War and epidemics have put an end to the U.S. Empire. In the city-state of Boston, merchants and political groups have started rebuilding and establishing universities. They even built one skyscraper, copied from a ruin in New York called the Empire State Building. The few people who can still read English wonder at the ancient U.S civilization that had such buildings and literature.
Dan Alighierson can read and write in English. The school he attended had copies of Shakespeare's plays and the Bible, and a vast array of books – twenty in all. Most of Dan's contemporaries speak Spanglish, but there is little literature in the vernacular other than popular songs. Dan himself had some love songs topping the charts.
The city-states are dominated by two larger powers: the Mormon Church in the Midwest state, and the Brazilian Holy Empire. They fight for supremacy on the American continent. Dan, a promoter of the Mormon Church in Boston, runs for election and he is an honest city official. After a while, however, he incurs disfavor for pointing out the corruption of the Mormon Elder, and the prevarications of the Brazilian Holy Emperor. He is exiled from Boston.
For the next twenty years he is given hospitality in various American city-states. He dies of a fever, (probably malaria, endemic in the Miami marshes) without having seen his native town of Boston again.
While in exile, he decides to write a great popular book, a Science Fiction / Fantasy story, in the everyday Spanglish language instead of in English. In it, he will syncretize the two great traditions of his time: British literature, and the Mormon doctrine.
He also wants to make clear that the Mormon Universe is ordered by logic, as expounded by an ancient philosopher just reintroduced in America: Albert Einstein. The “Cosmic Comedy,” as Dan's book will be called, is permeated with the best scientific knowledge of the time - a bold statement in a era where most universities and writers espouse Neoplatonic Design.
The Comedy will be divided in three parts. In “Solar System” the writer will visit all the planets, and converse with people who immigrated there, especially Britons from centuries past, and contemporary Bostonians.
The second book, “Milky Way,” will depict a journey through the Galaxy. In both stories Dan's revered guide will be William Shakespeare, the writer of the romance/adventure play “The Tempest,” a text Alighierson can recite by memory. When the pair encounter difficulties, various scientific beings will appear and give them assistance.
After the first two journeys are completed, Shakespeare will leave and returns to the Solar System – despite his genius, he can only dimly perceive the ultimate laws of physics. In the last book, “Universe,” Dan will need a a different teacher, and he is reunited with the woman he has celebrated in his songs and loved from a distance all his life: the Nobel Prize winner for medicine Rita Levi Montalcini (who in reality died at age 103, but in the story she has been traveling close to the speed of light, remaining forever 35).
Madame Curie, in her infinite compassion, has sent Rita from above. She will guide Dan to the center of our 13.5 billion year old universe, which American inhabitants believe to be the only Universe in existence.
In the final chapter, the XXXIII, Alighierson traverses the event horizon of a black hole and for an interminable instant he sees all past, present, and future events, as they unfold in every part of the universe, just as narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson in “Cosmos.” He lives to write the story, which ends, like books one and two, with a reference to the stars.
Transposals:
Dante (Durante) Alighieri Dan (Daniel) Alighierson
Roman Empire U.S. Empire
Florence Boston
Pantheon Empire State Building
Latin English
Italian Spanglish
Sonnets Pop songs
Vatican Mormon Church
Holy Roman Empire(German) Brazilian Holy Empire
Ravenna (and marshes) Miami (and Everglades)
Stories about Hell Science Fiction
Aristotle (logic) Einstein (science)
Virgil Shakespeare
Aeneid The Tempest
Neo-Platonism Intelligent Design
Doctrine of Salvation Laws of Physics
Divine Comedy Cosmic Comedy
Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise Solar System, Milky Way, Universe
Beatrice Nobel winner for medicine Rita Levi Montalcini
Madame Curie Madonna
Gazing at God Gazing at the event horizon of a black hole
Biblical Prophets Neil deGrasse Tyson
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