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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Inferno by Dan Brown


Inferno
Nothing is more creative... nor destructive... than a brilliant mind with a purpose.

I still remember the thrill I got when I read my first Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code. His book was already gracing so many bestseller lists that it was hard to back down and say no. Besides, I was very curious about this dude and whatever it was that he had written. I read. I enjoyed. I favorited. Then, I read all the articles of how he didn't really get all his history right and how he bungled some of them for maximum impact. Literary license, they said. That fogged my impression of Dan Brown tremendously, but not before I devoured two more of his books - Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress. Later, I also read The Lost Symbol, and was excited by the fact that it was set in a place I had actually visited multiple times (D.C.).

Still, none of the books, barring Angels and Demons really reached the caliber and awesomeness level of The Da Vinci Code, Inferno included. By now, everyone can write a template of a Dan Brown book in their sleep and they just need Brown to fill in the blanks with some essentials such as location and lead female character's name. They all involve his protagonist, Robert Langdon, racing across a huge landscape within a humanly impossible timeframe. He also seems to have a knack for knowing exactly what mystery to solve to get the next piece of a puzzle, plus, he seems to have a different lady companion each time (whatever happened to Vittoria Vetra (Angels and Demons), Sophie Neveu (The Da Vinci Code) and Katherine Solomon (The Lost Symbol)? For a supposedly unadventurous professor, he sure seems to go through women too fast.

Inferno has pretty much everything you would expect from a Dan Brown novel - there's a puzzle, there's a race against time, there's a woman (ha!), there's a life-and-death matter, and there's a bad guy. The puzzle is constructed almost with the intention that someone should solve it and stop the Bad Deed. Surprisingly, Inferno does deviate from the regular path considerably. For once, there is not much Symbology in here - there's just enough to warrant Langdon's presence. The prime art theme in Inferno is Dante and his Divine Comedy. Halfway through the book, Dante plays second fiddle to the Malthusian theory, which is actually the main crux of the book.

Dan Brown spends a good chunk of the book exploring the population problem in the world as of today. The various characters give different perspectives on dealing with the problem. While it made me better appreciate the enormity of the problem we really have, I didn't quite enjoy Brown's repeated attempts to dance the issue in front of my eyes - the preaches honestly got tiring. Besides, a lot of elements came showing up repeatedly once in a while, almost as if Brown forgot that he had already mentioned them. A pretty good aspect of the book is the introduction into Transhumanism. I can't say that I've ever come across that term and the idea of it frightens and repulses me but it was fascinating to know that something like that exists.

Besides the few new elements, everything else about Inferno is standard Dan Brown fare. It wouldn't be a Dan Brown book if Robert Langdon could get shot in the head and not wake up from it without any repercussions. Plus spend the next 5-6 hours racing across the world and solving a mystery that would in reality take days, or at least more than a day. But this is Robert Langdon, why am I being so hard on the superman?

I borrowed this book from the good old library.


Comments

rhapsodyinbooks said…
I'll tell you, ever since seeing Tom Hanks and that awful hair playing Langdon, it has turned me off to the stories! But I may read this one when it shows up for $1 at library sales! :--)
bermudaonion(Kathy) said…
I read The Da Vinci Code when everyone was talking about it and just thought it was okay. Later I tried Angels and Demons and felt the same way so I haven't read anymore of his books. It sounds like I really haven't missed anything.
Sam_TinyLibrary said…
I love both Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons but found the Dan Brown before this one disappointing (The Lost Symbol?). Having read your review, I don't think I will read this one either.
Samadrita said…
Every time I read a negative review of this, my decision to steer clear of Inferno feels justified. The last Dan Brown was terribly pathetic too.


Great review.
JoV said…
I fondly remember still the days I hang on to Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. I couldn't eat, couldn't work, couldn't sleep until I finished them. This one sounds good but part of me is afraid that I have grew up and wouldn't like Dan Brown that much now.
JoV said…
Jill,
I agree with you! Tom Hanks is not my idea of Langdon. lol
Helen Murdoch said…
I also absolutely loved The DaVince code when I read it but I haven't read any of his others, but I am not sure why.
Jenny @ Reading the End said…
Hahaha, look, some people are just tricksy geniuses and can solve mysteries in record time. That's just a thing that some people can do.
Athira / Aths said…
Oh yeah, that movie was ridiculous!

Yeah, I wouldn't waste my breath trying to get hold of this book desperately. Library sales sounds good.
Athira / Aths said…
You haven't missed anything for sure. I could easily tell you the story and it won't take me long to finish it.
Athira / Aths said…
Lost Symbol was very disappointing. After the first two, I had a ton of expectations but it just went down from there.
Athira / Aths said…
Lost Symbol was definitely boring. So was Inferno. You aren't missing much.
Athira / Aths said…
I would stay away from his books if I were you. I liked Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code. But everything after that was boring. I wish I had stopped reading him with those two books.
Athira / Aths said…
You could try his Angels and Demons - that one was thrilling too. But the others - skip them.
Athira / Aths said…
Haha! It would be awesome if we had more Langdons in this world - a lot of disaster could be averted!
Nishita said…
He seems to be so predictable. I loved Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons was not bad, but I was done by then. I don't think I could read more of the same.
Marie said…
LOL, sounds like a fun romp!