Dan Brown's "Inferno" (A Robert Langdon Story)

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So the next book on the docket is Inferno by Dan Brown. This is the newest book in the series that follows Robert Langdon through his journey of saving the world, religions, and/or people with his symbolist background.  I have read the other books that include him, and I usually pick them up when they come out. Just in case you have been hiding under a rock for a while these previous works include: Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, & The Lost Symbol.  These are obviously in addition to Inferno. Dan Brown has done a great job with his writing and always ties in a lot historical knowledge into his stories.

The first thing that I would like to draw attention to is the writing style that Dan Brown uses. Like many successful contemporary authors, he uses quick action/series of events paired with short chapters of differing perspectives. This may sound confusing, but really is very common. The events happen in the book are a quick timeline, even though I think this one was more dragged out than the others. The chapters are broken up into short “need to know” or “suspense building” sections; the point of view also changes during the chapter which allows the reader to see the same events from different character’s perspectives. I really enjoy this type of writing because, having ADHD, my mind skips a lot and wants to know what the other people are thinking. This method also allows Brown to draw out the suspense to hook the reader and have them keep reading.

Robert Langdon is seen as the unlikely “intellectual” hero that always seems to know the way around these catastrophic events with his intellect. There is something enduring about that, and I appreciate that there are still heroes that are seen in the spotlight as intelligent people. In a world where our “role models” are useless and have no purpose whatsoever (i.e. The Kardashians, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, etc.) in terms of being someone to emulate, it is refreshing to see someone (even a fictional character) to uphold the idea of using their own knowledge. Langdon is stated to have an eidetic memory, and can remember pretty much anything that he sees/hears; and he is also known for being brutally honest and extremely respectful. Overall he has a number of attributes that makes him ideal for someone to admire.

This story opens up a little differently because the first thing we see is a suicide by a man we later know to be named Bertrand Zobrist. Langdon is then introduced as being in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound to the head. Okay…not something I was expecting. Langdon then learns that he has amnesia and cannot remember anything from the last few days. So right in the beginning of the book we have the hero who is known for his mind power, and then having that stripped away right from the start. We immediately meet Langdon’s customary “pretty/innocent” female sidekick. This is a mold that has been used in each of Brown’s books about Langdon, but it is a formula that works. I think that if it was just Langdon running around, it would be boring having him talk to himself and seem egotistical. The sidekick is a must, and Langdon just happens to attract the pretty women around him. The twist in this story, which I wasn’t expecting AT ALL, was that she was actually involved with the villain of the story. This is a different direction that Brown takes that makes the archetypal female sidekick a fresh idea.

There are a number of twists that happen in this book that are nice to see. Even though Brown’s books follow a similar format (just like Rick Riordan in his Percy Jackson books), they are still enjoyable because they are just overall good stories. The whole plot of the story is based around the villain, Bertrand Zobrist, and how he is trying to take population control into his own hands. He is a brilliant bioengineer that designs a plague that he is planning on releasing into the world. There is a lot of mystery surrounding it because Zobrist has been developing this strain while being hidden from public view by a man known as the Provost. Zobrist is also being hunted by the WHO (World Health Organization) at the same time. Zobrist is concerned because he feels that the human race will not last the next century because it’s huge growth in population. The plague he develops is an interesting twist in and of itself. I will not spoil how it works when it is released. And yes, the plague gets released and you will have to read it to see the details. The other thing that makes Zobrist mysterious is that he is obsessed with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Queue: Robert Langdon. This is how Langdon is tied to the story because the clues have to do with Dante’s works. The other big twist is that Langdon is being chased through the story by people trying to kill him and stop him. So it is a little bit different than usual.

My two pet peeves for the book are minimal and more of a general annoyance. The first issue has to do with Langdon’s Mickey Mouse Watch (if you’ve never seen one, look here). In the previous books there is a story about how important this watch is to Langdon and that it reminds him not to take things so seriously all the time, which create the irony of the situation he is always in. In the beginning of Inferno Langdon is being pursued by an assassin while in the hospital and when his female sidekick, Sienna Brooks, helps him to escape the watch is left behind. Okay, I understand it’s important to him, but it’s not like his arm was chopped off. Through the rest of the book (the last 98% of the pages) the concept of the missing Mickey watch is brought up no fewer than 10 times. By the second time it’s mentioned it’s obvious it will be returned to him in some way at the end of the story. Just like we learn about symbolism in an English class, it’s not mentioned because it’s unimportant. Then, sure enough at the end of the story the watch is mailed back to him and all is well. Like I said, it’s more of an annoyance because it’s so minor and just distracting that Brown takes away from the story to remind me that his precious watch was gone. It’s like every time Brown is telling me “HEY!!! Don’t forget about the Mickey watch, it’ll come back later…wait for it…”.

The other issue that I have with the book is more along the lines of distracting from the plot as well. This just deals with the sheer volume of historical information that is provided. I enjoy the history that accompanies the storyline in all of Brown’s novels, but I felt like this one was over the top. It seemed like there was a lot of background explained for something so minor. Through a lot of the book I was starting to get information overload. I just felt that it took away from the story a little bit. Now, I understand a possible reason for this annoyance. The other books the Langdon stars in, I have a pretty decent background on the history from those, so possibly it didn’t seem as daunting. Inferno has a lot of Italian references and has different languages used throughout, so I understand that I may have a pet peeve about my own ignorance of Italian culture.

Regardless of the small issues that I have, I thought the book was pretty good. Not necessarily great, because it carries the same format as the others; however, it’s still enjoyable because of the little twists. I don’t want to give away too much from the story because I if you are going to read it, I don’t want to ruin it. However, there should be enough here to give you an idea about the plot. If you haven’t already checked out Dan Brown’s other books, go do that too.

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"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

It's been a while since I wrote a post on here, and I felt that I would have to back-track a little bit. It seems that most of these reviews are about books, but I'm okay with that. So here we go, another book review.

About mid-summer I finished reading the non-fiction book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I used to read a lot of non-fiction, but haven't had a chance to do so in quite some time. I enjoy reading about real events because it gives me a sense of awe and I feel like I am looking in on a conversation you might overhear in the store. Outliers is a story about success, it says so right in the subtitle. However, I feel like most of the "success" stories that we see all the time are more "braggy" and have that feeling of someone preening their feathers like a proud peacock. Outliers is not like that at all! Instead of focusing the book around the accomplishments of these great people, Gladwell focuses around the reasons WHY these people are great and how that effects their accomplishments.

Gladwell starts off the book by describing an "outlier" as someone who stands above the rest because of their achievements and dedication. To give you an idea of the samples mentioned: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, etc. Yes, these are more focused around the technology world, but they are likely the ones that most people have heard of before. Gladwell goes on to explain that the reason why people are successful have many different factors, rather than just becoming an "overnight success".

One of the coolest things that Gladwell covers is the idea of the 10,000 hour rule. This is something that I had heard of in high school athletics. The rule states that in order to become great at something, you must have had focused practice at that task for a minimum of 10,000 hours. This doesn't sound like a lot, really just 417 days straight (all 24 hours), so just over a year. Obviously no one is going to practice a task with that much focus straight. He runs through all the opportunities that Gates and Jobs had in the early years of computers to not only be exposed to them, but also to practice programing. Another thing that factors in is when the people were born. Most of the major tech people that have made huge developments in the tech world were born between the years 1953-1955. Because this puts these developers in their early twenties during the first introduction of computers. This allowed for enough time to practice their 10,000 hour rule wile most people had never even seen a computer at that time.

It's interesting how all these little factors have such a large impact on the outcome of these people. When I was reading through the book, I kept on thinking of the phrase "some people have all the luck". And that statement kind of rings true because in order to become an elite talent, there needs to be some extenuating circumstances. This is apparent from the first chapter in the book. Being a die-hard hockey fan I was immediately grabbed because Gladwell runs through the peewee leagues in Canada's hockey talents. If you follow the sport, you know that Canada produces more elite players than any other in country in the world. Gladwell explains how the top-tiered players are chosen; not by skill (solely)....but by their birth date. Yup, you heard it right, the month that they were born. The breakdown goes like this: the leagues are broken up by ages, and the age of the player when the season starts in the fall. The kids who are born in the first part of the year (January-March) are going to be the oldest players in the league. Going through adolescence there is a BIG difference between a kid who just turned 12 and one who will be turning 13 in a few months. Developmentally, there is a large difference in skill, size, and coordination. Therefore the kids that are chosen for the all-star teams are typically older and born in the first part of the year. This means they get 10x more games during the season, higher-level coaching, national tournaments, and exposure. This allows the kids with earlier birthdays to have the best possible training available when going in to high school, then college, and then (hopefully) the draft. All of this broken down just by the month of their birthdays.

These are the really interesting type of stories that Gladwell covers in Outliers . These claims are backed-up with research and data, but makes you really think about how successful people are behind the scenes. Some of the other interesting ideas that Gladwell addresses is banking on stereotypes of the best lawyers being Jewish and why Asians are better at mathematics than the US (or other English speaking countries).

Now understand this before proceeding - these are just claims as to why these types of people may have an advantage in life and their skill set, not necessarily promoting the ideas of the stereotypes.

Without going into too much detail, because you should really read it and check it out., the reasons why these ideas exist is really about the person's family heritage. in terms of the Jewish lawyers it goes all the way back to their country of origin, the trades that their parents were skilled at. Typically this trade passes on skills to the kids in the family about hard work, perseverance, etc. These are skills are enforced within the home at an early age and then transfered to dealing with the law. Again, very brief but to the point.

The other stereotype is why Asians are so good with math and numbers. This is a combination of the pronunciation of numbers when spoken and how in Asian language there are fewer syllables, and the numbering system makes more sense (in terms of consistency). This allows those cultures to be able to memorize more numbers off the top of their head in sequence than English speaking cultures. Then the concept of hard work travels back through the family history of working the rice patties and the intense care and dedication to a skill. Read the book to get a more in-depth answer.

Overall, Outliers is a great read and really makes you start thinking about what truly makes people becoming successful. Gladwell breaks down the whole concept and finishes with an interesting twist claiming that "[t]he outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all." (Gladwell 285). I know it sounds counter-productive to everything that I just stated above. But that's the point, in order to fully understand this concept you really need to check it out. It's a great read and goes very quickly.

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Next post (coming soon): Inferno by Dan Brown