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Romanian, if Romanians in Romania can’t?
    Paul Celan wrote in German, Benny added, but German was his mother tongue.
    Right! I said.
    But still, he said, imagine!
    We sipped our drinks, imagining.
    So what do you know about his project? This would be his first since, what?
    Nonsense Syllables .
    And his first “story.”
    Yes, I said.
    What is this Vita Nuova business?
    Early work of Dante, I said. Written in 1294, before the Comedy , before his exile from Florence. Really, you don’t know it?
    Benny laughed. Not my cup of tea, exactly.
    Vita Nuova traces the evolution of Dante’s love for Beatrice and his poetic response to that love. He includes relevant poems, which he explicates ad nauseum.
    For example?
    For example: I was thinking of the blessed Beatrice when I swooned and had a vision of the blessed Beatrice and out popped a sonnet about the blessed Beatrice, this one here, in which I swoon, have a vision, and write a sonnet about the blessed Beatrice. Story, poem, explication.
    Benny laughed again.
    My case is resting, he said. But it’s not just poems and explication—you said it’s a story?
    After a fashion, I said. Not quite as gripping as the Divine Comedy , but it has something of a “hero’s journey” structure.
    I described to Benny what I considered to be Vita Nuova ’s mythic structure (but refrained from offering a copy of the essay in which I elaborated this theory): Call, Threshold, Deception, Muse, Death, Test, and Return. The call identifies Dante as the ur-hero of all story: Adam called by Eve to taste; Sam Spade called by the blonde to solve a mystery. Sometimes the hero is reluctant: happy in his easy chair, he tries to avoid the call, he hides out or runs away. Odysseus feigns madness to avoid the draft; Rick tells Ilsa he’s a sideliner.
    The hero eventually has to come around, though, or there can be no story. He makes his commitment, crosses the threshold, and thrusts himself into story, where, aided by mentors, inspired by beauties, deceived by tricksters, challenged by opponents, he makes allies, surmounts obstacles, faces death, and is reborn to face his final test. Victorious, he returns to Kansas bringing exactly what his people need—the elixir, the golden crown. Sometimes he also gets the girl. Not something I made up, I added.
    But eccentric when applied to Dante, Benny said.
    Not commonplace, I agreed. Especially when you consider that Dante’s hero battles sin, not dragons.
    What kind of sin? Something juicy?
    Just your garden variety, live-your-life-you’re-bound-to-sin kind of thing.
    So young Mr. Dante is a hero in this book about poetry. Can a book about poetry have a hero?
    He is a hero, in his own mind! He’s called by love to be a poet, though of course he loves from afar. He writes poems, which of course come up short because nothing is good enough for Beatrice. He tries to contemplate her perfections, can’t always manage it, gets advice, the advice changes—then Beatrice dies, and he’s thrown off course—maybe he even despairs. He finally has a vision of Beatrice in heaven—an ineffable vision—that sets him up for life—aesthetically and, we assume, spiritually. That’s enough to make him a hero, right? A man on a lonely journey toward the good, trying to live his life right? A pilgrim hero!
    Coming soon to a theater near you!
    Hah! Though his victory is just as inevitable as that of any dragon slayer. Redemption is always the light at the end of the tunnel, isn’t it? Even when Dante strays, you know his narrative will keep him on the straight and narrow …
    Sadly, we no longer believe in such a thing, Benny replied.
    The straight-line narrative to salvation has been discredited, yes.
    By Romei, among others. So what’s Romei want with it? He doesn’t go in much for story.
    Or tradition. And now he’s taking on the Big Guy.
    If you take on a Big Guy, you take on his Big Work, no?
    Right, I said, the Divine Comedy . You admit you’ve reached the