This is my first ever book review. I started reading novels only during my 10th. And the first ever novel I happened to place my hands on, was Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. I think its only fair, if I start by reviewing one of Brown's books. Not that my reviews matter or that my reviews are good. Just a plain old guy who couldn't keep his opinions to himself.
Dan Brown's a different kind of author. He happens to be the Director Hari of the west. He dishes out a masala package filled with action, humor, romance, morality,sentimentality and penis jokes in a mind boggling pace. Not that the work's bad. But you go through so many things at once, that you're confused at where the plot's heading. At last, you find out where it is heading: nowhere.
Let me start by summarizing all of Brown's novels. He uses this same formula, not just for the Landon series.
A popular person is murdered in the middle of the night and it leads to a chain of events with devastating consequences which can literally "destroy the world as we know it". An intelligent but unsuspecting hero is being called for expertise which seemingly only he/she can provide. The dead person has left a puzzle to solve, just moments before his death. And solving it is essential to stop the nature of the ticking bomb.
As the protagonist solves it, he is interrupted by an assassin who belongs to an organisation that somehow relates with Christianity or the Government. As fate would have it, he/she is accompanied by an attractive sidekick who always plays second fiddle to the protagonist. We get to see some awkward romance here, accompanied by long hours of monotonous lectures.
But, every book comes with a twist. The protagonist had known the villain, all this time, but never second guessed it.
And what's worse, the villain succeeds, every little time, in every big novel he writes.
We are left pondering in the epilogue, of many things. Of whether the villain has actually done the world any good, Of whether our thoughts on religion are true, Of whether the government is spying on us. And in case of Inferno, we ponder, whether someone can write something as bad as this and get away with it.
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| Inferno, Welcome to the gates of hell. |
Inferno is no different from his time tested success formula. But only, this time it is less intriguing.
In every novel, Brown has one 'new' concept: antimatter in Angels and Demons, Magdalene in DaVinci Code, Aliens in Deception Point, TRANSLTR in Digital Fortress, and now with Inferno, its overpopulation.
And by the way, God only knows why he wrote The Lost Symbol and what it is based on.
Inferno is definitely better than The Lost Symbol, but that doesn't amount to much.
Inferno starts on a different note: a suicide, rather than a murder. It's revealed in the next 15 pages that the dead one is the villain. And Robert Langdon wakes up with a start, not in his American home, but in a Florence hospital. He seems to have retrograde amnesia, the usual Jason Bourne story. He is on the run from the start and needs to crack a puzzle, but we don't know what it is yet, thus making it somewhat a mystery page-turner. An assassin from an institution named "The Consortium" is sent to kill Langdon. He escapes with a female sidekick Sienna Brooks, as always. The US consulate also seems to kill him and he doesn't know why. Thus, the novel has a promising start.
Then the part of code-breaking comes. Langdon finds that he has a tiny pen projector in his Harris Tweed jacket which shows a modified version of Botticelli's Map of Hell. With that, and using clues from Dante's classic Divine Comedy, Langdon and Sienna move from place to place. Just from Florence to Venice. The plot always needs a red herring for it to have a twist. And right where you will expect the villain to appear in usual Brown's books, this time instead, a red herring appears in the scene. But his characterization is too weak that, you will immediately guess he is not the villain's sidekick.
One thing leads to another, and they meet the head of WHO, Elizabeth Sinskey. She explains everything. How the villain, Bertrand Zobrist is a psycho who has planned to release a virus to kill all humanity, and how Langdon was manipulated into believing that he was being targeted. Zobrist has made a disturbing video wearing a mask underwater, and talks of purifying humanity. A decent twist arises in the plot, as to who is the assistant of Zobrist, but I won't share that spoiler as it is the only good thing from this novel.
Inbetween, we have continuous repetition on how global population is on its brink and how humans are destroying themselves. Brown needs to mock The Vatican as a sentiment. So he goes on Vatican's take against contraception, which is a good thing.
Langdon solves the code and apparently the virus is in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Because Turkey is where the west meets east, it suits the psycho's theories. But all efforts are in vain because, the virus had already been released and the whole world had been affected. Oh, and you can't help but remember Dasavatharam climax when the SWAT team sees swarming viruses in their binoculars. The virus, it seems, doesn't kill humans. Instead it genetically alters human DNA and causes sterility. The humans should accept what the future has in store for them. And in a crappy epilogue, Langdon thinks if Zobrist has actually done the world a good thing.
The book has its Pros, which are meager when compared to its cons. A moment when Langdon is told to have said "Va. Sorry, Va. Sorry" is interpreted as very sorry, but later Langdon realises he has actually said "Vasari, Vasari" an artist's name is quite a good one. The metaphors for overpopulation is good. The twist is decent. But the thing is, this novel doesn't have a plot. It is just a series of moments stuck together, desperately trying to make sense. But in the end, it doesn't.
Why would a psychotic villain want to leave trails of clue for a symbologist to solve? If he just wants to burn the world, then why leave people chasing him in vain hope?
The clues could have been solved by any decent cryptologist, thus rendering Langdon totally unnecessary.
The characterization is too weak. Consider Sienna Brooks, the female sidekick. She is said to have an offbeat IQ of 208, but there is not a single instance where she proves to be an above average person, at the least.
The prose is filled with uneasy metaphors and unnecessary facts.
Brown does his mistake of pretending to understand eastern philosophies yet again. In Lost Symbol, it was about Vyasa. In Inferno, he quotes Vishnu. "I am become death, the destroyer of the world" ,when in fact it was a rough translation of Krishna in Bhagavad Gita.
Did Brown consider the repercussions of the solution he provided? Wouldn't infertility increase the crime rate? People would have no one to attach themselves to, they won't feel the need to raise a family. The total social system could come crashing down the boils.
The head of WHO is said to be "a highly coveted and prestigious post", but I doubt if the post has such high political influences as portrayed.
Brown has no fears when he claims Jesus had a bloodline or when he says NSA looks into every email and taps every call, but he worries about naming a secret institution and changes it to "The Consortium".
This book lacks what made the Langdon series click: a startling revelation about our religious past. There is no centuries old conspiracy to uncover, just a very modern threat, and that makes it boring. In short, Inferno welcomes its readers into the gates of hell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Brown. Who couldn't love Tom Hanks as Professor Landon and his mysterious adventures? But, this was definitely a let down. I think we have had enough of religious symbologies and code breaking. I think its time to put Robert Langdon to rest.
Dan Brown once co-authored a book named "187 men to avoid" with his wife.
If he writes another book as Inferno, he would definitely become the 188th.
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