Astonishingly, I’m already up to about page 70 of this book, Incredibly, I’m wondering if Brown’s editor even owns a red pen! Amazingly, I think a little judicious editing would make this a much better read.
Gotta admit, however, that The Lost Symbol really hooked me with its opening chapters. Yes, it’s formula writing but you can’t say it’s not effective.
I couldn’t sleep last night so I read the first 10 chapters or so
Bear in mind, since I’m kind of a writer I can almost always tell where a plot is going. I can put myself in the writer’s shoes, figure out what he needs the story to be, and usually have a pretty good idea of what generally will happen. 97% of the time I can do this with movies, so I have to actively try not to think about the plot of the movie when watching, which can be stressful. With books, though, it can be less easy as book plots are more intricate.
That said, how easy I was able to guess exactly what would happen next 100% of the time in this book was, lets say, astonishing. It feels somehow like instead of trying to surprise me, the plot is actively working to meet my every expectation. Maybe it’s because, after reading 3 or 4 of his books, I know how Brown’s mind works. Or maybe it’s because he’s a bad writer and telegraphs every “twist” a mile in advance. Maybe I have noetic brain powers!! (yech)
As soon as, within the first few pages, we were introduced to some wise, elderly mentor of Langdon’s, I groaned out loud. Whenever the narrative jumped backwards in time to show us Langon giving one of his terribly trite lectures wherein all of his students are blindingly idiotic but not afraid to demonstrate that out loud, I slapped my forehead. In the first 2 or 3 chapters, Brown decided to give the brand name of every item mentioned (including the brand of the engines on a fugging airplane…) and then abruptly decided to stop. It’s like he read a William Gibson novel, deciding that dropping name brands every 4th word was fun, but then got tired of googling “airplane engine manufacturers”.
And then I saw the words “a lone figure” and had to give myself CPR to stop from fainting.
A LONE FIGURE.
A LONEEE FIGUUURREE
I officially begrudge Brown’s wealth even more.
Having read only one of his books and having had exactly the same reaction, I think you’re on to something here.
Does anybody know any spells we can try to bring Michael Crichton back to life?
Oh, don’t even act like Michael Crichton is bringing sexy back either.
Haven’t read it yet. Not willing to shell out for the hardcover and I suspect there’s a huge waiting list at the library. But I will catch it in paperback - I enjoyed his other novels not as literary masterpieces, but as beach reads they were fun fluff.
How exactly can a fiction book rip off a non fiction book? lol. That’s called research.
His books were considerably more cerebral. And, with the exception of the global warming one, quite well researched with works cited. Brown prefers to find some flowery crackpot article about a fringe science and use it as proof of fact.
According to this article in High Times, our minds can control the universe around us, man.
The last one I read was the time travel one, and it sucked so hard I couldn’t tell you to this day why I finished it. His early books were tight, fun thrillers, but when he sucked he sucked hard. I won’t have you crap on Dan Brown and then raise the banners for Crichton - they’re birds of a feather, only Brown has never embarrassed himself politically.
Brown didn’t read Holy Blood, Holy Grail–his wife did. If he (or even she) had personally pored through dusty, obscure tomes to create the “conspiracy” at the heart of his Da Vinci book,* that* would have been research. But he (or she) lifted the “secret” whole from a book that was a bestseller back in the 80’s.
He likes to claim his book was based on fact & real history, but it was not. HBHG purported to be history, but it was an elaborate farrago of fact & fiction. It includes real & legendary tales of Mary Magdalene, The Templars, The Cathars & The Merovingian Kings–all good stuff. But they are “connected” in ways that really don’t make sense. And the Priory of Sion was partly neo-French Royalist hoax & partly Surrealist joke. I enjoyed the book–it was a long & complex read–but ended up realizing it was not quite true. Read more here.
The surviving authors of HBHG sued Brown but lost. After all, they said it was all true, so he was just doing research. They couldn’t admit that they made it up–not out of whole cloth, but by stitching together a gaudy collection of unrelated histories with a shiny threads of lies. Which he stole & dumbed down. I hope they made a few bucks from renewed interest in their work.
Besides, what few samples of Brown’s prose I’ve tried made my eyes bleed. I read plenty of genre fiction but don’t care to waste my time on his stuff.
Excellent post, Bridget.
(Particularly the penultimate sentence…)
Oh I’m certain they did. When DaVinci was hot, whenever I was at a bookstore I saw HBHG featured right near it along with a few other “companion” pieces. I’m sure they’re not making Dan Brown money (:rolleyes:) but the book’s gone back into print, so they should be getting reasonable income/recognition.
I’m nearly 200 pages into this and I have to say: it’s pretty good. If you can bring yourself to ignore the sometimes awkward prose, you’ll have to admit Brown knows how to keep you turning the pages. Some of the sentences are real howlers, though. My favorite so far? “His mouth gaped open.”
OK, The Lost Symbol is still pretty good. I have to admit that the story does take a few genuinely unexpected turns (and unless Brown really has something amazing up his sleeve, the ID of the main bad guy is pathetically easy to figure out).
It’s also a lot of fun to read Brown’s terrible prose. Two examples from just a single page:
“Langdon lurched forward, collapsing down in a paralyzed heap.” As opposed to collapsing up?
“The woman’s lifeless expression was one of terror.” How could it appear “lifeless” and “terrified” at the same time?
I read it in about four sittings over the wekend. Enjoyed it and found it was a good page turner.
I liked how Langdon told a character to google something. He was basically telling the reader to do the same. It was to a pic of the The Washington Zeus.
I enjoyed it the same way I enjoyed a good crap movie like Crank.
I’m surprised this book hasn’t spawned more threads here at the SDMB. It’s a mildly entertaining read, but full of crazy ideas that Brown attempts to pass off as fact.
The worst line from the book was when the bad guy admires the tatoos on his “massive sex organ.” Time had a lot of fun with that one, speculating about what kind of markings are on Robert Langdon’s massive sex organ or on Dan Brown’s massive sex organ.
I loved Brown’s other 4 books, so I was really stoked to see what he could do with 6 years of research and writing. Bummer.
I actually thought it was pretty entertaining for what it was. There are a few plot contrivances that are a bit much to swallow, but I guess that is to be expected from a book of this genre. And there was one truly shocking cliff-hanger twist that had me wondering (for at least a few chapters, anyway) if Brown was gonna take this book into an entirely different direction.
Well, you wouldn’t expect it to gape closed, would you?
And if you’ve read the book, you know that technically it wasn’t a sex organ anymore.
I read the first 2 books years ago before they blew up, and enjoyed them as works of fiction. Period. There are authors who write non-fiction speculative books covering some of the same subject matter, and that’s a whole separate discussion, but Brown writes fiction, calls it fiction, and it’s passable fiction.
I’ll probably read the new one at some point, but I can’t afford to buy many books new so I’ll have to wait for it to either turn up at the used book store or become available at the library. Anyway I’m still in the middle of re-reading Geo. R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire or whatever it’s called so I won’t be getting to any new books for a while yet.
Was anyone else distracted by his seemingly random use of italics?