# "Deception Point" by Dan Brown - should I keep reading? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261 "2006-09-26T20:31:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/21 "2006-09-27T08:58:46Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] …‘da Vinci’ _ **was** _ part of his name, because that’s what people called him; that’s _what names **are** _. [/QUOTE] And not only that, **Skald the Rhymer** , but people referred to him as though ‘da Vinci’ were his actual name long, long before Brown ever came along. I recall him being referred to as ‘da Vinci’ as far back as the sixties, and I’m sure it goes back much further than that. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/22 "2006-09-27T09:12:02Z")
Mangetout, but what if no one would ever call him just “da Vinci”? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/23 "2006-09-27T09:30:46Z")
[QUOTE=mr. jp] Mangetout, but what if no one would ever call him just “da Vinci”? [/QUOTE] I haven’t a clue what you’re asking here; please could you elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/24 "2006-09-27T09:40:54Z")
You say names are what people were called. But what if noone in his day called him just “da Vinci”. Would it then still be fair to call him “da Vinci” today? (Ehm, I’m not sure if it’s clearer now. Hope so though.) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/25 "2006-09-27T09:56:28Z")
[QUOTE=mr. jp] You say names are what people were called. But what if noone in his day called him just “da Vinci”. Would it then still be fair to call him “da Vinci” today? (Ehm, I’m not sure if it’s clearer now. Hope so though.) [/QUOTE] I don’t see why it would be wrong; Otzi the iceman was, in all probability, called something other than Otzi; Christ wasn’t Jesus’ surname and Shakespeare might actually have been Shakespere, Shakespear, Shackspeare or something else (or might not actually have been fussy about the spelling) - as long as when we say ‘da Vinci’, most people understand we’re talking about Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, the famous Italian Renaissance polymath, and not _Bob_ Davinci, retired machinist from Iowa, then that’s his name because that’s what he’s called, today. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/26 "2006-09-27T11:53:21Z")
[QUOTE=Waenara] Actually, to nitpick a nitpick, he wasn’t from “da Vinci”, which would be redundant. He was from a town named “Vinci”. “Da” means “from”. [/quote] :smack: And the said thing is, I KNEW that. I blame Brown for this. When I am god-king he is getting such a gorilla-raping. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/27 "2006-09-27T11:57:14Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] And not only that, **Skald the Rhymer** , but people referred to him as though ‘da Vinci’ were his actual name long, long before Brown ever came along. I recall him being referred to as ‘da Vinci’ as far back as the sixties, and I’m sure it goes back much further than that. [/QUOTE] I can buy the general public calling him that. But “the renowned curator of an art museum”? Oh, hell no. Never gonna happen. First art history class I took in college, we learned how to appropriately refer to him. Hell, forget Art History, ‘twas covered in Humanities 101. And his contemporaries would no more call him “da Vinci” than Jesus’ contemporaries would have called him “Christ” (though the reasoning there is different.) ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/28 "2006-09-27T12:16:44Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] The name of the painter of the Mona Lisa was **Leonardo**. He is properly referred to as **Leonardo**. He was FROM da Vinci. But THAT WAS NOT HIS NAME, and, Zororaster help me, the next time I hear someone call him da Vinci I shall abandon all my super-villainy principles, track Dan Brown down, and personally beat him to within 3/17 of a millimeter of his life – and then beat him another two klicks! [/QUOTE] Make whatever logical arguments you like, but it’s routine to refer to people via locative epithets, both in English and in the various languages such names are taken from. Vincent van Gogh is routinely referred to as “van Gogh”, even in Dutch, even by experts. There’s plenty of others - de Toqueville, van der Waals, and so on. So you might not like it, but it’s accepted practice in all sorts of languages. [More](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003272.html) and [more](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003152.html) and [more](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003151.html). (I love these guys for commenting on silly things like this and managing to find real data to base their commentary on.) I know this is a popular thing to get your knickers in a twist about, but try to evaluate the claims you repeat a little more carefully in the future. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > And not only that, Skald the Rhymer, but people referred to him as though ‘da Vinci’ were his actual name long, long before Brown ever came along. I recall him being referred to as ‘da Vinci’ as far back as the sixties, and I’m sure it goes back much further than that. It pains me to say this, but Starving Artist is right. This is a silly little nitpick that has been going around and such nonsense ought not be repeated on the SDMB. > [@Skald the Rhymer](#): > > I can buy the general public calling him that. But “the renowned curator of an art museum”? Oh, hell no. Never gonna happen. First art history class I took in college, we learned how to appropriately refer to him. Hell, forget Art History, ‘twas covered in Humanities 101. And his contemporaries would no more call him “da Vinci” than Jesus’ contemporaries would have called him “Christ” (though the reasoning there is different.) This is funny, because one of the posts I linked above (I think I found that one. If not, it’s another LanguageLog posting) points out that it’s a relatively old shibboleth _particular_ to the art history community. But obviously other academic fields don’t share this particular prejudice, nor is this rule applied consistently to other artists within art history circles. Within that one particular field, there’s a preference for “Leonardo”, but that amounts to nothing more than a particularly ignorant convention of one field of study. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/29 "2006-09-27T16:34:38Z")
I’m snipping most of your post because you make good points, **Excalibre** , but I have to comment on this: [QUOTE=Excalibre] This is funny, because one of the posts I linked above (I think I found that one. If not, it’s another LanguageLog posting) points out that it’s a relatively old shibboleth _particular_ to the art history community. But obviously other academic fields don’t share this particular prejudice, nor is this rule applied consistently to other artists within art history circles. Within that one particular field, there’s a preference for “Leonardo”, but that amounts to nothing more than a particularly ignorant convention of one field of study. [/QUOTE] That’s exactly my point. It makes no sense for the protagonist of the book to call him “da Vinci.” But he does, because he’s an idiot, because Brown is an idiot. Of course he’s a best selling novelist while I write used car ads, so he’s probably not too concerned with my opinion. Gorram pig rapist. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/30 "2006-09-27T17:11:23Z")
Meh. Yes, it’s formulaic, and by god does he explain far too much, but it keeps you turning pages. The ending is _slightly_ better than the rest of the book. Just be glad you haven’t read _Digital Fortress_. My girlfriend bought it for me for my birthday, and I felt I had to. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/31 "2006-09-27T17:43:53Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] I can buy the general public calling him that. But “the renowned curator of an art museum”? Oh, hell no. Never gonna happen. First art history class I took in college, we learned how to appropriately refer to him. Hell, forget Art History, ‘twas covered in Humanities 101. And his contemporaries would no more call him “da Vinci” than Jesus’ contemporaries would have called him “Christ” (though the reasoning there is different.) [/QUOTE] The thing is, **Skald** , that Brown is writing for the ‘general public’, a public that wouldn’t necessarily – or even likely – know what a museum curator would or would not be educated to say. How often in cop shows, or lawyer shows, or doctor shows, do you see the characters behaving the way they do in real life? Not very often, I can tell you. The scripts are written for those who don’t know better (i.e., almost everyone outside those particualar fields) in order to make them more interesting and/or to make the viewing public better understand what the writers/directors/actors are trying to say. Same thing with Brown and his use of ‘da Vinci’. Whether he knows ‘da Vinci’ is factually inaccurate as a surname, or that a museum curator may never refer to him that way, is really beside the point; basically, he’s writing to entertain, and as long as he does that successfully he has accomplished what he set out to do. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/32 "2006-09-27T17:47:38Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] It pains me to say this, but Starving Artist is right. [/QUOTE] You are most kind. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/33 "2006-09-27T18:07:56Z")
It pains me to say: I’ve read pretty much all his stuff. What can I say. I was 1/3rd of the way through DVC when I bought the rest of them as ebooks, and there’s not much to do on the Bus Ride but read. Let me summarize all Dan Brown books (past, present, and I’ll bet future). 1. Good lookin’ but older guy meets Good lookin but exotic, smart, driven younger woman. 2. Bad Guy is a genetic anomaly 3. Each chapter proceeds exactly the same, as does each Act, and each book. He’s a marvel of writing by equation. 4. Everything happens in a day and a half 5. The dude bags the girl in the end. The End. I’d wished I’d read Angels and Demons first (it really does have one or two good ideas…but that’s it.) S’funny. After that I picked up a Clive Cussler book. I think they’ve got the same Ghost Writer. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/34 "2006-09-27T18:12:29Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Whether [Brown] knows ‘da Vinci’ is factually inaccurate as a surname, or that a museum curator may never refer to him that way, is really beside the point; basically, he’s writing to entertain, and as long as he does that successfully he has accomplished what he set out to do. [/QUOTE] I still can’t abide it, because it breaks the verisimilitude for me, and there wasn’t enough of that to go around as it was. Moreover, the story was marketed as being based on fact – not that the adventures therein actually occured, but that the historical, religious, & artistic underpinings behind those adventures had some basis in reality. The continual use of “da Vinci” militates against that. It’s like watching a Western in which a rancher armed with a six-shooter takes down a dozen Comanches without reloading; the audience is justified in saying “What the fuck is going on?” ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/35 "2006-09-27T18:22:38Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] I still can’t abide it, because it breaks the verisimilitude for me… [/QUOTE] I understand, as I’m the same way in cases where I know better. That’s why I can’t watch most cop/lawyer/doctor shows. Still, in all fairness to Brown, it’s a little less obvious that a museum curator wouldn’t refer to Leonardo as ‘da Vinci’ than it would be that a six-shooter was firing an unlimited number of bullets. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/36 "2006-09-27T20:41:28Z")
One recent vacation I was stuck with Dan Brown and Michael Crichton as reading material (it wasn’t my house, or my books). It was a brown that wasn’t TdVC or Angels and Demons, and the newer Crichton “Global Warming is a conspiracy by the vast, powerful, and evil Greenpeace” book. I was in a strange mathematical anomaly where each book was worse than the other, without either one being better than the other. Even bored as I was, I had to stop reading when I got to the line (I think it was Brown’s, but I was mercifully losing consciousness along with IQ points) “…she had a mind like a computer, and a heart to match.” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/37 "2006-09-27T21:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] I understand, as I’m the same way in cases where I know better. That’s why I can’t watch most cop/lawyer/doctor shows. Still, in all fairness to Brown, it’s a little less obvious that a museum curator wouldn’t refer to Leonardo as ‘da Vinci’ than it would be that a six-shooter was firing an unlimited number of bullets. 😉 [/QUOTE] I would be prepared to give Brown some leeway had he the slightest bit of literary or artistic talent. But even if his facts were accurate, his prose style would still cause my eyes to bleed. “He looked like Harrison Ford in a tweed jacket.” BAH! ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/38 "2006-09-27T21:08:54Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] “He looked like Harrison Ford in a tweed jacket.” BAH! [/QUOTE] He was just fishin’ for a future movie deal, but instead of Jack Ryan, he got Wilson’s best buddy. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/39 "2006-09-27T21:34:06Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] I’m snipping most of your post because you make good points, **Excalibre** , but I have to comment on this: That’s exactly my point. It makes no sense for the protagonist of the book to call him “da Vinci.” But he does, because he’s an idiot, because Brown is an idiot. Of course he’s a best selling novelist while I write used car ads, so he’s probably not too concerned with my opinion. Gorram pig rapist. [/QUOTE] Perhaps Dan Brown deliberately depicted his protagonist as being intelligent enough that he didn’t buy into that silliness. Granted, it would require a bit more subtlety than I would expect out of Brown, but it doesn’t strike me as that unreasonable. I don’t mean to be a jerk about this, incidentally, but this started with a post you made in which _you_ were complaining about the usage and making extravagant (but, sadly, ultimately unmerited) threats in response to it, not about Dan Brown’s depiction of his character as using it. I hope you understand now that it’s not really incorrect, except in the eyes of one particular field of study (and in that case, it’s a bizarre inconsistency that amounts to a shibboleth regarding one person’s name rather than a general practice when identifying artists.) ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261/40 "2006-09-27T21:51:04Z")
Brown is awful. I read _The DaVinci Code_, \*Angels and Demons \* AND _Digital Fortress_. Brown definitely cashes in on the lack of intelligence and education of the average American. I mean, most of the big twists in _The DaVinci Code_ were spoiled immediately if the reader knew French and even a smattering of Latin. I do know them, and I can’t believe I finished the book. I can’t believe Brown tried to come up with a reasonable explanation why Leonardo would leave clues in English. I can’t believe the ENTIRE, and I mean ENTIRE plot of Digital Fortress, every bit of suspense and surprise, depended on the reader: Continuing to believe, with the main characters, that NDAKOTA stood for “North Dakota,” instead of instantly realizing, as I did, that it was Tankado’s name, scrambled. I’m not pointing this out to brag (ditto for the French/Latin thing), just to point out that Brown’s plot devices are incredibly clumsy. The turd-fest in the spoiler box above was supposed to be the work, according to the novel, of a genius cryptographer so brilliant that he was stumping the _whole fucking world_. Also, \*Digital Fortress \* had twists that were spoiled if the reader knew Spanish. I mean, really. Basically, to be intellectually challenged by Brown’s novels you have to be pretty dumb. IMO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deception-point-by-dan-brown-should-i-keep-reading/374261.md?page=3)