Inferno

Inferno

By Dan Brown

Hardcover, 462 pages

Series: Robert Langdon #4

Published on:  May 14^th, 2013

Publisher:  Bantam Press/ Random House

ISBN:  0385537859

Blurb:  In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.

In Inferno, the plot starts with our very dear Robert Langdon finding himself in a hospital with a bump on his head and unable to recall where he is or why he’s in Italy- a situation of total amnesia.

I’ve previously read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol but this is a bit different than that. In Inferno, Dan Brown has made grand references to history,  art, symbols and Dante’s Divine Comedy. It is from  Dante’s work that the book has got its name as Inferno.

For a person who has read previous Robert Langdon books is sure to find this one a peach. Although Dan Brown does not get to make many experiments with his characterizations or plot constructions in his books in this series, the beautiful thing about them is that they sound so different and not monotonous at all. (Btw, the Harris Tweed and the Mickey Mouse watch are to stay.)

You can’t call Dan Brown a writer of classics, so you won’t call Inferno a classic either.   But it does not mean that it makes you lose even a bit on the enjoyment of the book. If you read a Dan Brown book, it is more for a gripping plot and the engaging storyline and maybe to learn something that you’ve never known before. And you pretty much get it in every book of his just as this one. Inferno is yet another one of Brown's page-turners. Being a sucker for short chapters, I loved it. 

A little disappointment for me in the book was a more than lavish description of Italy as a place.

On the whole, the story set in Florence, Istanbul and Venice is superbly constructed. The ending of the book proves that Inferno has enough food for thought. The chief element that makes me love Inferno, as well as The Lost Symbol is the Adrenaline rush that Brown keeps giving his readers. Such fine twists and actions, oh my gosh! You just cannot predict what will happen next.

And Brown, (I want to laugh at it), in Inferno is raising philosophical questions. Can you imagine! No, it is not a turn off, but still, it is too much out of the ordinary.

 This book is a perfect read for the lovers of previous Dan Brown books, lovers of history, particularly that of Europe and the ones who are looking for a full time action filled titillating piece of fiction.

 I am badly looking forward to Tom Hanks carrying out the adventures of Langdon in Europe this time.