Saenz is an award winning poet, writer, professor and painter. He was the fourth of seven children and was brought up in a traditional Mexican-American Catholic family. If you really want to excite students (or yourself!) about the works of Dante Alighieri, then play Dante’s Inferno the video game.īenjamin Alire Saenz was born in 1954 in Old Picacho, a small farming village outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-two miles north of the U.S./Mexico border. eHow offers several ways to ‘get through’ Inferno including a photo essay, movie, audio lecture which analyzes the poem and even an online reading of the poem itself. There is no better pairing for this book that Dante’s Inferno. In which the human soul is cleansed of sin, My talent’s little vessel lifts her sails,Īnd what I sing will be that of the second kingdom, They meet at a swimming pool and take the plunge into growing up. Our characters, Dante and Ari, read like two 15-year-old boys who are at the end of the purest of times for boys: they can like their parents, verbally express whatever comes to their mind, touch and even wonder. Rather, he craftily builds layer upon layer of meaning to the story. Saenz builds his story around ancient philosophers without weighing it down. I think when Ari and Dante developed their friendship, they realized a fourth level that even these two great philosophers missed. Aristotle, in his scientifically ordered mind described three types of friendship. Do the geography: it doesn’t quite make sense.Īnd the universe? Together and alone, the boys explore and discover mind altering substances, girls, artists, poets, work, pain and friendship. One small, small thing I couldn’t understand in the story is why Dante’s family, when returning from Chicago to El Paso decided to drive through Washington D.C. As the bones begin healing, we see relationships begin the slow process of healing as well. There’s a discussion in the hospital with a doctor that relates to readers the Aristotelian concept that no part can ever be well unless the whole is well. Such keen imagery is straight from Purgatorio, as is the importance of art as a reproduction of nature water and rain Dante’s laughter Ari’s fever and more.Ī crucial scene in the story is when Ari’s legs are broken in a tragic car accident. He is fascinated with birds and hates shoes. He actually admits to liking his parents, a true rarity in YA fiction. Watching his transition to adulthood is not easy as we’re taken through what feels like hell to him.ĭante, who also has no friends, wants to connect to his Mexican heritage. It’s his mother, a teacher, who pulls him out. While it’s easy to explain his lack of articulation through his father, it would be more accurate to simply realize that this 15 year is still a boy who is lacking the ability to reason out and explain why he does what he does. Both boys have been given a strong moral foundation by their families, delivering the groundwork of rules and order that Aristotle (the philosopher) believed were necessary for humans to attain reason.Īri has no friends and is often unwilling or unable to talk about things that really are important to him. Ari and Dante meet one summer at a local swimming pool and while they quickly and easily become friends, they both also are caught up on their perceived aloneness. Title: Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universeĭate: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers Feb, 2012Īristotle and Dante Discover the secrets of the universe is a philosophical tale of two boys coming of age. "I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies for the hardest victory is over self." ~Aristotle
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