Page 9 - Gears and Ears June 2013

Book Review

Inferno by Dan Brown

Reviews reprinted from the periodicals indicated:

The Guardian: “In the book the celebrated specialist in the made-up
discipline of symbology, Robert Langdon, is in Florence, birthplace
of Italian poet Dante Alighieri. This is not mere coincidence. For a
noted genius of biological research has concocted a dastardly plot,
while helpfully scattering clues as to its nature in the form of
allusions to Dante's vision of hell, Inferno.

“Langdon is joined by a blonde doctor with an astronomical IQ. But a
shadowy multinational organisation is also interested in the
biologist's enigmatic plan, and its sexy agents chase the elegant
couple around tourist attractions in search of purloined artefacts.
Periodically, Langdon instructively remembers the text of his
Harvard lectures on Dante and prominent Inferno-themed paintings.

“Brown’s prose style retains its much-loved originality (“a
powerfully built woman effortlessly unstraddled her BMW
motorcycle”), and the story is engineered with miraculous
efficiency, a tasty cocktail of high culture and low thrills. The pages
fly by. Only lunatics would begrudge the blockbusting bard’s
determination to popularise great Italian poetry.”

What others are saying about Inferno:

The Telegraph: “Dan Brown’s take on Dante’s ‘Inferno’ is the thriller-writer’s most ambitious novel yet – and
his worst.”
Member Profile (continued from page 5)
The Independent: “However barmy his premises, however leaden his prose, Brown retains all the advantages
of surprise.”

The Financial Times: “Inferno reads less like a novel than a ‘treatment’ for a thriller film. To help
unsophisticated readers, Brown writes like a tour guide, ever anxious to stress the fame of the places and art
treasures we glimpse along the way.”

The Washington Post: “...at times the book’s musty passageways seem to be not so much holding history up
as sagging under its weight. Narration appears lifted from a Fodor’s guide, as when Langdon pauses in the
middle of a life-or-death escape to remember the history of a bridge: ‘Today the vendors are mostly
goldsmiths and jewelers, but that has not always been the case. Originally the bridge had been home to
Florence’s vast, open-air market, but the butchers were banished in 1593.’ It’s like trying to solve a mystery
while one of those self-guided tour headsets is dangling from your ears.”