Inferno - Dan Brown
I had read Dan Brown's previous work THE LOST SYMBOL only once within 14 hours of its release back in 2009. So, when the promotion mails for the novel "INFERNO" were sent by DB's usual publishers, Doublesday in February 2013, I was not very excited about another Dan Brown for his earlier release, "THE LOST SYMBOL" was an above average novel for me ranking the last in my most favourite Dan Brown books of all time. The list goes on like this.
Angels & Demons/ Digital Fortress , The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point/ The Lost Symbol.
But instilling enough interest was another teaser for the novel which informed about the links it had with Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy", an epic poem. Now that work of Dante was already introduced to me by my favourite post-modern, transgressive writer, Charu Nivedita , on two occasions. First during the introduction to Nikos Kazantzakis' "Zorba -the Greek" where the protagonist wants to complete reading Dante's epic work and the second in his collection of literary reviews, Dantevin Siruththai, where he introduces the plot line of the Dante's work again.
This time I tried to hit two birds with one stone, read both works The Divine Comedy and Inferno, but as time would have it, I could not settle down to buy Dante's work or read it at a library. Finally, during my trip to Mumbai, I was presented with this opportunity, of reading Inferno, by my brother-in-law and the rest is this article.
The novel begins with another one of Dan Brown's repetitive trademark Prologue, a gruesome death, to kick start a novel, the only one not falling in this format is THE LOST SYMBOL. So, we cut to the chase, where we see a Genetic engineering genius leaves a final message to the world along with a dangerous farewell gift. Now Robert Langdon's entry and services were expected to avert the danger brought about by the genius. But here's the first of a few points which I felt were refreshing in Inferno.
i) Dan Brown shows off the eidetic memory of Robert Langdon at all possible opportunities just like any director would flaunt Rajnikant's style in his screen appearances. Here, we are in for a different portrayal. Langdon has Retrograde Amnesia and his state is much similar to the state of Vijay Sethupathi in Naduvula Konjam Pakkaththa Kaanom..
He ends up forgetting many important facts and there are a lot of twists which are built using this condition of his. But it's refreshing because like Rajnikant, Langdon is usually very expert at searching for iota of data from his brain cells.
ii) The catastrophic problem taken up by Zobrist - the genetic genius and the solution for the same
In the previous works of DB, there have been issues ranging between the dangerous explosive threatening to destroy Vatican City to loss of privacy over email exchanges to an alarming discovery in the Arctic/Antarctic circles to the descendents of Jesus, but the issue taken up in Inferno, is pretty alarming and can be understood by everyone. The solution put forth by Zobrist - revealed only in the last few chapters-seems justified.
A few not-so-interesting points
The first is the number of twists in the build up to the climax. Apart from a few interesting twists courtesy of the brilliant character design and the chases involved, there were quite a few instances where the sharpness of the twists held us back while reading the gripping chase. Already, I had to put through with a moving train, an unconfirmed berth ticket and my sleep while following the chase. There was already the non-linear screenplay which moved back and forth describing the state that Langdon was in. Due to all these and probably the hurry in which I wanted to complete this so that I could lay my hands on a brand new CLASSIC copy of Crime and Punishment, I might have found the number of twists a little uninteresting... But FS2080 was a good decoy and a nice twist I could guess it was coming and who it was.
Future plans
I am definitely on track for reading the epic Divine Comedy as early as possible. But with so many translations and so many interpretations available, I will want to do a comparative analysis. So I'm not buying a copy, I am going to spend time at the 8th wonder in Chennai and feel what inspired Langdon, Zobriski and Dan Brown in this latest release of DB.
My revised list of favourites stands as follows.
Angels & Demons/ Digital Fortress , The Da Vinci Code/Inferno, Deception Point/ The Lost Symbol.
I had read Dan Brown's previous work THE LOST SYMBOL only once within 14 hours of its release back in 2009. So, when the promotion mails for the novel "INFERNO" were sent by DB's usual publishers, Doublesday in February 2013, I was not very excited about another Dan Brown for his earlier release, "THE LOST SYMBOL" was an above average novel for me ranking the last in my most favourite Dan Brown books of all time. The list goes on like this.
Angels & Demons/ Digital Fortress , The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point/ The Lost Symbol.
But instilling enough interest was another teaser for the novel which informed about the links it had with Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy", an epic poem. Now that work of Dante was already introduced to me by my favourite post-modern, transgressive writer, Charu Nivedita , on two occasions. First during the introduction to Nikos Kazantzakis' "Zorba -the Greek" where the protagonist wants to complete reading Dante's epic work and the second in his collection of literary reviews, Dantevin Siruththai, where he introduces the plot line of the Dante's work again.
This time I tried to hit two birds with one stone, read both works The Divine Comedy and Inferno, but as time would have it, I could not settle down to buy Dante's work or read it at a library. Finally, during my trip to Mumbai, I was presented with this opportunity, of reading Inferno, by my brother-in-law and the rest is this article.
The novel begins with another one of Dan Brown's repetitive trademark Prologue, a gruesome death, to kick start a novel, the only one not falling in this format is THE LOST SYMBOL. So, we cut to the chase, where we see a Genetic engineering genius leaves a final message to the world along with a dangerous farewell gift. Now Robert Langdon's entry and services were expected to avert the danger brought about by the genius. But here's the first of a few points which I felt were refreshing in Inferno.
i) Dan Brown shows off the eidetic memory of Robert Langdon at all possible opportunities just like any director would flaunt Rajnikant's style in his screen appearances. Here, we are in for a different portrayal. Langdon has Retrograde Amnesia and his state is much similar to the state of Vijay Sethupathi in Naduvula Konjam Pakkaththa Kaanom..
ii) The catastrophic problem taken up by Zobrist - the genetic genius and the solution for the same
In the previous works of DB, there have been issues ranging between the dangerous explosive threatening to destroy Vatican City to loss of privacy over email exchanges to an alarming discovery in the Arctic/Antarctic circles to the descendents of Jesus, but the issue taken up in Inferno, is pretty alarming and can be understood by everyone. The solution put forth by Zobrist - revealed only in the last few chapters-seems justified.
A few not-so-interesting points
The first is the number of twists in the build up to the climax. Apart from a few interesting twists courtesy of the brilliant character design and the chases involved, there were quite a few instances where the sharpness of the twists held us back while reading the gripping chase. Already, I had to put through with a moving train, an unconfirmed berth ticket and my sleep while following the chase. There was already the non-linear screenplay which moved back and forth describing the state that Langdon was in. Due to all these and probably the hurry in which I wanted to complete this so that I could lay my hands on a brand new CLASSIC copy of Crime and Punishment, I might have found the number of twists a little uninteresting... But FS2080 was a good decoy and a nice twist I could guess it was coming and who it was.
Future plans
I am definitely on track for reading the epic Divine Comedy as early as possible. But with so many translations and so many interpretations available, I will want to do a comparative analysis. So I'm not buying a copy, I am going to spend time at the 8th wonder in Chennai and feel what inspired Langdon, Zobriski and Dan Brown in this latest release of DB.
My revised list of favourites stands as follows.
Angels & Demons/ Digital Fortress , The Da Vinci Code/Inferno, Deception Point/ The Lost Symbol.
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