Dan Brown's Inferno - Review

140 characters would not justify the review of this book and so I had to turn to my blog. Seriously, I had so much in my mind when I was reading the book but now I am out of words. Pray, why does it happen to me?

Anyways, I will try re-collecting my thoughts and put them here. I would like to alert you because there are SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

Dan Brown's Inferno is one of the decent books I have read, not the best, sorry. Being a fan of Dan Brown, I pre-ordered (for the first time) and was not disappointed after the novel ended. The picturesque descriptions of cities were amazing. Dan took me to those places and I could imagine myself with Tom Hanks (yes, I can only think of him as Robert Langdon) and Sienna moving along the streets of Florence, Venice and Istanbul. If given a choice I would definitely want to go to Istanbul, one of the cities mentioned in the book.

Robert Langdon the usual protagonist in Dan's novel is simply brilliant. Even without his harris tweed jacket and the "mickey mouse watch" his problem solving techniques is amazing. The way he decipher the code is breathtaking. From the bone cylinder to death mask to St. Mark to Yerebatan Sirayi, the skills Langdon shows one could easily guess the amount to research Dan has put to bring out such a awesome novel.

With so many description of churches, palaces & corridors the story seems to be dragging itself. I had to just quickly read through it to get to interesting part. The time taken to complete the last 30% of the novel reduces drastically. The story takes a U-turn from where Sienna's identity was revealed. I had to turn back to the pages where FS-2080 met Zobrist and ended up being in his arms and re-read the chapters once again. Dan was using the code FS-2080 and a reader would have thought it to be Ferris but no it was Sienna. The twist in the plot was very well executed.

I was very much impressed by the way Dan mixed up an age old poem, Inferno of Dante Alighieri with current world problem - over population. The story revolved around Zobrist's attempt to sacrifice some of the world's population so that others in future may be benefited and can sustain their livelihood on Earth. Langdon along with WHO's director were thinking of some plague or catastrophe but ultimately Zobrist chose sterility, with no killing or mass murdering involved. Other reader must be thinking it is much simpler and easy solution better than killings but I am never impressed with any solution provided to curb over-population. There are somethings which we should leave it on God's hand and then forget it. God has His own plan of handling things. I plan and you plan but it's the God who's plan is the best.

Nevertheless, there was no antagonist in this novel. In the end I kept on thinking that if everyone was thinking for the betterment of humanity then why didn't they sit around a table and discuss, why run and hide from each other.

It was interesting to learn about trans humanism.  This is the best part of Dan Brown's novel. Freemasonry, Illuminati, Noetic Science, TRANSLTR, CERN, large hadron collider, Antimatter and now H+. Along with that it was a good amalgamation of WHO, SRS, ECDC, high IQ people and there own problems. If any motivation I got from this book, it was to visit Istanbul, Hagia Sofia and the blue Mosque and to know my IQ.

The book didn't have any lose end, and I think the plot of this book among others is the closest to reality. Though like any other I have few concerns:
1. With respect to the viral vector, I know scientists and genetic engineers are yet to formulate such kind of thing but henceforth if I see a married couple without a child I would have question to ask myself, "Have they already created the DNA-altering viral vector, or is it something related to 'no child before certain years of marriage' planning and enjoying youth life :P?"
2. Why did Zobrist chose Istanbul as ground zero? It could have been anywhere else, may be some more populated cities of the world. May be Tokyo, may be Mumbai, but why Istanbul? I can think of 2 reasons, 1) may be because Istanbul is the only city in two different continents - Europe and Asia, but this does not make much sense; or 2) may be because Dan has visited Istanbul recently and he may have liked the city and must have thought, ok I will include this city in my next novel.

Nevertheless, It was good travelling 3 cities in one day. I stretched it to around 50 days but I had a good experience. While just surfing through the web I found this, - the novel ends with "stars" just like how every poem of Dante does."
  - The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.

And now I have to think of how to use the bookmark. Probably Khaled Husseini is next.