May 31, 2013 06:35 PM
1723 Views
(Updated Aug 12, 2013 11:37 AM)
Being an ardent Dan Brown fan and having read all of his novels chronologically have insisted me to pre-order this piece from Flipkart. Being Offered a discount of 30% was the icing on the cake. Delivery was smooth and fast, the book was delivered at my doorstep on 15th of May, the day after the book was released worldwide. I was elated, having waited for this piece for so long!
The best-selling books of Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Deception Point have left a benchmark of Brown’s valued work and knowledge and let one to explore his work further and better. The lasting impression lingers deep and opens into new doors. However, in this book expectations are not very well met - to say the truth. :(
About the book
Robert Langdon, the Harvard professor awakes in a hospital bed with amnesia and stiches matted on to his head. What follows is a series of bullet shots, hysteria and his own Consulate trying to kill him. At times, he is unsure whom to turn to. The only hope at hand is to recover and solve the mystery that lies ahead. Robert’s pseudo pursuer is a blond doctor with a high IQ who accompany him in his trails as he recovers his past and try to solve the mystery. He covertly finds himself possessed with a small canister (with a bio-hazard symbol) that portrays out the famous “Nine Levels of Hell” from the Divine Comedy of Dante Alegheri, the famous Italian scholar. Robert quickly deciphers that this fine and precious piece of art has been modified to reflect symbols that leads them to old city of Florence. In the mean time they are being pursued by Italian Police Forces and the WHO. What lies ahead is a mesh of unfinished business pursued by the evil desire of a scientist. Subsequent findings lead them to Venice and then the city of Moscow.
The story is entangled with a stark truth – Overpopulation and the ways to curb it. According to a famous Biologist, the way population is growing exponentially in this world will ultimately lead people to fight among themselves for resources and killing each other for survival. The day is near and in a hundred years the world will collapse. In the book, Brown has introduced and induced wide statistics to support the claim and one leads to believe if this is actually true! “Survival of the fittest” – to overcome such a tragedy, some major step needs to be taken and implemented. Bertand Zorbist takes the lead and invents a pathogen (starkly rumored and thought to be the plague of Black Death) which is deadly and intended to kill millions of people - with an intent to combat overpopulation and balance the number of people on the earth. Zorbist, being a Dante follower leaves his trail and secret cipher on Dante’s Death Mask. Robert is the man who is unwittingly set to uncover and unravel the ciphers. The conclusion of the story is certainly odd and you will suddenly feel your feet off the accelerator pedal! I won’t introduce any more spoilers in the plot.
My Take
The story intertwines beautifully, through the streets of Florence, Dante’s Divine Comedy, The Nine Levels of Hell and Venice. Readers are enthralled with true facts and speculations. In a few places, I felt the story being dragged and the reader losses grip over the situation. No bone chilling content and sudden twists as you might expect from Brown’s previous works. Yet the story just miss the icing on the cake – no best selling material either according to me! If you are a Dan Brown fan, this is a good pick and will add to your collection. Happy Reading!
~Somjeet~
