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    Paradise
    Paradise
    Paradise
    Audiobook4 hours

    Paradise

    Written by Dante Alighieri

    Narrated by Heathcote Williams

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    About this audiobook

    I have been in the Heaven that takes up most of his light, and saw things there that those who descend from that height cannot speak of or forget…’ Led by his guide Beatrice, Dante leaves the Earth behind and soars through the heavenly spheres of Paradise. In this third and final part of The Divine Comedy, he encounters the just rulers and holy saints of the Church. The horrors of Inferno and the trials of Purgatory are left far behind. Ultimately, in Paradise, Dante is granted a vision of God’s Heavenly court – the angels, the Blessed Virgin and God Himself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateFeb 1, 2005
    ISBN9789629546540
    Author

    Dante Alighieri

    Dante Alighieri (Florencia, 1265 – Rávena, 1321), político, diplomático y poeta. En 1302 tuvo que exiliarse de su patria y ciudad natal, y a partir de entonces se vio obligado a procurarse moradas y protectores provisionales, razón por la cual mantener el prestigio que le había procurado su Vida nueva (c. 1294) era de vital importancia. La Comedia, en la que trabajó hasta el final de su vida, fue la consecuencia de ese propósito, y con los siglos se convirtió en una de las obras fundamentales de la literatura europea. Además de su obra poética, Dante escribió tratados políticos, filosóficos y literarios, como Convivio, De vulgari eloquentiao y De Monarchia.

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    Reviews for Paradise

    4/5

    564 ratings32 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is an excellent audio book, that covers the work well, in a very easy to understand manner. Perfect to combine with reading Hollander and others prescribed for many courses.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was masterfully written! A true gem for anyone that enjoys depth in their plots! The characters come to life, they jump off the page. The entire story sucks you in and you feel as though you are struggling with these characters as they face the torments that haunt them in life, the gut-wrenching suffering will grip your soul, and leave you feeling thankful for everything that you have in your own life. It was a wonderful and thought-provoking read, written by an extraordinary author. This is what literature is supposed to be. This author bravely pioneers her own style, while at the same time maintaining all the necessary elements of a desirable book.
    • 5/5
      A stirring novel. One of America's best authors at the top of her game!
    • 4/5
      I love Morrison's prose; pure Americana, ironically. But as for her observations into African-American culture (with a cutting, sharp eye permitted only to an insider) she is unsurpassable!
    • 2/5
      Although I found the premise of the story interesting, I found the writing of it boring and difficult to get into. I almost quit reading it numerous times, but then I would come to a part that held some interest and I would fool myself into thinking that this was where the story would live up to its potential and the book would get good. In the end I really couldn't say that I enjoyed the book at all, or that the effort of struggling through it was worth it. Obvously many other readers have enjoyed this book so maybe it just was not my thing...my advice would be that if you find that you are forcing yourself to read it, don't bother. Just put it down and get on to better things.
    • 4/5
      This story's setting is in the fictitious town of Ruby, Oklahoma, the only all-black town in the state. Nearby, four women have come together and live in the "convent" not far from town. When the town suffers internal strife, the people look for a cause, and come to the conclusion that it must be the four women in the convent that are the cause of the tumult.
    • 4/5
      why i loved this book:some of the most beautiful poetic language ever used in fiction, and always intrinsic to the development of the novel, particularly in the creation of atmosphere. well-plotted out and interspersed with the legends and history of a people. a wealth of genuine and varied characters, many of whom you grow to care about despite their flaws.a lovely and perfectly rendered open ending.
    • 5/5
      Another wonderfully told story by one of my favorites. In a town named Ruby, Ohio, a community of Black families, lead by twin brothers settle into their own segregated paradise, hopefully never to be ruined by the outside world. As time progresses the younger generation of teenagers start to want to change things and the status quo is being questioned. At the same time there is an abandoned convent that once was used by nuns looking to educate the locals. Now it is home to a collection of women in need or desperation. Each chapter title is the name of one of the women. The novel begins with the murder of one of these women and then circulates back to provide the back story to why this carnage is happening. It is an amazing intertwined saga, one that does take some concentration or in my case book notes. However the journey is well worth the effort. Morrison is masterful with her language and her depiction of characters. I have read most of her book and look forward to her newest: Home.
    • 5/5
      Such a wonderful peace of literature. The narrator also dose a fantastic job in preform the poem. I will be recommending this as it is the best reading of Dante’s comidia I have fund so far. Thank you.??☺️??
    • 5/5
      Morrison requires you to work with her novels. And this is one where she really requires you to work with it. If you don't want to engage with a novel, then don't read Morrison. All in all, this was a unique, haunting story of prejudice, hatred, passion, love. As well as an often-downplayed critique of Christianity and patriarchy (if you're into that kind of stuff). What's funny is that Morrison will swear up and down that she's not a feminist, but so much of her work says otherwise. Not in that she 'dogs' men, but in her overwhelming concern for women. Many of her novels provide a critique of racist, patriarchal systems; and this novel is made richer for it. I also call Paradise, as well as Beloved, Morrison's "horror" novels. They're both pretty disturbing, creepy, and haunting.
    • 4/5
      Dante's books are a difficult read. These audiobooks make the reading more tolerable.
    • 1/5
      I didn't like this book at all. I couldn't follow the storyline and couldn't follow what the sequence of events were. The story jumps around so much that I couldn't keep track of the relationships and connections between people and places and times. Perhaps if I had ever spent some time in America and the American culture I might have understood the attitudes and motivations of the characters. However I could see little or inadequate reason or motivation for the terrible crime around which the novel is based. Perhaps Toni Morrison's other books will explain her high prizes but this one I had to force myself to finish.
    • 5/5
      (Review is of the Penguin Classics translation by Mark Musa, and applies to all three volumes, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio) I would not think to quibble with reviewing Dante himself - Dante is a master, and doesn't need my endorsement. I will say, however, that Musa's translation is an exceptionally sensitive one, and his comprehensive notes are an invaluable aid to the reader less familiar with Dante's broad spheres of reference. Musa is clearly a devoted scholar of Dante, and his concern for Dante's original meaning and tone is evident. This is one of the best translations of The Comedia available.
    • 4/5
      "They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." These powerful first lines set up this beautifully written and complex novel that explores what utopia means and the cost required to maintain it. Ruby is a small town, founded by black families who persevered through the roughest of times to make a home for themselves away from the threat of whites and the shame of being rejected by other blacks. Built 90 miles from anywhere, Ruby has been able to preserve and protect itself from the influence of the outside world, in addition to creating a complex mythology around its founding that sustains it. The families live in peace without threat of violence, drugs, television, or the miscreant behavior of mistreated children. Meanwhile, far on the outskirts of this small town is the Convent, once the home of nuns aiming to plant a seed of culture in young native girls, is now a last refuge for lost women, who have been shattered by their lives. Each reach the Convent, one way or another, by accident, and intending to stay only a few days, end up staying years. The novel interweaves the history of Ruby and its founding families and the lives of these women, and true to Morrison's style, nothing is simple, not people, or towns, or history, or stories. One of the things I remember from when I first read it in class was the question of who the "white girl" was. Race is an important question in the book, or I should say, it's an important question and focus for the townsfolk of Ruby, who pride themselves on being dark-skinned blacks, as opposed to the light skinned blacks who rejected them, not to mention the whites they were trying to escape and avoid. However, among the women who live at the Convent, the story is different. Race is less of an issue, and Morisson never makes it clear who the "white girl" is, and though we spent a lot of time in class trying to debating it, in the end, I think perhaps it doesn't matter, because these women (after a long false start), began to create a kind of paradise for themselves that was not at all built on race, but on something else entirely. Paradise is a rich, complex book with rich, complex write that you could pick up 50 times and come away with something new each time. It requires a certain amount of focus, of paying attention to get through, but it is absolutely worth the effort, and is a beautiful read.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite Toni Morrison novels. It's eerie, and at once both realistic and fabulous.
    • 4/5
      Heel anders van aard dan Inferno en purgatorio, bij wijlen onleesbaar. Maar toch een geweldige kracht door de meezuigende vaart, telkens in een hogere sfeer. Typerend is de blijvende kritische aard van Dante met steeds weer vragen en een sprankeltje twijfel.
    • 5/5
      I liked this very much. Possibly the Morrison book I liked best. There are probably a lot of biblical metaphors I'm still not getting, just like Toni Morrison's other books, but I think I could understand this book better. This is very good. Morrison won the Nobel Prize for a reason. This is the story of an ex-slave town that had to relocate (but some of them were also ex-lieutenant governors, they were not just ex-slaves, which is very bizarre to me. Ex-slaves were allowed to be lieutenant governors but that went downhill yet again when even more racism fired up. They weren't given so much power again for a long time. ) On their way, they tried to stay at a town with people that were not '8-rock' (a way for one character to describe how pure black the town is) and were rejected. They realized that not only were whites racist, but so were other black folk to shades of skin different than their own. When they eventually found their new home, the town of Ruby is unaccepting of anyone, until inevitable tragedy. Also near the town is an old convent, a house of women, that are trying to escape the brutality of the world, just like Ruby.There is much brutality, like any Toni Morrison book, but how can that be avoidable with such subject matter? There is just something in the way of the little details that make the story (ie: the words "Furrow of His Brow" on a community oven and how people in the town interpret what it means, and the many meanings that only Morrison could show it has). Everything ties together amazingly well. I also liked that at least one woman at the convent is white, which we learn on the first page, but we are never told which woman it is. It is so important to the characters, but Morrison is saying it shouldn't be for the reader, I think. It isn't shoved in your face : "This woman is black. This woman is white." The women's problems are universal and deserve sympathy that the town of Ruby never gives them. What happened to the town of Ruby wasn't right, but neither was their unacceptance of anyone else. They did the same and worse and ultimately became what they were trying to avoid.
    • 5/5
      Not the correct edition, since I don't know who the translator of my copy was. My apologies.

      For some reason, I found Paradise harder to read than the other two sections. Still, well worth the effort for the beautiful language, and how it makes other people's references to Dante fall into place!
    • 1/5
      A poet takes a tour of the heavens.1/4 (Bad).I gave up a little under halfway through. The first two books were boring, but they were at least about someone going somewhere and seeing things that were, in some sense, happening. This is just a list of dead people, many of whom give speeches.(Apr. 2022)
    • 2/5
      I found I enjoyed each of these sets of 36 cantos less and less. This last group just felt...mind-numbing. I'm trying to determine if they were the most overtly religious of the three sets.

      I liked the "spheres of heaven" aspect, but really the rest of it just left me cold.
    • 4/5
      He who casts off from shore to fish for truthwithout the necessary skill does not return the sameas he sets out, but worse, and all in vain.I enjoyed this final installment of the Divine Comedy, but I have to confess that it was my least favorite of the trilogy. The translation was nice, though lacking in some of the character and charm of Pinsky's Inferno and Merwin's Purgatorio (I didn't read the Hollanders' translation of the first two books). I just wasn't as engrossed in Dante's journey to the Empyrean. This is probably simply a failing on my part—or at least a mark against my literary sensibilities. While occasionally overwhelming and tedious, the notes were copious and often very helpful. It would be interesting to see another contemporary poet of the caliber of Pinsky or Merwin translate this final installment someday.
    • 3/5
      I wish I had liked this as much as I enjoyed the first two books of The Divine Comedy.
    • 1/5
      I listened to this book on CD instead of actually reading it. The version that I had had an explination at the beginning of each verse to help you understand and then read the verse.

      In this book, you travel with Dante as he assins to Heaven through the skies.

      I really did not liked this book. There is a lot of astrology in this book (which I did not expect). I did not really understand this book (I have several people tell me that I understand the other two parts of The Divine Comedy better because I live my life more on the sinful side **laughs**). I just did not like it. I would not recommend this, though others might understand it better than me.
    • 3/5
      I started this but couldn't finish it, I really need to get back to it. Unlike the other books, it just seemed like the personalities weren't as interesting ,and I guess the rewards just weren't as interesting as the punishments....
    • 5/5
      I have not read a huge number of translations of Dante, but of the one's that I've read Musa's is by far the best. Extremely readable but also quite complex. I would recommend this translation to anyone.
    • 4/5
      Heel anders van aard dan Inferno en purgatorio, bij wijlen onleesbaar. Maar toch een geweldige kracht door de meezuigende vaart, telkens in een hogere sfeer. Typerend is de blijvende kritische aard van Dante met steeds weer vragen en een sprankeltje twijfel.
    • 5/5
      (Review is of the Penguin Classics translation by Mark Musa, and applies to all three volumes, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio) I would not think to quibble with reviewing Dante himself - Dante is a master, and doesn't need my endorsement. I will say, however, that Musa's translation is an exceptionally sensitive one, and his comprehensive notes are an invaluable aid to the reader less familiar with Dante's broad spheres of reference. Musa is clearly a devoted scholar of Dante, and his concern for Dante's original meaning and tone is evident. This is one of the best translations of The Comedia available.
    • 4/5
      Although, the weakest of the three, Paradiso is still quite amazing for its portrayal of heaven in all its layered complexity. Naturally it is not as vexing or interesting at Purgatorio or Hell but still interesting to see who Dante wanted to place there. Plus, the ending is just hilarious. Again, this translation is great. The Hollander's have outdone themselves. I wonder what they do now.
    • 2/5
      Eh, this book was the least interesting of [book: The Divine Comedy] to me. Like [book: Purgatorio], it had some beautiful imagery, but just got pretty boring.
    • 3/5
      Of the 3 parts this is the least interesting. I know Dante comes from the 13th and 14th centuries and this may seem unfair but it left me with visions of Mussolini styled fascist spectacles. Too overwrought and too syncophantic for my blood--what is left is Dante's talent and beautiful use of language which is something but going to Hell and Purgatory is a lot more worthwhile than going to Heaven in this case.