I’m so looking forward to this movie. I feel guilty and a little debased for saying that. Having read the book, I should be telling people to run the other way. Much to my relief the author has expressed the exact perspective one should take to the Da Vinci Code sagas, as engagingly ludicrous fables that shouldn't be missed. (Note Robert Langdon is such an insipid protagonist that we call them Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan and Jack Reacher novels, but these are named for the only memorable book of the bunch. Maybe Brown should have called him Jack Langdon.)

Here’s how forgettable yet engrossing Inferno is as a book: My wife picked it up, yes, at an airport, read it and said I might like it. I started reading it and about 50 pages in said “this is really familiar. But so are all Dan Brown books. Does this end in [spoiler omitted]?” She said yes. I threw it down in disgust at Brown’s talent for hooking me yet again in engrossing, preposterous tales that aggravate the reader, yet also seem to instill a form of pleasant amnesia in recalling said tome. Reading a Dan Brown novel is like having kids — an engaging yet occasionally trying and often frustrating endeavor that soon fades to a pleasant memory until your reminded of all the agita when you have the next kid.

Postscript — A few years later I was looking to download a book on my new iPhone before a flight. I’d lost a bunch of books and music from a previous iPod because of a corrupted backup from two models ago and never bothered to recover them from Apple. I said, “Oh look a new Dan Brown book.” I went to buy it and iTunes said “You already own Inferno. Would you like to download your purchased copy?” Damn you Dan Brown! (shakes fist).