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SETTING: Florence, Italy.
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SUMMARY: Robert Langdon, the famed Harvard University professor of symbology, once again is at the center of a mysterious adventure. After waking up at a Florence hospital with no recollection of how he arrived there and a head wound of unknown origin, he, along with Dr. Sienna Brooks, a physician who was caring for him at the hospital, find themselves rushing around Florence trying to solve a mystery that is somehow connected to Dante's Inferno.
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FAVORITE QUOTE: "When it came to the circumstances of the world, denial had become a global pandemic." - Epilogue, page 610.
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I am very sorry to inform you, dear readers, that I actually read this book two months ago, and thus have forgotten many of the points that I wanted to share with you. I started off the school year much busier than anticipated, and am only finding time now to create the blog entry for this novel. I will do my best to recollect as much as I can!
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Things I liked about this book:
- The integration of real life organizations and resources into the story line. This aspect is what I admire the most about all of Dan Brown's novels. He takes real life entities and places them in a fictional setting, with the end result of creating a story that seems like it could actually play out in reality.
- The transhumanist movement as a main topic of the novel. I didn't know about transhumanism at all before reading this book, and I was inspired to research the topic after finishing the novel. To what extent I agree with their goals and theories is something I will not expand on here because it'll probably amount to an essay's worth of writing.
- The infectious disease aspect. I won't say anymore because I don't want to ruin the story!
- Going off of the last point, having the head of the WHO as a main character.
- Sienna Brooks' character. She is incredibly badass. Misguided, without a doubt, but totally awesome.
- The way Robert Langdon solves the series of clues in the novel. A constant joke among my classmates is the way that Dr. House figures out his patients' ailments. Something very incosequential is usually occurring, for example he'll be tossing a baseball up and down. The baseball will then proceed to drop and roll along an empty hallway, and once it stops, he'll find a sudden spark of inspiration that leads him to the right diagnosis. Langdon's process of unraveling clues is equally ridiculous at times.
- This novel wasn't as exciting as Dan Brown's previous novels in the Langdon series. This could be because his formula for writing these books is becoming old and predictable. His outlines for all four novels are very similar, and considering I have read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code more than once, I think I'm becoming adept at predicting what the next step in the story will be. I will admit, however, that I did not have enough skill to predict the climax or the ending of this novel. So there is still some intrigue left in the way he creates his stories.
For as long as I'll live, I can confidently say that I will read every single fictional novel that Dan Brown will publish until his death. The same can be said of novels published by JK Rowling and Gregory Maguire. There are some authors who, even if they have a formula for their books, write novels that I find myself eager to finish. I have a feeling of contentment while reading them, and sadness upon finishing them. It's like coming home to a familiar place, with something new added to it that's fascinating and exciting, and once you have to leave, you can't help but feel a little sad.
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Recommend? Yes. Even if it's the 10th novel in the Langdon series and absolutely predictable, I'll still recommend that you read it because Dan Brown's writing style is one that I enjoy.
