Inferno - Dan Brown

2013, 611 pages. Book 4 (out of 5) in the Robert Langdon series. New Author? : No. Genres: Thriller, Historical Fiction, Puzzle Solving. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

It's great to be in Italy! Robert Langdon has visited here a couple of times in years past, and he has thoroughly enjoyed sightseeing in Florence, his present location. There are all sorts of museums, cathedrals, and palaces to explore, many dating back to the 13th century, when city-stares like Florence and Venice were at the height of their power.

Alas, Langdon is currently in a hospital room, under medical observation. The nurses and doctors tell him a bullet grazed his head and he's lucky to be alive.

That probably explains why he doesn't remember how he got to Italy, nor why he even decided to travel here. According to the medical people, the trauma of a brain injury from being shot in the head often induces amnesia, sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent.

But it doesn't explain why someone is trying to kill him. Nor why someone, presumably the same gunman, has just burst into his hospital room and shot one of the doctors dead, simply because he made the mistake of getting between Langdon and the shooter.

What’s To Like...

Inferno is the fourth book in Dan Brown's fantastic thriller series featuring lecturer and historian Robert Langdon. Book 2 in the series is the mega-bestseller The Da Vinci Code, the book that got me hooked on Dan Brown. Here, as always, the action starts immediately, the thrills are non-stop, and our hero has to solve a bunch of riddles and save the world, all the while avoiding getting killed by one or more trained hitmen.

You can tell that the author meticulously researched the three settings in the story: Florence, Venice, and Istanbul. I felt like if ever I found myself lost in any of those cities, I could use this book as a map.

The book's title is of course a reference to Dante's Inferno, which I've never read. A lot of the puzzles that Langdon has to unravel are based on that classic, and the author works a synopsis into the storyline via a backstory and one of Langdon's lectures. You'll learn a little bit of Italian along the way, and a smattering of Turkish. I found the etymology of Purgatory and quarantine to be quite fascinating, so too my discovery that "H+" has a second meaning besides the chemist's "hydrogen ion".

The 611 pages are divided into a whopping 104 chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue, so there's always a good place to stop for the night. I found it to be a fast read, but not necessarily an easy one since there's a lot "tour guide" type of descriptions of the settings.

There are plenty of plot twists over the last quarter of the book, which is something I think Dan Brown is a master of. The ending is a mixed bag. On one hand it's unconventional, and it was refreshing to read something other than the usual "just in the nick of time" thriller ending. OTOH, a lot of the plot threads are left dangling, and unless Book 5 in this series resolves those threads, the ending here leaves you wondering what happens next.

Kewlest New Word ...

Quatrefoil (n.) : an ornamental design of four lobes or leaves, as used in architectural tracery, resembling a flower or four-leaf clover. (Google-image it.)

Ratings…

Amazon: 4.1/5 based on 30,644 ratings.

Goodreads: 3.85/5 based on 475,002 ratings and 37,222 reviews

Excerpts...

When Langdon arrived at the event, he was met by the conference director and ushered inside. As they crossed the lobby, Langdon couldn't help but notice the five words painted in gargantuan letters across the back wall: WHAT IF GOD WAS WRONG?

"It's a Lukas Troberg," the director whispered. "Our newest art installation. What do you think?"

Langdon eyed the massive text, uncertain how to respond. "Um ... his brushstrokes are lavish, but his command of the subjunctive seems sparse. (pg. 104)

“I'm in some trouble, Jonas, and I need a favor." Langdon's voice sounded tense. "It involves your corporate NetJets card."

"NetJets?" Faukman gave an incredulous laugh. "Robert, we're in book publishing. We don't have access to private jets."

"We both know you're lying, my friend."

Faukman sighed. "Okay, let me rephrase that. We don't have access to private jets for authors of tomes about religious history. If you want to write Fifty Shades of Iconography, we can talk." (pg. 344)

“I've heard of denial ... but I don't think it exists." (pg. 279)

There are a couple quibbles, but no show stoppers. First off, you'd better love chase scenes, because the one here goes on for the first 450 pages, and that's literally 3/4 of the book. Similarly, you'd better like info dumps, because there are a slew of them here about the three settings, their history, their buildings, and the various artists who lived there in the Middle Ages.

The R-rated stuff is pretty much limited to a smattering of cusswords. I counted ten in the first 20% of the book, and these are of the milder ilk.

Lastly and leastly, the main storyline is about a plague and this being 2020, the last thing I wanted was a story that would increase my pandemic hysteria. But this book was published in 2013, long before the term "Covid-19" existed, so Dan Brown can hardly be blamed for my bad timing in reading this.

If you can make it through the seemingly never-ending chase scene, you are rewarded with 250 pages of as good of a thriller as anyone can write. And even if Inferno doesn't quite measure up to The da Vinci Code, well, so what? I for one am glad Dan Brown made the attempt.

7½ Stars. Dan Brown endures a lot of flak spouted by people who consider him a hack writer. A smidgen of it might be justified, but it's more than offset by his abundant talent for penning exciting stories. More than 475,000 readers have left a rating on this book at Goodreads, and more than 37,000 of those took the time to leave a review. He may not be Shakespeare, but there are lots of people, including me, who are drawn to his books.

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown

   2009; 639 pages.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Since before the start of this blog, actually.  Book #3 (out of 5) in the Robert Langdon series.  Genre: Action-Thriller; Mystery; Puzzle-Solving.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    For Robert Langdon, it was great to be back in Washington DC.  Especially since it was an all-expenses-paid trip, courtesy of his lifelong mentor and friend, Peter Solomon, who's invited him to be a guest speaker for the night.  In the US Capitol building, no less.

    Of course, it was all on very short notice.  Something about the originally scheduled speaker suddenly being unable to make it.  So Langdon was kind of a back-up option.  Still, having a private jet pick him up and fly him  to DC was quite the experience.  As was a sleek Lincoln Town Car limousine waiting to whisk him from Dulles Airport to the Capitol.

    That was when things got just a little bit wonky.  Because when the limousine dropped him off, and Robert Langdon made his way to Statuary Hall, where the lecture was to be held, it was dark.  And empty.  And in checking with the Capitol officials, there was no lecture of any kind scheduled for tonight in the building.  Maybe this was somebody’s idea of a joke.

    But if so, the jokester had sunk a lot of money into pulling it off.

What’s To Like...

    The Lost Symbol is equal parts action, intrigue, and puzzle-solving, and delivers plenty of each from the get-go.  Dan Brown switches up the POV’s to keep things hopping at a crisp pace.  There aren’t a lot of characters to follow in this 600+ page book, so the ones that are here get developed nicely.  I was particularly intrigued by Inoue Sato; you could never be 100% sure exactly whose side she was on.

    There’s only one setting for the book : Washington DC.  Indeed, towards the end of the book (page 622), Robert Langdon remarks that it’s only been ten hours since he landed in DC.  So the book's entire time frame is amazingly short.

    If you’re fascinated by the Masonic Order, with their 33 hierarchy levels and their rumored metaphysical secrets, this is the book for you.  Ditto if you’re curious as to how Particle Physics might dovetail with ancient Mysticism.  And of course, there are a slew of puzzles that need solving to save the world.

    With 134 chapters to span the 639 pages, there’s always a convenient place to stop reading for the night.  I was happy to see my Gnostics get worked into the story, as well as a brief plug for blogging.  Even Aleister Crowley gets a brief mention (who?), and it was kewl to see Melancolia 1 here too.  The acronym “TLV” was new to me (it means something quite different if you work in Regulatory Affairs), and it was fun to learn the origin of the word “sincerely”.

    There’s a little bit of cussing, and of course a requisite amount of violence and killing.  This is a standalone novel, as well as part of the Robert Langdon series.

Kewlest New Word...

Suffumigation (n.) : the burning of substances (such as incense) to produce fumes as part of some magical rituals.

Others: Putti (n., plural).

Excerpts...

    One mortal man had seen Mal’akh naked, eighteen house earlier.  The man had shouted in fear.  “Good God, you’re a demon!”

    “If you perceive me as such,” Mal’akh had replied, understanding as had the ancients that angels and demons were identical – interchangeable archetypes – all a matter of polarity: the guardian angel who conquered your enemy in battle was perceived by your enemy as a demon destroyer.  (pg. 14)

    As a young girl, Katherine Solomon had often wondered if there was life after death.  Does heaven exist?  What happens when we die?  As she grew older, her studies in science quickly erased any fanciful notions of heaven, hell, or the afterlife.  The concept of “life after death,” she came to accept, was a human construct … a fairy tale designed to soften the horrifying truth that was our mortality.

    Or so I believed …  (pg. 487)

 “Death is usually an all-or-nothing thing!”  (pg. 47)

    For all the thrills and spills in The Lost Symbol, there were some weaknesses.  First of all, there are a slew of info dumps: about the Masons, New Age metaphysics, the layout of Washington DC, the mystical “eye” on the back of the $1 bill, etc., and for the most part, they’re awkwardly dropped into the storyline.

    No one seems to perceive that Dr. Abaddon’s  name is obviously phony – it’s an old synonym for Hell or the Devil.  And you just know that when one of the characters is introduced as being “plump”, she’s going to get killed off somewhere along the line.  Why not just dress her in a Star Trek red shirt?

    Also, there is a kewl bit of situational ethics introduced at the end, when the showdown between Peter Solomon and Mal’akh takes place.  Alas, the author chickens out in resolving it, allowing an act of God to make the decision instead of the humans.

    But the main problem with The Lost Symbol is the big secret itself.  The bad guy wants it.  The Masons are willing to die to keep it a secret.  And the mighty CIA lives in mortal fear that us commoners will learn about it.  Yet when it finally is disclosed to the reader, it’s really no big deal and it’s really not that big of a secret.  Anyone who’s ever dabbled in Metaphysics 101 will already be familiar with it.

    What a royal letdown.

    7 Stars.  I remember The Lost Symbol being panned as a literary flop when it came out.  True, it had to follow Dan Brown’s mega-hit, The Da Vinci Code, an almost impossible task.  The haters are justified; it is a poorly-written book with an ending that is mediocre at best.  But the Dan Brown loyalists are justified as well.  The writing may be mediocre, but the nonstop-action storytelling itself is top-notch.