海角大神

'In A Dark Wood' takes a professor of Italian from inferno to paradiso

With the help of Dante and his redoubtable Italian-American mother, a widower and brand new father finds his way back to the light.

鈥淚n the middle of our life鈥檚 journey, I found myself in a dark wood.鈥� The opening lines of Dante鈥檚 鈥淒ivine Comedy鈥� are among the most famous in the canon of Western literature. For Joseph Luzzi, they were also his bread and butter, the text he had studied, parsed, and then shared with students as a professor of Italian at Bard College in Annandale, N.Y. Little did Luzzi know 鈥� as a young and enthusiastic teacher 鈥� that one day he would be forced to live them.

In his engaging memoir In A Dark Wood, Luzzi explains how that day came in November 2007 when his wife, Katherine, eight months pregnant with their child, was killed in a car accident. Their daughter 鈥� a tiny infant he named Isabel 鈥� survived, and Luzzi was stunned to realize that, on a day that had started out like any other, 鈥渂y聽noon, I was a widower and a father.鈥�

It will come as no surprise to readers to learn that Luzzi was nearly undone by grief. In a desperate state he turned to the two bedrocks of his life 鈥� his Italian-American family and Dante. Utterly unable to imagine how he could care for his infant daughter, Luzzi brought her to his childhood home in Westerly, R.I.

鈥淣ow I was about to relinquish Katherine鈥檚 maternal role to a phalanx of capable Calabrian matrons: my sisters commandeered by generalissima Yolanda Luzzi. She had six children and, with Isabel, thirteen grandchildren. Now, at the age of seventy-seven, she was becoming a mother once again.鈥�

Luzzi鈥檚 plan for himself was to continue working (even though his college urged him to take time off) and in fact to work harder than ever, throwing himself into a grinding program of writing and studying, and making a punishing commute from New York to Rhode Island twice a week (a routine his boss characterized as 鈥渉arebrained鈥�). At his mother鈥檚 house Luzzi slept in the bedroom next to Isabel鈥檚 but always made excuses to leave her care to the only-too-capable hands of his mother. He spent his non-work hours playing tennis and looking for a new love.

It was a recipe for misery. That鈥檚 where Dante came in. Luzzi, in exile from the life he had loved as Katherine鈥檚 husband, took a harder look at Dante, living in permanent exile from his beloved city of Florence.聽

Dante, he realized, began to flourish again only after he relinquished the dream of returning to Florence. In the first years of exile, Dante 鈥渨as still wandering around Tuscany on the outskirts of Florence鈥� gazing down on it longingly from far-off hills, suffering the 鈥減aralysis of self-pity.鈥�

As he read 鈥淭he Divine Comedy鈥� again with fresh eyes, Luzzi began to see that 鈥渋t鈥檚 not about how things actually turn out鈥� but rather about 鈥渉ow you own a decision and a situation.鈥� When faced with tragedy, Dante was forced to journey from the 鈥渟elf-pity of hell to the free will of heaven鈥� 鈥� a journey Luzzi slowly began to embrace as his own.

Luzzi鈥檚 2014 memoir 鈥淢y Two Italies鈥� sketches the cultural and personal confusion he felt growing up. His parents were hardworking Italian-American immigrants marked by la miseria of life in Calabria, their brutal and impoverished homeland.聽

But when Luzzi spent his junior year of college in Florence, he became intoxicated by the Renaissance splendor of Dante and Michelangelo. Which Italy 鈥� the brilliance of the north or the poverty of the south 鈥� was his true heritage? Confusion only increased as he went on to graduate from Yale University, a universe away from his parental home with its red shag carpet on the floor and 鈥淓verybody Loves Raymond鈥� on the television screen.

Losing Katherine, however, thrust Luzzi firmly back into the rhythms of his former life in Westerly. This time, his grief, leavened by his renewed reading of Dante, led him to a higher vantage point and a more unselfed sense of love. There, he finally found the place where his two Italies meet. If Dante is his guide, so is his mother, and Luzzi is now able to feel awe for 鈥渢he centuries of Calabrian maternal wisdom Yolanda Luzzi carried in her five-foot two-inch and one-hundred-and-ten-pound frame.鈥澛�

In his dark period, Luzzi鈥檚 grief can feel repetitive. Starting on the first day of his widowhood, Luzzi agonizes over his failure to embrace his daughter 鈥� and yet for years does little more than lament.聽

But Luzzi鈥檚 relentless self-examination keeps him honest. He knows that he has often been selfish, and he offers few excuses. The journey he makes 鈥� from being a good man to becoming a better one 鈥� is a quest so universal that we can all find ourselves in his struggle. And that includes Dante, who surely would have been pleased to know that, centuries after his death, his verse would still be illuminating the stairway to heaven.聽

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor鈥檚 books editor.