Rating: 4 stars

Three naked people condemned to live in dark confinement, with walls of cement and a floor of welded metal suspended over nothingness. With no concept of time or space or enough room to even sit down, the three stand endlessly on a metal grid that allows their liquefied bodily waste to escape, while pear nectar drips from the ceiling, covering the walls and themselves; providing the only nourishment and life sustenance.

Sage, the narrator, along with Henry Greene and Rose—so named for the “color” of their voices—laugh, cry, scream and love as they live their diminutive lives in a claustrophobic purgatory; constantly asking themselves and each other, why? Their only response: “It is what it is”.

When Sage manages to find a vulnerable spot on the wall, the three escape their confinement and end up in a cave filled with millions of people; only to lose each other in the throng. Working his way through the crowd, Sage finds a food trough where he must fight and claw his way to little, rock-hard, round biscuits stamped with an “H” which may stand for Heaven or Hell. Overcome with an incredible thirst, Sage is torn between finding his friends and moving forward to find water.

It is soon evident that the cave is an endless maze, making it impossible to retrace ones steps and revisit previous locations. The cave floor is covered in a black muck of hair, human waste and mud. The vast area seems to be illuminated by hundreds of little holes in the ceiling. When Sage sees a bat fly through one of the holes he wonders if it’s his way out or perhaps just another portal to an even worse existence, but he’s willing to find out.

Being a big fan of Graziano since reading The Love Song of Monkey, I couldn’t wait to start this little novella, confident that it would be packed with insightful prose and a slightly whacked point of view. I was not disappointed. From page one, I read The Divine Farce with a gnawing sense of apprehension and rapt fascination.

Graziano takes a Dante-esque approach to capture the metaphoric essence of humanity, that is equal parts macabre, surreal and deeply thought- provoking. As is his way, the author leaves plenty of room for interpretation as to whether The Divine Farce is a comment on society’s every man for himself mentality, or a quasi-optimistic look at the human struggle. The Divine Farce may be short in length, but its impact is endless.

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Paperback: 125 pages
Publisher: Leapfrog Press (November 1, 2009)
ISBN-13: 978-1935248040