Rating: 
Summary: A genius at work!
Review: One of the all-time nastiest, darkest, funniest and smartest gritty crime/caper stories, one you'll race thru faster than you wish. And all over a book! the characters stick with you, the narrator is excellent, and you really dont know where it's gonna go as you read it. This is Tosches' best book, and that's saying a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Zeus or Deus--defy convention; personify Dante
Review: Personifying Dante, Tosches employs unique Socratic methods that are quite Hegelian, ploying Ethereal and Sacred Devotion aside the crimes of a conventional Lucifer. Dynamics of his entire story lingering as Confessions and Sequentia that The Council of Trent surely has disguised, the power and true origin of Zeus that Tosches likens to "Deus" strikes Inquisition with attractive authenticity.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply, filth
Review: Rather than go into a long review, I will keep it simple. This book ended-up in my trash bin after the first chapter. In the Hand of Dante has absolutely nothing redeeming about it whatsoever and is just pure trash.
Rating:
Summary: Too vindictive for me
Review: Sorry, I couldn't make it past author's tirade about the decline of the publishing industry. Everything he says is probably true, but why does this have to be inflicted on his readers, who are supposedly paying him for the privilege of reading his work? And why does he in fact include his readers in his tirade? I say right back to you, Nick Tosches, "F**k you!".
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, but not for the timid.
Review: Suffice to say, this isn't your typical book. Tosches is something totally different all together. He is such an amazing and talented writer, I would bet my life that he could take the take the story of the three-little-pigs, and weave it into a work of art. However, due to his obvious ego, he certainly doesn't give a damn about his readers. Sure, he appreciates those that enjoy his work, but he couldn't care less about those that don't. This is obvious in the first chapter. It seems as though he did everything he could to repulse and offend the reader -- just to see if that person was a true fan, and if he or she had the guts to stick around for more. I can easily picture Tosches himself saying, "You can't take it? Get the hell out."Give the book a chance. The first chapter is harsh, but the story is genius.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing invective
Review: That title is the Merriam-Webster definition of the word "horrendous" and it aptly describes this book. Undoubtedly a talented writer, Tosches is so enamored with himself that he pollutes what could have been a great story with what can only be called "omni-loathing" -- one of his personas despises everything and everyone and his other(s) simply love himself so much that the story of Dante is lost and the story of Louie and "Nick" and the other scum Tosches apparently associates with becomes simply unreadable. Profanity and punditry aside (although it is difficult to put such vast amounts of it aside), this book is simply terrible and, for the fleeting glimpses of beuaty that manage to rise through the rest of his vitriol, a tragic failure.
Tosches did accomplish one thing with this book and after reading it I did something that I have never before done - threw it in the garbage where it belongs.
Rating:
Summary: horrendous: perfectly horrid : DREADFUL
Review: That title is the Merriam-Webster definition of the word "horrendous" and it aptly describes this book. Undoubtedly a talented writer, Tosches is so enamored with himself that he pollutes what could have been a great story with what can only be called "omni-loathing" -- one of his personas despises everything and everyone and his other(s) simply love himself so much that the story of Dante is lost and the story of Louie and "Nick" and the other scum Tosches apparently associates with becomes simply unreadable. Profanity and punditry aside (although it is difficult to put such vast amounts of it aside), this book is simply terrible and, for the fleeting glimpses of beuaty that manage to rise through the rest of his vitriol, a tragic failure.
Tosches did accomplish one thing with this book and after reading it I did something that I have never before done - threw it in the garbage where it belongs.
Rating:
Summary: Good Idea--Terrible Execution
Review: The idea of this novel was why I bought a copy of it--the discovery, by an aging priest-librarian of the Vatican, of the original manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy written in Danti own hand. Unfortunately, the book rambles excessively and at times is incoherent. By page 90 or so the author gets into a long-winded, self-absorbed, masterbatory diatribe about stupid editors and incompetent publishers--the author's sour grapes no doubt. Don't waste your time!
Rating:
Summary: Zeus or Deus?
Review: The Mafia that had banished Dante from Florence was far more decadent and treacherous than the Americanized one Tosches portrays: Evoking the Conflict and Spirit of Dante, Tosches employs unique Socratic methods that are quite Hegelian, the synthesis of Ethereal and Sacred realms aery about antithetical concepts, crimes of a conventional, most carnal Lucifer. Dynamics of the entire story lingering as Confessions and Sequences that, since Dante's lifetime, the Council of Trent, for example, surely has disguised, the power and the true origin of Zeus that Tosches likens to "Deus" strike Inquisition with attractive authenticity, a silva sacra emanated as Divine Release from the Sala delle Udienzo Paolo Sei - the Vatican, and the Arsenal Collection of Great Britain.
About gigantomachia, dementia and inane sufferings of earthly giants, Tosches personifies Dante through reflections of a sacerdotum, transcendent revelations - the pursuit of effective meditation and consolation. "As a myriad of sharded rainbows," earth is tinged by decay -the gangrene of the first person's "metacarpal thenar" struggling with "saining fingers," pondering the Zeus who "took no part in the Trojan War, "; ruminating on the deus of beatific winds, cultural and phonetic derivations and similarities about Isadore, the cabbalah, the Bazuku Book of the Mass, lingua volgare, Sophia, Serapis, Augustine, Yahweh, Isis, Niu-t'ou Fa-Yung-concepts bound by palpable struggles, antithetical relief inherent through sufferings effected by the crime-infesting transients, thoughtless Louie and his Mob, dead culprits who murdered that which Tosches seeks-a sacerdotum and Essence of the Golfo di Castellamare-a Divine Comedy: Dominos Filus, Spiritus Sanctus, the language of Jerome.
Porcu Madonna: the fragment of a brassiere is all that remains of the Maternal Milk that nurtures flesh doomed to the wind, celestial airs - veni vidi vici; Cerano nove cieli: non sfere celesti, ma cieli della terra, cieli di nube e di soffio d'aria. Prepare for that heavy OED and Latin, Italian, Tuscan, French, Greek, Hebrew, and German Langenscheidt. From Tosches' first chapter, one will require foreign dictionaries and pens as the author continues to evoke and personify one of profundity whose sympathies for the White Guelf [Bianchi] factions compelled the Black Guelf to banish him from his homeland of Florence, a humiliating pain--that which Tosches meticulously ponders, evokes, and challenges as he emulates the consciousness of a determined poet, politician, and philosopher.
Mobs carrying torches had brutally expelled Dante from Florence where he had been born and where he had been educated in Greek and Roman Classics as well as Christian Literature. Crimes committed by greedy infidels and emperors during Dante's times were indeed more concentrated and iniquitous than are those that Tosches portrays. Louis, Black Joe, and Lefty represent an Americanized Italian mofia, barbarians that threatened Dante's life with fire for encouraging Diplomacy, the pacifying of rivalry for supreme political power-the devastating wrath about caesars and Papacy. The Logos and Faith Tosches surveys--the mystery of inspiratione spiritus furoris, res incesso humilus, successu excelsa et velata --must expel fragmenting humus through the gangrene of the metacarpal thenar which, most painfully, is in the HAND of DANTE.
Rating:
Summary: Zeus or Deus? Defy convention; evoke exiled Dante
Review: The Mofia that had banished Dante from Florence was far more decadent and treacherous than the Americanized one Tosches portrays: Evoking the Conflict and Spirit of Dante, Tosches employs unique Socratic methods that are quite Hegelian, the synthesis of Ethereal and Sacred realms aery about antithetical concepts, crimes of a conventional, most carnal Lucifer. Dynamics of the entire story lingering as Confessions and Sequences that, since Dante's lifetime, the Council of Trent, for example, surely has disguised, the power and the true origin of Zeus that Tosches likens to "Deus" strike Inquisition with attractive authenticity, a silva sacra emanated as Divine Release from the Sala delle Udienzo Paolo Sei - the Vatican, and the Arsenal Collection of Great Britain.
About gigantomachia, dementia and inane sufferings of earthly giants, Tosches personifies Dante through reflections of a sacerdotum, transcendent revelations - the pursuit of effective meditation and consolation. "As a myriad of sharded rainbows," earth is tinged by decay -the gangrene of the first person's "metacarpal thenar" struggling with "saining fingers," pondering the Zeus who "took no part in the Trojan War, "; ruminating on the deus of beatific winds, cultural and phonetic derivations and similarities about Isadore, the cabbalah, the Bazuku Book of the Mass, lingua volgare, Sophia, Serapis, Augustine, Yahweh, Isis, Niu-t'ou Fa-Yung-concepts bound by palpable struggles, antithetical relief inherent through sufferings effected by the crime-infesting transients, thoughtless Louie and his Mob, the dead culprits who murdered that which Tosches seeks-a sacerdotum and Essence of the Golfo di Castellamare-a Divine Comedy: Dominos Filus, Spiritus Sanctus, the language of Jerome.
Porcu Madonna: the fragment of a brassiere is all that remains of the Maternal Milk that nurtures flesh doomed to the wind, celestial airs - veni vidi vici; Cerano nove cieli: non sfere celesti, ma cieli della terra, cieli di nube e di soffio d'aria. Prepare for that heavy OED and Latin, Italian, Tuscan, French, Greek, Hebrew, and German Langenscheidt. From Tosches' first chapter, one will require foreign dictionaries and pens as the author continues to evoke and personify one of profundity whose sympathies for the White Guelf [Bianchi] factions compelled the Black Guelf to banish him from his homeland of Florence, a humiliating pain--that which Tosches meticulously ponders, evokes, and challenges as he emulates the consciousness of a determined poet, politician, and philosopher.
Mobs carrying torches had brutally expelled Dante from Florence where he had been born and where he had been educated in Greek and Roman Classics as well as Christian Literature. Crimes committed by greedy infidels and emperors during Dante's times were indeed more concentrated and iniquitous than are those that Tosches portrays. Louis, Black Joe, and Lefty represent an Americanized Italian mofia, barbarians that threatened Dante's life with fire for encouraging Diplomacy, the pacifying of rivalry for supreme political power-the devastating wrath about caesars and Papacy. The Logos and Faith Tosches surveys--the mystery of inspiratione spiritus furoris, res incesso humilus, successu excelsa et velata --must expel fragmenting humus through the gangrene of the metacarpal thenar which, most painfully, is in the HAND of DANTE.
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