Dan Brown's lnferno - disappointing and pedestrian.

Our favourite Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, returns in Dan Brown’s latest book Inferno (2013).

Langdon is back doing what he does best: deciphering symbols in artworks, visiting amazing buildings in Europe and of course, saving the world.

I thought Brown’s first three books in the Langdon series, Angels and Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003) and The Lost Symbol (2009), were all hugely fun, entertaining and enjoyable thrillers.

But Inferno is hugely disappointing, lacklustre and just plain boring.

In its review The Daily Mail called it ‘bilge, but one hell of a page turner’.  A tad harsh, but after finishing the book I don’t even think it rates as a page turner at all!

In fact, completing the book became a real chore because I had lost interest midway through the book.

Let’s face it, thrillers in the genre like The Da Vinci Code all have completely outlandish plots. I think that is fun part of the read, but really if you are going to do outlandish then as least make it interesting, intricate and fun outlandish.

The story begins with Langdon waking up in hospital in Florence and suffering amnesia after being shot in the head. He is unable to remember why he is in Florence and why a range of people are seemingly out to hurt him. He is left with a clues found in a Botticelli illustration for Dante's The Divine Comedy.

I don’t want to give too much away but a whole lot of elements didn’t really work for me and the plot twists when revealed were oh so pedestrian.

In the end I think Brown overreached in his focus on Dante’s The Divine Comedy and rather than engaging with it a meaningful way it was just used as simply a plot device.

One of the biggest grips I have about the book is that a good portion of it is full of badly written descriptions of very famous religious buildings like the Palazzo Vecchio and Sophia Hagia. 

Oh and the also the fact that Langdon seems to care more about his Mickey Mouse watch than the potential end of the world.

I must admit reading the various reviews of Inferno have actually been much more fun and entertaining then the book itself. That really says something!   

Some of the reviews are also master classes in the art of the backhanded compliment. The highlight being Jake Kerridge in The Telegraph who wrote “as a stylist Brown gets better and better: where once he was abysmal he is now just very poor.” SNAP.

Also from the Telegraph’s Michael Deacon’s written-in-the-style-of-Dan-Brown “Inferno” review is a real hoot too.

But in the end I feel disappointed, because I'm not a Dan Brown 'hater' and I actually wanted to like this book.

I was looking forward to a fun and interesting page turner, but instead it felt like a rather dull art history lecture.

From book to film - Jack Reacher fails on screen

I’d probably count myself a bit of a Jack Reacher fan.

As I’ve previously blogged before, I’ve read all of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series and really enjoyed them. 

The first five or six are standouts in the contemporary anti-hero thriller genre. Reacher is the THE man you turn to when you're in trouble.

So like most fans I’ve got a pretty good mental picture in my head of what Jack Reacher looks like and it ain’t Tom Cruise.

When Cruise was announced to play Reacher, the fanbase went pretty rabid pretty quickly. Oh fandom, such a very fine line between love and hate. 

I’ve finally managed to watch Cruise’s Jack Reacher movie released in 2012.

Oh dear, what a complete disappointment! 

I tried to approach the movie with an open mind, after all much to the world and Anne Rice's surprise, Cruise did manage to pull of the role of Lestat in The Vampire Diaries. 

But this just didn’t work at all for me at any level: as a Reacher fan and also a movie fan full stop. 

After the first few scenes I kept reminding myself ‘oh it’s Jack Reacher not Tom Cruise playing another hero’.  At one stage, I almost thought I was watching another Mission Impossible film. 

I know movies are about suspension of disbelief, but seriously Jack Reacher is supposed to be 6 ft 5 in, weigh 250lbs and be tan with dirty blond hair. Cruise doesn’t physically come even remotely close. 

However, what disappointed me even more than the physical disparity is the fact that Cruise's Reacher is just so bland and one dimensional.

Reacher in the novels is actually really funny, witty and a real smart arse too. Plus he is also very critical of a lot of things in American society including the military, government and consumer culture. 

This is all lost in the film and in fact Reacher's patriotic monologues were some of the most cringeworthy moments of the film. 

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the complete lack of chemistry between Cruise and Rosamund Pike. Truly, truly painful to watch.

All I can say is, thank god for Robert Duvall! Duvall chews up the scenery and is the only memorable character in the film. 


This is defintely one book to film adaption that failed.

The Hobbit: movie and book review together

This is my first combo review ever! And it’s a little bit unusual because I saw the movie first, then read the book. 

The movie - The Hobbit: an unexpected journey (2012)

So what to make of The Hobbit: an unexpected journey or otherwise known as Peter Jackson’s very extended love letter to J.R.R. Tolkien?

Well, first it was really wonderful to be transported back to the world of Middle Earth with its hobbits, wizards, elves and dwarves. In particular, it felt like seeing old friends again when Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving ), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman (Christpher Lee) popped up on screen. 

It was even great to see Gollum (Andy SIrkis) again! 

I thought Jackson really hit the spot with casting again: MartinFreeman was perfect at Bilbo Baggins and Richard Armitage, nearly unrecognisable under all that prosthetics, brilliant as Thorin.

Like the Lord of the Rings (LOR) trilogy, what stands out in every frame of this film is Jackson’s love of Tolkien’s imaginary world. And just like LOR the detailed look and feel of Middle Earth was amazing. 

While there have been many complaints about the length of the film, it really didn’t bother me too much. This was probably because I was in the comfort of a Gold Class recliner with drinks and snacks on hand to see me through!

That being said I do think the film would have benefitted from some tighter editing to create a better sense of momentum in the narrative.  I did find the repetitive battle scenes were a little bit wearying. But my overall pleasure in finding myself transported back into the world of Middle Earth overcame any of these minor issues.

The book - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937)

Inspired by the movie and wanting to find what happens when the Dragon Smaug reawakens and of course not willing to wait another year, I rushed out to read J. R. R. Tolkien’s book.

I attempted to read the Hobbit in high school and can even remember the  distinctive cover of a dragon sitting on top of a shiny pile of gold. But for some unknown reason, I never managed to finish it. Probably because my teenage self was more interested in the realism of Robert Cormier, Slyvia Plath and Chaim Potok (that’s a whole other post!)

The Hobbit is a really fun read and of course being aimed at children doesn’t have the levity and depth of LOR.

The Hobbit is real 'boys own adventure' story and I found myself being happily and easily drawn back into Tolkien’s world.

The only disappointment in the book was just how quickly (Spoiler alert!) Smaug is taken out of the picture. I expected a bit more of a battle but the dragon was dispensed of in only a couple of sentences!

Reading the Hobbit and running into some of the characters from LOR again made me realise just how much I was absorbed by Tolkien's imaginary world and my awe of how one man's imagination could have created such a layered and complex world. A world that you really want to be part of.

I read LOR at a rather difficult time in my life - I had just come back from overseas and was unemployed and broke. I have very fond memories of spending sustained periods of time reading LOR while it seemed like the rest of the world was beavering away busy at work.

At that point, I realised that no matter was happening in my life and no matter how broke I was, I would always be able to find pleasure and joy in books. 

And for that I thank you J.R.R.Tolkien.

 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

After watching Susan Cain’s passionate and funny TED talk, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her book Quiet: The Power ofIntroverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

I just had a discussion with friends over lunch about introvert/extrovert personalities and the Myers Briggs Type testing we've all endured as a part of the recruitment process. 

So I was all really quiet prepped and eager to dig into the issue of introverts. 

I found Quiet an interesting and thought provoking read. Cain makes some really good points about how our culture rewards and tends to overvalue extroverted behaviour.

I was cheering big time at her critique of open plan office and the fact that they are not conducive to actually thinking and working. 

Being at the introverted end of personality scale, I found it reassuring to recognise my behaviour and have it explained and also valued. While not a ‘self-help’ book in the truest sense, Cain’s book does provide a reassessment of the ‘power’ of introverts. 

As Jon Ronson writes in his review:

“It's also a genius idea to write a book that tells introverts – a vast proportion of the reading public – how awesome and undervalued we are. I'm thrilled to discover that some of the personality traits I had found shameful are actually indicators that I'm amazing. It's a Female Eunuch for anxious nerds. I'm not surprised it shot straight to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.”

But unfortunately I was never really totally absorbed by the book and I found myself skimming through chapters.  

The main issue was the constant and exhaustive review of the academic research which I was just not that interested in.  Rather than a quick summary, Cain would devote pages to detailing a journal article and the research it was based on.

I also found the chapter: "Soft Power - Asian-Americans and the Extroverted Ideal' a little problematic. I was very uneasy about some of inherent essentialist arguments and over generalisations being made. 

What I enjoyed the most and what makes Cain's book worth reading is where she writes about her personal experiences and talks to other introverts. For example, she writes about forcing herself to attend an Anthony Robbins 'power' seminar and also where she ends up going to an introverts retreat and actually hating all the silence and non-speaking! 

Overall, I'm really glad I read Cain's book and she makes a powerful and eloquent argument for valuing introverts.