My first reaction to this book was “Not as great as The DaVinci
Code Mr. Brown, but certainly better than The Lost Symbol.” That being said I enjoyed it. It is exactly what
you expect from a Dan Brown book. A
little bit of mystery mixed with some education and a philosophical question.
The Inferno is the 4th installment of Robert Langdon,
Harvard symbologist. (An aside: every time
I read one of Langdon’s stories I desperately wish I was a symbologist and had
a memory as profound as his). Speaking
of memory, Langdon wakes up in Florence having suffered a head wound, resulting
in amnesia. From the beginning he is on the run from someone trying to kill
him; and luckily he has a female sidekick (surprise surprise) to aid him. The
only clue about the night before is a silver tube with something relating to
Dante’s Inferno and the whereabouts of a
biological time bomb. With his master
problem solving skills, Langdon travels through Florence and Venice in a race
against time to decipher Dante’s work to located said time bomb.
I liked the whole population problem issue Brown includes.
We as humans are growing substantially fast and outliving our resources. They
bring up a very real question about how the ways to deal with it are controversial
(understatement of the century). This is
the whole reason for the chase- to get the thing Zorborist ( a crazy mother of
a guy obsessed with Dante) planted before it is to late for the human population.
“If you
could flip a switch and half the population would die, would you? Of course
not. But what if you knew the whole human race would be extinct in 100 years if
you didn't? Then would you consider sacrificing half the population to save
humanity?” (deep hey?--what would you do? )
I did enjoy all of the
little plot and character twists. And they came at the right times. I admit, the first quarter of the book was a
little slow, and I seriously doubted Dan Browns talent. He gave you a LOT of information that really I
could give two shits about. Then it switched gears and grabbed my attention and
you realize this is why Dan Brown is so popular (other than writing about
controversial religious issues). He is a master of changing directions, and it
keeps you turning the pages- Hell at one point I almost spilt my drink in
disbelief. (It also could have been I was a few glasses of wine deep but that is besides the point).
The one thing I just wanted to yell was to get over your
stupid Mickey Mouse watch Robert. Enough already, buy another fricken watch! I also felt that the cave scence came uo way to much. You will know what I'm talking about when you read it.
All four of Dan Brown’s Langdon books follow the exact same
plot. You know there isn't going to be great character developments, but you do know what you are going to get - which is nice sometimes.
I give it 4
stars... a great start to the summer read list.
I haven’t had the chance to read Dante’s work; and this may
inspire me to. May. ( Probably not.)
Inferno: A Novel (Robert Langdon)
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