Inferno by Dan Brown: a hot formula for success
Posted: 06 Jul 2013, 14:21
One of the worst jeers you can hurl at a book and/or an author is the label: formulaic. Until you come up against Dan Brown and his series of historical mysteries, that is, starting with his powerful "The DaVinci Code." Besides writing grossly formulaic constructions, Brown has a rich feel for subjects that will rouse the interests of readers far and wide.
In "DaVince" the engine of drama was the bloodline of Christ. Who doesn't want to ferret out the hidden mysteries of THAT!?
In his latest book, "Inferno," the document that underlies a tense and suspenseful chase is nothing less than "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri and his vision of hell. Here, unfortunate souls who have lived sordid and criminal lives are consigned to the underworld after death according to their vices on earth. Plotwise, Dante's work is interwoven with the issue of overpopulation of the planet, seen as a growing threat that could end in a vast global inferno.
How Brown interweaves a book classic with staging in his favorite cities of Italy, Florence and Venice, is clever, if not masterful. But the style he uses is nothing if not formulaic. It's almost musical in its repeated pattern and tempo. But it's more accurately described as a puzzle.
In a video, a mad scientist proclaims to have created a device that will curtail overpopulation and that he plans to set it off on a prescribed date. Where it will be planted he doesn't say, but he issues a series of clues tied to the text of Dante's work with whom he's obsessed. But so, too, is the laudable symbologist Professor Robert Langdon who, by virtue of an assassination attempt on his life and hindered with a bout of amnesia covering the last few days, the expert most likely to prevent mass destruction. Brown sets off his venerable leading man, accompanied by Dr. Sienna Brooks, his beautiful attending physician, on the trail, employing the investigative pattern referred to above. Here's how it goes:
1. The overall construction is an evolving series of discoveries. Each one begins an episode with a clue -- an object or text that Landon must interpret.
2. With flashes of memory out of his encyclopedic mind and/or pure insight, employing lines and references from Dante's ancient world that describe actual places in Italy, he manages to do so.
3. Before he can do anything with this new lead, his enemies, in the form of that black-haired assassin in the employ of the mad scientist, and/or the gendarmes, show up.
4. After a clever ruse or nasty confrontation -- ofttimes both -- the hero narrowly escapes death or arrest and withdraws from the danger.
5. Brown then uses the the locale and other matters presented in this episode to give us a treatise of facts pertaining to them, things from the arcane knowledge he unearthed during his two years of research. In one instance, he explains why Dante's book is called a "comedy." These expository interludes seem to halt the thrust of the narrative, but Brown somehow gets away with it.
6. We now await the next discovery to set off a repeat of the pattern, but not for long.
This design not only provides us a history lesson along with a well paced drama in which something big is at stake, but it has a few benefits that ward off the evils of what seems a mechanical approach. For one, it provides clarity in the arcane subject Brown loves so much. It serves as an easily grasped platform for him to achieve all the things he wants to in the telling of his tale. And, finally, it has proven wildly successful.
So, before we go damning writers with that dread label as though it's an indecency, we need to consider a whole host of elements that the formula serves. Who doesn't want to be in Brown's shoes... or have his check book balance?
In "DaVince" the engine of drama was the bloodline of Christ. Who doesn't want to ferret out the hidden mysteries of THAT!?
In his latest book, "Inferno," the document that underlies a tense and suspenseful chase is nothing less than "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri and his vision of hell. Here, unfortunate souls who have lived sordid and criminal lives are consigned to the underworld after death according to their vices on earth. Plotwise, Dante's work is interwoven with the issue of overpopulation of the planet, seen as a growing threat that could end in a vast global inferno.
How Brown interweaves a book classic with staging in his favorite cities of Italy, Florence and Venice, is clever, if not masterful. But the style he uses is nothing if not formulaic. It's almost musical in its repeated pattern and tempo. But it's more accurately described as a puzzle.
In a video, a mad scientist proclaims to have created a device that will curtail overpopulation and that he plans to set it off on a prescribed date. Where it will be planted he doesn't say, but he issues a series of clues tied to the text of Dante's work with whom he's obsessed. But so, too, is the laudable symbologist Professor Robert Langdon who, by virtue of an assassination attempt on his life and hindered with a bout of amnesia covering the last few days, the expert most likely to prevent mass destruction. Brown sets off his venerable leading man, accompanied by Dr. Sienna Brooks, his beautiful attending physician, on the trail, employing the investigative pattern referred to above. Here's how it goes:
1. The overall construction is an evolving series of discoveries. Each one begins an episode with a clue -- an object or text that Landon must interpret.
2. With flashes of memory out of his encyclopedic mind and/or pure insight, employing lines and references from Dante's ancient world that describe actual places in Italy, he manages to do so.
3. Before he can do anything with this new lead, his enemies, in the form of that black-haired assassin in the employ of the mad scientist, and/or the gendarmes, show up.
4. After a clever ruse or nasty confrontation -- ofttimes both -- the hero narrowly escapes death or arrest and withdraws from the danger.
5. Brown then uses the the locale and other matters presented in this episode to give us a treatise of facts pertaining to them, things from the arcane knowledge he unearthed during his two years of research. In one instance, he explains why Dante's book is called a "comedy." These expository interludes seem to halt the thrust of the narrative, but Brown somehow gets away with it.
6. We now await the next discovery to set off a repeat of the pattern, but not for long.
This design not only provides us a history lesson along with a well paced drama in which something big is at stake, but it has a few benefits that ward off the evils of what seems a mechanical approach. For one, it provides clarity in the arcane subject Brown loves so much. It serves as an easily grasped platform for him to achieve all the things he wants to in the telling of his tale. And, finally, it has proven wildly successful.
So, before we go damning writers with that dread label as though it's an indecency, we need to consider a whole host of elements that the formula serves. Who doesn't want to be in Brown's shoes... or have his check book balance?
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