Can we talk about Dan Brown's Inferno?

[meggers5]

I really liked it. I love Venice and Florence, so it was nice to be reading so much about them. I also thought that the premise was really interesting, and I wonder how much it's something our, or future, generations will have to worry about.

[bcv513]

I'm about 100 pages in. They just snuck into the Art Institute trying to get into the old city.

I really like it so far. I like how they started with Langdon having amnesia and going backwards. I don't love it as much as Angels & Demons or DaVinci Code

[meggers5]

Jul 11, 2013 10:25:02 GMT -5 @kizmet said:

And the Hall of 500 @ Palazzo Vecchio!

Oh I need to go back to Florence.

I thought a lot about the flipping the switch question. Even if it saved mankind, I don't think I could be the one to make that choice. I'd rather ride it out.

[meggers5]

Jul 11, 2013 10:29:40 GMT -5 bcv513 said:

I'm about 100 pages in. They just snuck into the Art Institute trying to get into the old city.

I really like it so far. I like how they started with Langdon having amnesia and going backwards. I don't love it as much as Angels & Demons or DaVinci Code

Oh uh I'll be doing my best to not post spoilers then lol.

[bcv513]

Jul 11, 2013 10:31:41 GMT -5 meggers5 said:

Jul 11, 2013 10:29:40 GMT -5 bcv513 said:

I'm about 100 pages in. They just snuck into the Art Institute trying to get into the old city.

I really like it so far. I like how they started with Langdon having amnesia and going backwards. I don't love it as much as Angels & Demons or DaVinci Code

Oh uh I'll be doing my best to not post spoilers then lol.

Oh no don't worry about that! I don't care about spoilers. I'll probably forget in an hour anyway. lol

[smock]

I was entertained, but there were also some really, really unbelievable parts (I mean, it's Dan Brown). The fact that ALL those highly educated people had never heard of the cistern in Istanbul? Uh, I've been there. it's not super secret. I show pictures of it in my 101 class. And none of them knew about the tunnel between the Boboli gardens and the Palazzo Vecchio? It's in ALL the tour guide books. You can see the windows on the Ponte Vecchio.

If that Robert Langdon is supposed to be a super specialized symbol man knowledgeable in art history, especially Renaissance stuff, he sure was dumb about certain things. I know I'm being too critical because obviously I know a lot about Renaissance Italy (I was IN Venice and Florence doing research when I read the book, lol!) but still. Also the ending was dumb.

BUT . . . I was in the Palazzo Vecchio a few weeks after the book came out. Remember that scene where they run into the hall of maps and look for the secret door behind one of the maps? While I was there, a museum guy came out of that door, and this older American couple FREAKED OUT. They were like "That's the secret door from Inferno!!!!" They asked the poor Italian museum guy to stand in the doorway so they could take his picture, and kept talking loudly about Dan Brown. (also you can take tours through that secret door, so DUH Sienna probably would have heard of it if she'd lived in Florence for years.)

[smock]

Uh, and sorry for history nerding out all over this post.

[VillainV]

I found it predictable....as soon as he met the doctor chick, I was like, "Oh right, this must be the love interest..."

But it was entertaining enough.

[womet]

I liked it. It wasn't as good as A&D or the Davinci Code, but I could see it being made into a great movie. And the back drop of Venice and Florence would be spectacular.

[heliocentric]

It was entertaining. I listened to the audio and I'm glad. I'd have been annoyed if I actually read it, I think. I hated how every time a central topic would come up, he'd go through the whole story again. Dan Brown, we are not the characters. We got it the first 5000 times you referenced it.

[ProfessorArtNerd]

I didn't read it yet, but my main complaint about Dan Brown books is how the fuck is Langdon supposed to not speak a word of either French or Italian? F'real? He teaches at fucking Harvard, I teach at godamn community college and I can hold my own. Wtf?

[ProfessorArtNerd]

Well thank god! Because that really annoyed me in the other two books. Clearly!

[thinklikeajellyfish]

The story was entertaining, but at the same time the *schtick*, for lack of a better word, is getting kind of old.  I really enjoyed the first two Robert Langdon books.  I love puzzles, secret societies, and secrets.  The last two Robert Langdon books have just seemed to not have as much originality.  Robert Langdon ends up in some far off place (Washington D.C is far off to me ), he discovers a mystery, finds a pretty girl, enlists pretty girl to help him on his mystery, solves the mystery, etc.  I guess the same could be said of all the courtroom fiction books I read, though.  For some reason the pattern in the Langdon books has gotten predictable and slightly boring.  That being said, I'll read every book Dan Brown publishes. 

***I tried to use language below that will get my point across without spoiling anything.  No promises, though.****










I really enjoyed the premise of the ending.  It was interesting to think about that being a possibility.  How it would help so many things, but how it would hurt so many.  I like a book that is going to make me think and make me slightly uncomfortable while I am doing the thinking.