I just finished Dan Brown's latest, Inferno, and enjoyed the read. No, it's not great literature, it has no subtle layers of existential meaning (unless you count Dante's nine spirals of hell, though I would credit that metaphor to Dante more than Brown). The mystery is a series of international chase scenes, an evil plot of a mad scientist, and the heroics of the ever lovable, Harvard super-nerd, Robert Langdon. Chuck Leddy, of the Boston Globe, began his May 2013 review of Inferno by writing, "Assessing Dan Brown from a literary perspective seems almost beside the point." I agree. Inferno is pleasant summer diversion, nothing more. It's a beach book.
What's a beach book? Something you read just for the joy of escapism: think of the Bourne series, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, John Patterson. Summer is the time to read books not attached to curriculum and classrooms and assessments. It's the time for science fiction, for romance, for gothic tragedy, for mysteries. There are no multiple co-authors here, no Ph.D.-laden bibliographies. Footnotes are banned until September. A beach book is just a fun story with a little meat on the bones to keep your interest.
The meat is important to me. Ultra light-weight books, the kind that float away on the cross-winds of improbability and you've-got-to-be-kidding, bore me and are quickly set aside. These are donated to the library or deleted from my queue. Dan Brown usually does a nice job of seasoning his plot with exotic and archaic settings and detail. Because of my background, I like the quasi-religious sub-tones. The Boston Globe's Leddy wrote in appreciation, "(Brown) obviously researched the architecture of Florence (and Venice and Istanbul), the symbolism of Dante's great work, and the 'mad science' behind the villain's plot." All of these are interesting to Brown's fans, otherwise we would have stopped reading him after chapter one of The Da Vinci Code.
I may add Inferno to next fall's list of reading in the classroom. I try to develop student interest in reading by providing them a variety of new reading material. Popular books and magazines often work. We read them together and talk about the ideas of the authors. I don't really care what the book or article is about when I am working with my reading students so long as they find it interesting. What's important is conveying a shared excitement about the words, ideas, and discovery. The page-turning experience, especially from a beach book, is bonus.
OK, enough academic talk about adding reading to curriculum. That's the material for long, dark February conferences. This is summer. The beach awaits. Where's that Neil Gaiman book I've heard so much about?
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