Dante's Inferno: The Book of the Game of the Book
Posted 17 January 2010 in Gaming by Catriona
You know, I don’t often use this blog as a response to things I’ve read on the Internet: it’s generally much more solipsistic than that.
But, do you remember, once upon a time, when I linked to the news about Dante’s Inferno becoming a video game?
And then I linked to the news about the rebranding of Wuthering Heights in line with Twilight?
Well, this post is something of a meeting of those two: meet the official tie-in version of Dante’s Inferno.
Bear in mind, though Kotaku are calling this the “novelisation” of the game, it’s not: it’s the original poem, in a nineteenth-century translation, in that cover.
Yes, that’s a half-naked man with a cross painted on his chest.
Yes, he’s holding a scythe made out of vertebrae.
Yes, it does say that it “includes an exclusive 16-page full-colour insert and a special introduction from [noted Dante scholar] the game’s executive producer.”
Yes, it is translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which means many people who buy this on the basis of the cover are going to be awfully disappointed when they open it up and find the poem inside.
Yes, it is tagged “the literary classic that inspired the epic video game from Electronic Arts.”
And, no: this is not a joke: here’s the Amazon page.
I shall leave the last word, as always, to Penny Arcade.
(But, just secretly? I almost think this would be worth having on my shelf just to boggle at occasionally. After all, I don’t have the Longfellow translation . . .)