadn’t died, so the prayers of the dead were not directed towards the true savior of mankind. Virgil tells Dante that nonetheless, this is an important question and hold on to it until Beatrice, who waits at the top of the mountain, can give him a fuller explanation. Upon hearing Beatrice is waiting, Dante wants to push on, but Virgil lets him know that they can’t make it up in one day. 

At this point they see a solitary soul ahead, who turns out to be a fellow Mantuan to Virgil. The patriotism Sordello shows moves Dante to launch into an invective about the political state of Italy, which I won’t cover here because it concerns 13th century Italian politics, pretty much unknown to us. 

Canto 7 
Ante-purgatory: the late repentant, princes too busy with affairs of state.
Back from Dante’s political rant to the narrative, Sordello asks who they are, and how they got there. Virgil asks him the quickest way to the start of Purgatory proper, but is told they would be unable to move at night. Sordello directs them to a sort of cove in the mountain where a group is resting. These turn out to be heads of state who had been too busy with earthly affairs to repent earlier. Again the overview of who these are will be lost on us today, so I won’t bother recapping their descriptions. 

Canto 8 
Ante-purgatory: still among the late-repentant princes 
Dante is about to fall asleep when he is awakened because one of the princes decides to sing a hymn. During the hymn, Dante notices some angels that take up watch to both sides of the group. Sordello tells him this is because the serpent will come that evening. Then the three move down among the princes. Right away one notices Dante, it is his friend Nino Visconti, who asks how long he has been there. When Dante says he isn’t yet dead, but came through hell in order to learn how to gain heaven, the others draw back. One is called forward, Corrado Malaspina, who asks Dante to have his daughter pray for him. At this point, the serpent tries to enter the camp, but the angels drive it off. Malaspina asks if Dante has any news of his family, to which Dante replies that they are still noble. Corrado prophecies that within seven years, Dante will know of their hospitality personally, not just through others. 

Canto 9 
The gate of purgatory 
Dante falls asleep and dreams he is snatched up by an eagle. This terrifies him, but when he wakes up, he finds that Lucia has carried him up to the gate of purgatory. Dante and Virgil are stopped at the gate by the guardian, but after they explain who they are, Dante is invited in. He first crosses three steps symbolizing sincere confession, contrition, and ardent love. Then the guardian inscribes seven P’s on his forehead and tells him to be sure to wash them off inside. The guardian opens the door with two keys: symbolizing absolution and the power to judge the condition of the penitent. As they enter, the guardian warns Dante not to look back with longing or he will be returned outside. 

Canto 10 
The ring of pride 
Dante and Virgil enter purgatory and are immediately confronted with what seems like a shifting mountain. They pass through a difficult opening, and find themselves on a ledge that seems to have no way out. On the white marble walls though, are carved three scenes depicting true humility: Mary’s humility before Gabriel’s annunciation of Jesus’ birth; the attempts to bring the ark to Jerusalem, showing the first presumption, then David’s abasement; and Emperor Trajan’s duty and mercy towards a bereaved widow.  

Virgil then points out a group of the proud, weighed down with heavy weights. Dante addresses the Christian reader asking why we should act so proud when we are nothing apart from God. 

Henderson the Rain King- Saul Bellow  (1959) 
Gene Henderson is in a rut, sick of life and wanting to figure out what it’s about. He loves his wife, but his weariness is wearing on everyone around him. He gets an opportunity to travel with a friend and his new bride to Africa, but before long, Henderson and his friend get sick of each other and Henderson leaves with his African guide to the guides hometown in the interior.  

Henderson finds a situation in the first that he can help with, but makes a mess and he leaves having left a bigger problem than when he arrived. They then travel to another tribe where he is taken in, and through a huge fluke, he becomes acknowledged as the “Rain King”. The current king teaches him something about life, but then is killed trying to capture a Lion. Henderson returns home with a lion cub and an orphan, and there ends the story. 

Appointment in Samarra- John O’Hara  (1934) 
The book chronicles the downward spiral of Julian English, a society-born member of a small coal-town in Pennsylvania. The particular incidents that precipitate each time Julian drops further, aren’t told in real time. We are given the setup, and then in the aftermath, we find details of what he did. 

I found the interrelatedness of this smaller town kind of interesting. After the first incident, where Julian throws a cocktail at another club member whom he despises, things start to close down for him. Julian is a respected member of society, being the owner of several car dealerships. After the incident, people begin to keep their distance from him. My thought is: why doesn’t he pick up and go to a different place where people don’t know the history? But his place in society is due to his standing with those particular people. If he were to go elsewhere, he would have none of that. Even his living, the money earned from the business sales, is due to connections maintained through the social network of friendships. Once that starts to unravel, there is a quickening downward spiral. Having grown up in a later time, and in a metropolis, it’s hard for me to relate to just how interrelated the lives of these inhabitants would be. If we don’t like something about a business, we just go someplace else. But in a town of limited options, there can be serious repercussions to offending people. These relations have both a good, and bad, side. There are benefits to playing by the rules, and clearly, breaking the unwritten rules can be devastating.  

The Histories- Tacitus (100-110 AD) 
This book covers what came to be known as the year of the four emperors- 69 AD.  

After Nero committed suicide, (Servius Sulpicius) Galba took over as emperor in June 68, but was murdered in Jan 69 on orders from (Marcus Salvius) Otho. But Otho inherited the problem of the rebellion of (Aulus) Vitellius. When they met on the battlefield, nothing had been decisive, but Otho committed suicide in April 69 to avoid more bloodshed, since more than 40000 men had already died in this civil war over who would become emperor. 

But even as Vitellius was now emperor, another challenger was coming from Judea, (Titus Flavius) Vespasian, who finally beat the Vitellian Forces and took power in December 69. 

The entire episode is a shameful account of armies no longer loyal to Rome as a state, but to individual generals; it is also an even more shameful account of armies easily bought off and more concerned with pillage and booty than the protection of Rome. 

The accounts of attacks by Rome’s own soldiers on the Italian people is the story of Rome at a low point. 

It’s no wonder that the people of Rome simply hungered for some stability after 69 AD. Vespasianus ruled for 10 years after and began some major construction works, including perhaps the most famous of all ancient monuments: The Flavian Amphitheater, now known as the Roman Colosseum.  

Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas- David Held (2001) 
This is an overview tracing the development of Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and later, Habermas, tasked themselves with updating Marxian theory in light of its failures to accurately predict the course of capitalism.  

While it wasn’t easy to piece together what exactly critical theory is, the basic idea is that capitalism is full of contradictions, which have become institutionalized in society through a set of accepted beliefs. These beliefs proclaim a certain idealized society, but the reality falls short. However, people have accepted the ideals and are unwilling to challenge them, even though they sense that the reality is increasingly far from the promises made. 

Critical theory then is a way (or ways) to uncover those contradictions, bring them forward through discourse (the way we talk about things), and then use that knowledge of where society falls short of its goals to amend society and allow real human freedom and flourishing. That’s the basic idea anyway. 

Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas each had differing ideas about how this should be brought about, and while some of their insights are interesting, I can’t help feel that they fall short in some really meaningful ways. 

Clearly, they were unhappy with Soviet society, and felt that in order to rescue Marxism from such a fate, they needed to revitalize Marx by looking again at his ideas, adding clarity to his concepts, and in so doing, perhaps arrive at what the Marxists had hoped would happen: a better, more democratic society would emerge. But while critical theory was applied to the dominant discourse of their world: bourgeois society, I kept thinking that if they applied the critical theory to socialist societies as they existed in the world, the indictment would be much worse. 

They also expressed the dialectic method of looking at sociology, which they describe as using disciplines outside the traditional sociology to refine and get a better picture of what was happening. But this usually meant, for example, just combining something they liked in Freud, with Marx, and then running with that. While that may be more multidimensional than using only Marx, it is also leaving a lot undeveloped, which given the complexity of the complex system of society, means they weren’t all that successful in answering many of their own questions.  

That said, I did see value in some of their notions, like Habermas’ study of linguistics.