Inferno

Dan Brown revolutionised the writing world with The Da Vinci Code, his clever use of the hidden meanings behind old works of art was inspired, and a professor trying to work out the hidden codes was exciting. Now 4 books in and the magic is beginning to lose its sparkle.

The joy of reading Da Vinci Code was that the works of art referenced were renowned and well known - instantly you could recall them and see what Langdon was seeing. In Inferno the references are more obscure and unless you are intimately acquainted with Florence you may find yourself - as I did - googling your way through the book looking for pictures just so you can visualise what is happening and get the mood of the book. Now this is all very well if you had to do it say once a chapter but it was literally every few pages, sometimes more than once a page. That lost it's appeal quickly.

If this were Inferno's only flaw it could be forgiven but it's just so darn confusing. By the time of the big climax I literally was lost in who was who, who chased who when and what for, what was real and what was smoke and mirrors and i really didn't care.

And the ending - I don't want to give anything away but how does Brown move on from it. To say in a later book it was all put right and everything is now okay is to trivialise the message but to not do so would mean writing in a world which is not real.

it's not worth it's hardback price, paperback maybe. It did have a few gripping moments but overall it was very very tedious and was only worthy of being thrown on an Inferno.

This is my first Dan Brown book. When I read the synopsis, I thought the book would be about the conundrums concealed within Dante Alighieri's Inferno, but I it isn't.

However, my disappointment didn't last long because the story grabbed me from the beginning. I loved the elegance with which Dan Brown writes, employing few bad words and makes no reference to sex scenes, which (I think) makes the book not vulgar. The characters were well written and defined, and it goes without saying about the intrigue and suspense. For a moment, I thought the book would be predictable, but I was surprised when I realized that it wasn't.

Otherwise, I loved the end and the lack of romance. However, I left with a feeling of want to read more ... So for now, this writer has earned my respect, well done Mr. Brown!

One of the most unique things about this book in the whole Langdon series so far, there's an element of surprise and plethora of possibility for twisting the reality because the protagonist is suffering from amnesia. Making the readers believe one thing at a point and then later coming to realise it was all a ruse and the supposedly thought ally turns out to be a ferocious enemy

For the majority of this book, I hovered around a 3 or 3.5 star rating. It was an entertaining thriller, full of twists, transformations, and “didn't-see-that-coming” moments. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it; indeed, the overall tone was dark, exciting, and encouraged me to continue.What leaves me at 3 stars is the sad realization that after such a monumental effort, this is not a book that belongs in the Robert Langdon mythos.The book's premise - wherein Professor Langdon is called upon to save the world from the machinations of a madman (in this case, one fueled by a deep understanding of and dedication to Dante's [b:Inferno 15645 Inferno (The Divine Comedy, #1) Dante Alighieri http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333579470s/15645.jpg 2377563]) - fits. This is what we expect from a Langdon story and early on, it delivers. There is a sense that the world of Dante will permeate the story in profoundly macabre ways.Unfortunately, that premise slowly disappears. Chase scenes ensue ad nauseam, stopping only to overwhelm the reader with every historical fact about the European environment in which Landon is running (a mechanism that, although it served Brown well in [b:Angels & Demons 960 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1) Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303390735s/960.jpg 3338963] and [b:The Da Vinci Code 968 The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2) Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg 2982101], is overplayed here). Chapters stream by and, in my case, left me with a sense of, “Well, okay - but when are we getting to the good stuff?”What is the “good stuff”, you ask? One needs only to look at the previous three Landon novels for inspiration. In all three, Dan Brown took his time to weave in the types of historical mystery that hover between ludicrous and profoundly possible. These elements made the expected thriller/chase scenes more interesting: the race fulfilled the desire to find clues, solve puzzles, and put together astounding theories. There was a sense of adventure, conspiracy, and higher meaning.Inferno only has an inkling of that. As someone who has read and enjoyed [b:The Divine Comedy 6656 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320552051s/6656.jpg 809248], I was thrilled by the idea of Robert Landon descending into Dante's world and watching the visions of Inferno permeate that adventure. It just didn't happen. Elements of Dante, his life, his poetry, and the higher meaning exposed by his philosophies were only briefly touched on. At times, it seemed as though Dan Brown, desiring to have an archetypal “historical great work” to fit into a Langdon adventure, somewhat haphazardly settled on Inferno. It's as if Brown took his trademark thriller ingredients, tossed them into a blender, and in the middle of the process, jammed in a few pages of Inferno. The concoction just isn't satisfying.As the book hurtles towards its conclusion, the aforementioned plot twists add some spice and excitement; unfortunately, by this point, it's too late: there simply isn't enough time left to recreate the magic that came so easily in the previous three Langdon books.And so, I give this 3 stars - I wanted an Angels & Demons-esque mystery, but instead, I got [b:Deception Point 976 Deception Point Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266447971s/976.jpg 3135896] with some neat art and architecture thrown in.

Pretty cool pretty cool...

Em todos os livros a reviravolta é o melhor dos acontecimentos e o fato de ele induzir o leitor a acreditar piamente que certa pessoa é o responsável por erros/vilões e ser outra pessoa mais impensável...

Muito bom, embora cansativo em alguns momentos é uma leitura altamente recomendada !

4.5/5 stars

People hating this book, hate it “most ardently.” Essays of reviews on how shitty this book is, and i was diappointed that I'd got this from a thrift store before reading the reviews.
It had some unexpected plot twists, but sort of an anticlimactic ending.
I felt that the crux of the storyline was diluted by italian renaissance paintings and buildings and artists. I was jumping paragraphs in the later half of the book, cuz if I didn't do that, it would have inspired me to stop and never come back again, and I really wanted to know how it ended.
So when you find overwhelming information tugging your eyelids down, skip through the pages; the story is not that bad.

Eén raad: verspil tijd noch geld aan deze rotzooi. Sla zelfs dit stuk over, meer dan “dat zijn een paar uur die ik ook nooit meer terugkrijg” zou ik er eigenlijk niet over moeten zeggen.

Zoals Stephen Colbert onlangs zei: “I love your books. I love the rage they fill me with.” Een paar voorbeelden! Een bijzonder intelligent mens bekijkt een video waar het over Malthus gaat:

Knowlton paused the video. The mathematics of Malthus? A quick Internet search led him to information about a prominent nineteenth-century English mathematician and demographist named Thomas Robert Malthus, who had famously predicted an eventual global collapse due to overpopulation.

You don't say

(dringend!)

Langdon returned his focus to the iPhone, and within seconds was able to pull up a link to a digital offering of The Divine Comedy— freely accessible because it was in the public domain. When the page opened precisely to Canto 25, he had to admit he was impressed with the technology. I've got to stop being such a snob about leather-bound books, he reminded himself. E-books do have their moments.

Uuuurgh

The poem was disturbing and macabre, and hard to decipher. Use of the words doge and lagoon confirmed for Langdon beyond any doubt that the poem was indeed referencing Venice—a unique Italian water-world city made up of hundreds of interconnected lagoons and ruled for centuries by a Venetian head of state known as a doge.

Nooo, really?

Da Vinci Code

min of meer

Inferno?

dei ex machina

Not the best book ever, but not the worst either. The audiobook held my attention well enough for me to want to get to the end, but it was pulpy enough for me to zone out when concentrating on say reading ingredients labels in the supermarket and not have to skip back to catch up on what I'd missed. If you've read Dan Brown's novels before, you know what to expect, and it delivers. The interesting twist that makes this different from the others is Langon's amnesia, and so he's solving a puzzle that he's already solved! It's also, as always with Dan Brown, very well researched and informative. I knew nothing of Dante or his Inferno. Now I know a little.

Me gusta la idea central que discurre a lo largo del libro (control del volúmen de masa poblacional para evitar la extinción por aglomeración y agotamiento de recursos), pero no me terminó de convencer el proceso de “Sucede A, luego Langdon tiene un momento de iluminación místico donde nos da detalles innecesarios que revelan todo lo que el autos investigó acerca de Dante/Florencia y corre hasta el punto B esquivando policías. Luego sucede B, y se repite el proceso”. Sin embargo, el giro argumental que hay antes de terminar el libro si está muy bien conseguido y fue de mi agrado. El asunto es pasar la primera mitad, que parece escrita por el Capitán Obvio. Es una lectura interesante de todas formas.

Inferno mostly reads like a tour guide through Italy and Turkey. So much of the book was about particular historical or geographical fact that eventually the story became extremely thin. While it may have been very well researched in fact the fact wasn't very well integrated into the plot beyond “Robert Langdon is here now where blah blah blah happened years ago or here's some information about the nearest landmark.”

HOLY SHIT FUCK
This was just a wild rollercoaster of emotions, like holy crap
THAT PLOT TWIST, THOUGH, I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING, LIKE, AT ALL, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT, NOPE NOPE, NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND, I JUST WOW
I can now official call myself a fan of Dan Brown because now I've read more than one of his books.
I will recommend this book to..... literally everyone.
READ THIS BOOK HOLY MOTHER OF GOD READ IT