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Dan Brown

Midnight said:
Sorry guys I have to agree with Steffe. Brown's books are great and suspenseful, after I read a chapter of the Da Vinci Code, I want to read the next chapter because he ends his chapters in suspense making the reader want to know what's going to happen next.

But I don't believe in religion. There isn't a singe religious bone in my body!!

~Midnight~
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Dan Brown was utterly spoiled for me when I read Deception Point first. I don't follow any hype, and I just grabbed that one from an airport spinner for killing a trans-Atlantic crossing--the seatback barfbag may have been a better read.

The killer was an action sequence set on the ice shelf between Baffin Island and Greenland where the heros had just done a wind-surfer thing to the brink. The group is on a section that calves into an iceberg. HELLO! Has Brown never watched the discovery channel? That has about zero survivability--but up they pop--wet and freezing. Now they have very few minutes left to live (amazingly unharmed)--but wait! The girl recalls having a handy-dandy ice axe on her belt, so begins tapping Morse code. Hmmm, perhaps I know this only because I come from the ice-filled nation of Canada, but even a glacier is not blue ice on top. It is only compacted snow that gets denser as it gets deeper. The sound of an axe on the wet slush could penetrate how far through the iceberg? Then, an American submarine just happens to pop up--with no foreshadowing to take the edge off the utterly unbelievable coincidence.

Brown could've had his heros all sprout wings and flewn away from the danger. That would've been no less incredulous.
 
I have never read a Dan Brown book, so I cannot say anything, positive or negative, about his writing style or prose. I will say, however, that I enjoyed TDVC movie a great deal. I liked the riddles and puzzles, the attempt at using true historical rumors and facts to present the fictional plotline. Many of his facts were obviously unresearched, but they do have an excellent "conspiracy theory" ring to them.

I was reared in a very religious household and was not really given any option to learn about or, heaven forbid, believe in any religion other than that which my parent's beheld. When I went to college, I studied other religions and formed my own religious opinion-that no one religion can be considered 100% true and all others false. That opinion has lead to numerous, rather intriguing discussions with those who staunchly believe in one religion or another as well as with athiests and agnostics. This book/movie has done the same.

I also liked that it presented a different viewpoint on religion and power. This particular viewpoint I have subscribed to for many years and it was very nice to see a fictional plotline that encompassed my feeling that religion has been used by governments, monarchys and even dicators for thousands of years to suppress the people, empower themselves and give them excuses for warmongering and oppression.

Everyone I have talked to that has read a DB book has told me not to bother reading them, stating that I would find the writing style horrendous and the prose irritating. I have taken that advice, but I do like his concepts and, being a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself, I am curious. Just not curious enough to use my hard-earned money to purchase one.
 
I loved Da Vinci Code and even more than that I loved Angels & Demons. Those are the only two i've read but has anyone read any others of his?

I got these as audio books from emusic because it was cheap but do you know of other cheaper places?

Can't wait to read the Lost Symbol!
 
Hello, corgee. Welcome to the forum.

I have read those two plus Deception Point and Digital Fortress. All were fun reads. I"ll probably pick up the Lost Symbol sometime in the near future.
 
Shouldn't this be merged into the existing Dan Brown thread (one of many)?

Here's an article, btw: How Dan Brown Feeds the Brain -- New York Magazine

I believe the power of Dan Brown is very simple: He exists entirely to make us feel smart. He is devoted to reader empowerment like Keats was devoted to euphony. Every clause, every punctuation mark, every plot twist, puzzle, and factoid is engineered precisely to flatter our intelligence. This isn’t necessarily something to sneer at; I don’t think Brown is a cynical panderer. It’s just that his “pleasure-the-reader” instincts (an unconscious authorial cocktail that every writer has) push him, very urgently, to satisfy one of our most primal human needs: the lust to be oriented, to master one’s environment, to recognize patterns, to process chaos into order. The Da Vinci Code is intelligibility porn: You get the satisfaction of understanding, over and over, without any of the real-world effort. (...) His characters get strategically dense at key moments, puzzling for so long over increasingly obvious clues that even the slowest reader is forced, almost accidentally, to solve the mystery.
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I believe the power of Dan Brown is very simple: He exists entirely to make us feel smart. He is devoted to reader empowerment like Keats was devoted to euphony. Every clause, every punctuation mark, every plot twist, puzzle, and factoid is engineered precisely to flatter our intelligence. This isn’t necessarily something to sneer at; I don’t think Brown is a cynical panderer. It’s just that his “pleasure-the-reader” instincts (an unconscious authorial cocktail that every writer has) push him, very urgently, to satisfy one of our most primal human needs: the lust to be oriented, to master one’s environment, to recognize patterns, to process chaos into order. The Da Vinci Code is intelligibility porn: You get the satisfaction of understanding, over and over, without any of the real-world effort. (...) His characters get strategically dense at key moments, puzzling for so long over increasingly obvious clues that even the slowest reader is forced, almost accidentally, to solve the mystery.
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:D and the author of this beautifull article must have the brown tongue by now.

lick lick.
 
Occlith said:
no, but it's too late now
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Just out of curiosity, why not? I thought that was some sort of policy here - don't start a new thread if there's a perfectly good old one? Do different moderators have different views on this?
 
beer good said:
Just out of curiosity, why not? I thought that was some sort of policy here - don't start a new thread if there's a perfectly good old one?
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You are correct; similar threads should be merged. When I saw the new post I considered doing so but it's just that Dan Brown wasn't worth the effort, IMO. :whistling:
 
^^ That's brilliant.

Here's a few early comments and links to reviews:

What the blogosphere is saying about Dan Brown | Books | guardian.co.uk

My favourite things about the new Dan Brown novel, The Lost Symbol? These two sentences:

"'Actually, Katherine, it's not gibberish.' His eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. 'It's ... Latin.'"

and

"Is there life after death? Do humans have souls? Incredibly, Katherine had answered all of these questions and more."
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His miracle is to have made Jeffrey Archer read like Dostoevsky in comparison.
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I don't know about you, but now i'm half in mind to read it,just to know this apprently wonderfull Katherine.
A paradox of a woman,dum enough not to reconize latin but a genius when it come to after life mysteries.
Maybe she's not a woman but a golden retriver?
Damn you.......see,i'm really curious about it now.
 
I don't have any problem with Dan Brown's writing. The thing that frustrates me about his books is his research. He sounds plausible enough in places where I don't know anything about the subject, but his books are peppered with scientific and historical howlers that tend to throw me out of the story where I am familiar with the matter. I can't call these things 'mistakes' because I have the impression that he isn't trying to stick close to the truth, the way some novelists do.

I've found those books of his that I've read entertaining, but they'd be more so if I weren't saying "horsefeathers!" so often.
 
Wow... This is a fantastic article. I particularly like #14 and #9. I must put those down for my next argument against the "Overwhelming scientific research Brown has compiled to throw down the Church." Can't tell you how often I hear variations on that. It's beating a dead horse to say I don't like his writing, it feels repetitive and predictable at best, but what gets me is how many people seem to forget that it is, indeed, fiction. You cannot cite Michael Crichton as a source for a research paper (At least, certainly not independently). The science he puts in gives his fiction an element of realism. The same of The Da Vinci Code.
 
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