Inferno, by Dan Brown

               One of my friends texted me late last night, asking if I'd read Inferno. I told her that I hadn't, and her immediate response was that she was bringing it to school tomorrow and that I will read it, there is no "choice" here. I love it whenever people say something like that about a book. I'll probably read it if you tell me the world will end if I don't.

               I've read The DaVinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Angels and Demons, and really like the style of writing Dan Brown uses. Even though I just started the book, I already know the main character. He wears Harris tweed, loafers, and a Mickey Mouse watch, and , to me, they're all symbols. He's a Harvard professor, so I consider his tweed and loafers as a distincton. They're a visual representation of his professor background, so that even when he's hiding from trigger-happy bad guys and miraculously solving a complex code you're reminded that he's a teacher, and he really isn't built to be a hero. He's just a regular guy--well, a genius professor of symbology at Harvard--and that's actually quite heartening to read. His Mickey Mouse watch is, rather predictably, a symbol of his childhood. But, it's less of a link to a weepy backstory and more of an explanation for his skill in solving codes and following clues. Why is it that a professor can stop dangerous plots better than people trained to do so? Two reasons: One, he's trained to look for links between different things (symbology) and two, he's got a different point of view, and that's a quality many children have.

               When he wakes up in a hospital bed at the beginning of Inferno with no memory of where he'd been for the past two days and no idea how he got to Italy from Massachusetts, he's without these two symbols. Above all, those items are links to his past, and right now he needs to remember everything he can.

               I think I'll keep reading.