Inferno

I found Dan Brown's latest thriller, Inferno (#318) an entertaining summer read.  It moves along briskly with symbologist and Harvard professor Robert Langdon in peril with a gunshot wound and retrograde amnesia as he tries to out think the shadowy figure who seems intent on destroying the human race through the means of a mysterious plague.  Of course there's the requisite beautiful young female doctor who comes to his aid as he races though Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

It's always fun to see cities you've been to through the eyes of an author, and it only whets your appetite to visit those places that are on your "must see" list.  The title of the novel, Inferno, is of course, a reference to the first section of Dante Alighieri's immortal work The Divine Comedy, which provides the jumping off point for all the symbology Robert Langdon must unravel in this thriller.  It's fitting therefore that he finds himself, not in a dark wood as Dante did, but in his beloved city of Florence when Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no knowledge of what he is doing there.  I suspect that the more familiar you are with The Divine Comedy, the more you'll appreciate Mr. Brown's references to the many works inspired by Dante.  I had to rely on a hazy recollection of reading it many years ago in college, but enough facts are dropped into the narrative that personal experience wit this classic is not necessary.  I doubt Inferno would have spent so much time at the top of the New York Times bestseller list otherwise!

I do have to say without giving anything away, that I did think the ending was a bit of a letdown;  I had total sympathy with the "villain" of the piece and even the ends he used to achieve it.  Also, I have to say I have my doubts about just how smart Robert Langdon actually is, since it took him so long to decipher the big fat clues that were being dropped into his lap by several parties.  Having a head wound must be a trial to work with if you're used to being the smartest one in the room all the time!

Anyway, there's plenty of material to Google in this book to keep you happily occupied for hours.  I wonder just how hits the sculpture Hercules and Diomedes in the Palazzo Vecchia in Florence described several times in Inferno generated; inquiring minds want to know...