Just as an aside, that book is a thoroughly discredited piece of garbage that Brown used as the basis for the “facts” in his book. It’s worse tripe than the DaVinci Code.
I read it in two nights. I didn’t hate it, but it felt more like a spec script for a movie than any kind of real book. Kind of like Crichton. The Story was decent, but the characters were dull and flat. Over-explanations? Yep. But since a lot of the public aren’t humanitites majors or church historians, there had to be a few doses of dumbing-down. It’s popular because those who read it can feel like they are being controversial or erudite.
And worse, it purports to dish all these great details about the mystery and legend of the holy grail, but it doesn’t give anything other than what one can find out on one’s own with an internet connection. People are acting like, “wow, this is revolutionary, who knew?” when I had read or knew everthing the plot uncovers before the book was ever written.
But it’s an okay read - it’s fun. Great literature and great writing? Nah.
I was wondering - do all his books follow the same structure? Get in a car, talk about things. Get in a plane, talk about things. Walk towards and through some highly artisitic and valuable buildings, talk about things some more. While it does advance the plot somehow, it’s not great storytelling. How they’re going to make that into a movie (where there’s, you know, action), I don’t know. I’m not counting on it being a good one.
Snicks
I was astounded at the number of books that man has written. I read “The DaVinci Code” this past winter, and at the time I assumed that there was only one other book, “Demons and Angels.” Now I go into Borders, and there is a whole display dedicated to his books! Do they all rely on the same characters? I got the feeling from the beginning of TDC that the main character, whatever his name was, had just gotten back from yet another harrowing mystery dealing with the Catholic church.
I’d go on about his bad writing, cliched characters, ridiculous amount of over-explaining, but it’s already been done.
Yeah, sometimes I felt myself wondering why he didn’t just write the screenplay directly instead of adding in all of those 'he sadi 'she said’s.
Not a huge fan of his writing ‘style,’ but it was definitely a page-turner and really, what’s the harm in reaching a wide audience with the ideas presented in the book- sacred feminine, art history, etc. ?
Not a good book, but it was entertaining. Less predictable than some mysteries I’ve read, but more predictable than others. Most of the stuff about Christianity stealing holidays and suppressing the feminine I already knew, having been married to a pagan for several years.
And the big “who’s the villian” surprise at the end was surprising to me, but only because it really didn’t make much sense.
Many of the clues that are “real” and can be found in great works of art are sort of…um…made up.
Dan Brown’s writing is, I agree, not good. But I enjoyed reading through the book. Definitely a page-turner.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned: The book takes a lot less time to read that you might thihk, because a fair portion of it is blank pages at the end of the 5 billion 2-page chapters. The paper mill industry must love Dan Brown.