Inferno by Ivan Arguelles (imagine 2 dots over the 'u', I forget the code for that) arrived a couple days ago, Beatitude Press 2005. Arguelles' work is intense, highly wound up but scholarly as well. there's an intersection of the sacred and the profane that's rather startling, Madonna as in Mother of God and as Material Girl. there's a centripetal force to his writing, and expansive outreach at the same time as an inward pull. John Bennett supplies a really nifty intro, to the book and to Arguelles, much better than I'm doing here. I'll just add that Arguelles is a writer who can negotiate the whole Inferno/Purgatory/Paradise trip (the other 2 parts exist but I don't think they're published yet). Bennett also did the cover art, with his totally whack calligraphy & rubber stamp wildness.