Let me start with some references.
’Inferno’ means "Hell" in Italian & Portuguese language. Inferno is also the first part of a famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem "Divine Comedy", in which Dante imagined himself retracing the steps down into the hell and his vivid description of Hell’s ongoing tortures in the nine circles, which was then painted in a famous painting Botticelli’s’Map of Hell’. There are many writings and other adaptations of Dante’s Hell depiction, and this novel ’Inferno’ also includes all these references, and based on the same Dante’s "Divine Comedy".
’Inferno’ is Dan Brown’s 6th novel, published in May 2013, cost something around above Rs.600 on online sites or bookstores. My copy is published by Bantam Press. I am a fan of Dan Brown, and have read all his books except one, his last novel, ’The Lost Symbol’.
Till date, in my eyes his best work is’The Da Vinci Code’, but all his works are notable and liked by many including me. He is an American novelist born in New Hampshire and aged 49. He write in the thriller conspiracy genre, using a lot of referenced historical work, which make all his work wonderful to read, it includes facts & figures of historically enriched places, and he take us on a ride all over the world in those few pages. It took me 41 days to complete 462 pages of’Inferno’.
Robert Langdon woke up in a hospital in Florence Italy, feeling dizzy, with a head wound, and having retrogate amnesia, he forgets what happen to him in last 24 hours. He saw 2 doctors attending him - Dr.Marconi & Dr.Sienna Brooks. He just have some images like dreams, seeing a veiled women with silver hair, asking him to save the world, "seek ye and ye shall find". He had a secret object with him with no knowledge about what it is. In a far end, there is a guy with nickname ’The Provost’ whose mission is to retrieve that object from Langdon, and for that he has sent his best agent Vayentha. Langdon escaped from the hospital alongwith Sienna. He called his embassy but in return found that some other Agent Bruder is there with his team, and they’re doing the same thing - to kill Landon. They escaped, found that object, and went to a mission to find out the reality, the mystery behind that object and why everybody is behind him.
There is a mysterious man, whose name will declared later, but he is a well know scientist, and he wanted to control the overpopulation effect, by any means available, be it a man-generated plague, since as per his calculation, its not far that with the growing rate of overpopulation, soon Earth will become unable to live, since all resources get extinct. He has shot a video of warning showing his creation’Inferno’ which he will be releasing soon over the world, and WHO lead by Dr. Sinskey Elizabeth is behind that man to stop him by doing any fatal incident.
The plot as seen above itself generate curiosity, and yes the novel is full on money, it not only has a mystery but many twists & turns, which get solved one-by-one as the novel progresses. The novel has a gripping plotline, well written with supported dialogues, and happenings. and as usual we got to visit some countries here as well in the quest of the mystery.
Novel is around 460 pages, so its not much and its not less, readability is good, and the thrill factor is intact. Dan Brown is famous for explicitly explaining the world’s greatest architectures in detail, explaining intricacies and point-to-point description of all the historical places he included in the story, he has done it here as well, supported with a lot of research and hard-find facts and figures, lot of referenced work as well.
But somehow it seems a little difficult for a reader to built that same architecture/place in mind while reading his book here. Novel in the middle confused me a bit when one major twist came in the book, I checked the back pages again, though able to resolve it later, but that was not the fact with his other books.
Dan Brown is a good storyteller, and here also put together a good thrill story, but somehow I guessed the next twist what will be coming, since I am a Dan Brown fan, and knew his style of writing, but that’s a negative for me. Plus the end result, the solution which came in the end, somehow I didn’t liked that much, I was hoping for something else. It would have been better if Dan stick to his usual ending style, but nonetheless, he joined the parts together and wove a good story. Characterization was okay, about 22 characters were introduced in the whole novel.
Well it’s not the best of Dan Brown, but not the one to miss too, do read it, you’ll like it, ah, yes! if you like these kinds of novels. I rate this book as 3.5/5 .
GRuchirG("Jee" Ruchir "Jee")
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.