I wonder if we should worry that when we die we’ll go to hell populated with all of our least noble desires – like a giant shopping mall with AC and fluorescent light that throws unflattering light on all different kinds of sweaters and socks, pods and pads, that used to promise something and now taunt us by indifference. And we, the cursed shoppers, will meander up and down the corridors and escalators, sickened by the chill and the light and the gaudy displays. Or rather, I worry that before we die we’ll be in hell populated by…well, you know. I worry that we might not deserve Dante’s hell.
1 comment:
Funny thing. I am rather more Sartrean. ( Or Ginsbergian----"America it is you and I who are perfect not the next world."). But I was recently re- reading Kundera's short story about hitch- hiking, where misunderstanding on many levels creates unhappiness. You make me think that Dante's god is a sort of perfect mind- reader, and, so, even his punishments represent knowledge---- of a sort you and I will never have. And then there is the artistic beauty of the portrayal of non- conversations in Elizabeth Bowen's "Death of the Heart"........again something that makes a life much less.....-- MarkL
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