Literary Conversations With Mama, Part III

From the trip:

Mama is reading Dante's The Inferno. She approached me with the book open to a page with an illustration on it.

RANDA: What the fuck is that?
MAMA: Dante's Map of hell.
RANDA: Whoa! It looked like an illustrated vagina from far away.
MAMA: What?
RANDA: Seriously. The rings of hell looked like rings of labia.
MAMA: Labias have rings?
RANDA: You know, folds, folds of labia.
MAMA: Really?
RANDA: Damn. That's one detailed map.
MAMA: You know Chopard? He's a famous jewelry designer.
RANDA: No.
MAMA: He ripped off the map of hell for watch and earring designs; they resemble several connecting circles.
RANDA: No way.
MAMA: Yes. Except, see this?

She points at the inner circle, labeled "Lucifer."

MAMA: He uses a diamond for the Lucifer circle.
RANDA: Gross.
MAMA: It is symbolic. And he calls the line “happy spirit.”

Mama knows about jewelry because she lives in Kuwait, where people's hobbies are limited to coffee drinking and jewelry buying.

MAMA: In the mall in Kuwait, there is a bridge, with Chopard written on it in giant letters.
RANDA: Yuck.
MAMA: It reminds me of the bridges in The Inferno.
RANDA: Oh, I bet!
MAMA: The ones over the chasms.
RANBDA: The chasms over the circles.
MAMA: Yes. When you sell many books, buy me some jewelry.
RANDA: Yeah, right.
MAMA: Remember when you won that writing contest at Sarah Lawrence and bought me a ring?
RANDA: Yes, it was classically Oedipal of me.
MAMA: No, it was sweet.
RANDA: OK.
MAMA: Buy me a happy spirit watch.
RABDA: You know I'm on food stamps, right?
MAMA: I am joking of course.
RANDA: Good.
MAMA: I am In the final circle of hell.
RANDA: That depressed?
MAMA: No. In The Inferno.
RANDA: What did you think of it?
MAMA: It is funny. But I have discovered I hate reading verse. It is boring. This is the last time I read anything in verse.
RANDA: But I noticed you have a copy of Macbeth in the bathroom.
MAMA: Yes, by the toilet. Where it belongs.