July 25: "Of Human Bondage," "Inferno," Piece of Mind

...You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though.  I read it last summer.  It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up.  I don't know.  He just isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, that's all.  I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up.  I like that Eustacia Vye.

Holden reads a lot of books, from classics, like The Return of the Native, to lighter fare, like Ring Lardner stories.  It seems like he has discriminating taste.  He recognizes good writing.  He likes Of Human Bondage, but Somerset Maugham doesn't pass Holden's test for writers:  when he was done reading Bondage, Holden didn't want to call Maugham up to have coffee with him.

Judging by his literary litmus test, Holden and I would get along just fine.  Sometimes, I don't want to be challenged by a book.  Sometimes I simply want to be entertained.  My choice of reading material for these dog days of summer is Dan Brown's Inferno, the latest installment in the Robert Langdon series.  Holden would totally want to have coffee with Dan Brown.

Brown will not be winning any literary prizes for his writing.  There are no Pulitzers or Nobels in his future.  But I don't think that's his aim.  He writes thrillers, books with two- or three-page chapters that end with sentences like this:  "From out of the shadows, the dead face of Dante Alighieri was looking back at him."

I think Dan Brown unfairly gets a bad rap.  When I pick up a book by him, I don't expect One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Brown's books are cinematic and plot-driven.  That's why Inferno is a perfect summer read.

Inferno places Brown's hero, Robert Langdon, smack dab in the middle of Florence, Italy.  Langdon's suffering from amnesia and is being pursued by soldiers, police, and assassins.  Mix in a crazed biochemist and a 400-year old puzzle centered on Dante's Inferno.  Dan Brown knows how to keep the pages turning.

True, Brown's prose can be a little heavy-handed, especially when he decides to include exposition.  I, however, enjoy those moments when Inferno becomes part history book/part art lesson.  It makes me feel less guilty when I'm reading the breathless chase scenes and escapes.

If you're looking for an author to take on vacation, Dan Brown is your man.  He's great company on airplanes, in cars, during hot summer nights.  I'd have coffee with him.

And that's a piece of Saint Marty's mind.

Espresso anyone?