Cluster Reading
Cluster reading, or reading several books that tie closely together, is a fascinating activity. I’ve known this before, of course, but (in this very overdue attempt to get back into this neglected blog) I’ve just recently completed a cluster of books which has enthralled me tightly.
I was rereading Dante’s La Vita Nuova, a masterpiece any would-be poet ought to read. In it, he describes the story of his love for Beatrice, in all its idealized (never actualized) glory. It is the way he describes it that is fascinating, by leading the reader through careful analysis of the poetry he has written for and about her. Reading La Vita Nuova will enrich the reading of the Divine Comedy—I might even go so far as to say it is necessary to fully enjoy and appreciate it. (Along with a nicely annotated translation: I recommend Ciardi.)
Then in the midst of reading Dante, I began to read a new novel by Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. In it, Eco refers to Dante many times, and to La Vita Nuova specifically often. Because of the parallels between his own experience and that of Dante (that he imagines? or creates?), my appreciation for Mysterious Flame was heightened.
Eco also repeatedly refers to Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac which I just finished reading this morning. A sensational, fantastical romance about a man who loves a woman but is forced by circumstance to always hold the love a pure ideal (and more dangerously, he is forced to help her love become actualized for another), it brought me to tears on a public bus. More importantly, I understand Eco’s novel better in retrospect for understanding the connections he draws to Cyrano and am able to understand instantly Cyrano’s literary impact and value because I had already experienced its impact.
There’s a few other allusions in Mysterious Flame that I may or may not follow up on, but these three works together form a spectacular cluster, all three likely to occur forever bound together in my mind.