What do you guys think of Dan Brown

Searching · May 3, 2009

Having picked up Angels & Demons recently, I must say I was greatly dissapointed. As a student studying Engineering and with an interest in quantum physics and theology, I found his research appaling. It reads as if someone just learned this stuff (not very well I might add) and then decided to use this newly learned general knowledge as a core spine of their novel.

And it's not just the physics either. Somewhere in the mess he explains that Shaitan is an Islamic word. Of course, Islam is a religion and not a language. Then he says muslims worship gods in temples. There is only one god, Allah and the worshipping happens in a mosque. If I had a sister, and if she was twelve she would know this.

And then, to top it off he vomits out a brilliancy like "he had contended loins" desciring his highly evil, highly mysterious villain after he has sex. Dan geniously names the felllow Assassin, not forgetting to demonstrate his wikipedia prowess by explaining that the word comes from Arabic Hashshashin (which he got right) and that they smoked Hashish (which he got wrong).

But then, that's just me. What do you think?

jodiodi · May 3, 2009

I enjoyed Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code. Those are the only 2 Dan Brown books I've read. If I find a story interesting and want to see what happens next, my willing suspension of disbelief takes care of such 'errors'. Especially if they're involving things I'd never have known to begin with.

Now books about medicine or medical procedures, anything set in the American South, or about living with someone in the Army, I have extensive experience and knowledge, and thus I am quick to spot errors and many of those errors can take me out of the story.

scarletpeaches · May 3, 2009

I can't believe Dan Brown is an English teacher, or majored in English, whatever it was. He completely bumrapes the language.

I can't wait 'til seun sees this thread. Please don't lock it 'til then. :roll:

Searching · May 3, 2009

I found this list, which mainly deals with cultural errors in the book. I know little about art, so I didn't spot most of these.

http://www.dannyscl.net/2005/01/dan-brown-is-fraud-list-of-errors-in.html

As I say, I don't mind suspending my belief to a point but Angels asks for way, way too much of it. Dan, at least get rid of the FACT page. You don't want to mislead people do you?

My mother is reading the novel, and I have to keep telling her that 90% of it is either totally wrong or are half truths.

Izz · May 3, 2009

Searching said:
What do you guys think of Dan Brown?

Oh wait, you want a serious opinion?

:roll:

Searching · May 3, 2009

Well SOMEONE is buying his books.

I got mine from the library thank you very much.

Izz · May 3, 2009

Searching said:
Well SOMEONE is buying his books.

I got mine from the library thank you very much.

He knows how to move plot along and provide entertainment--plus people will buy anything slightly scandalous.

As far as writing prose goes: *shudders*. As far as research goes: *shudders* As far as characterization goes: *shudders*.

Wayne K · May 3, 2009

I thought Davinci Code was a good story even though it lacked in writing.

scarletpeaches · May 3, 2009

Dan Burstein wrote two books (or rather, edited two books) explaining all the mistakes in Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code.

blacbird · May 3, 2009

Searching said:
Well SOMEONE is buying his books.

Lots of people invested with Bernie Madoff, too.

caw

thethinker42 · May 3, 2009

My opinion of his collected works can be summarized thusly:

Interesting concept.
Shitty execution.

SPMiller · May 3, 2009

I once entertained a few people listening to the audio version of Angels & Demons simply by shredding the prose in real-time. When we got to the speech by the Catholic dude, I couldn't. Stop. Laughing.

I won't say this about many authors, but I'm better with the English language than Brown. However, he appears to tell more popular stories, and that's what matter in this business. We're entertainers, and the quality of our deathless prose doesn't mean much in the end.

jodiodi · May 4, 2009

As the saying goes ..

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I don't believe pretty much anything I read in fiction. By its very neature, it's 'made up'. As for Mr. Brown's writing quality, have any of you read any fiction lately? I mean the kind of paperbacks you can pick up at Wal-Mart or the drug store. It's brain candy and meant to entertain which translate into an aspriation no higher than 'tell a good story'. If I want fact-based information, I'll read Scientific American or The New England Journal of Medicine. If I want entertainment, I pick up something that draws me in and takes me to another place and time.

scarletpeaches · May 4, 2009

jodiodi said:
As the saying goes ..

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I could just about understand this reasoning if it were a good story.

jodiodi said:
I don't believe pretty much anything I read in fiction. By its very neature, it's 'made up'.

Yes. We know that.

Does that negate the need for standards?

jodiodi said:
As for Mr. Brown's writing quality, have any of you read any fiction lately? I mean the kind of paperbacks you can pick up at Wal-Mart or the drug store.

Yes.

Some is good, some is bad. Should we pander to the lowest common denominator by saying "It's brain candy and meant to entertain?"

jodiodi said:
It's brain candy and meant to entertain...

Obviously so.

jodiodi said:
...which translate into an aspriation no higher than 'tell a good story'.

Uh, no. Not for me, anyway.

The reasoning that we shouldn't aim high in fiction angers me no end. I don't give a flying fuck if a novel is fiction. I want it to be written well. To say we need no higher aspiration than telling a good story is an insult to all the writers who do so with a reasonable command of the English language and the guidelines of the craft.

jodiodi said:
If I want fact-based information, I'll read Scientific American or The New England Journal of Medicine.

Good for you. I often read non-fiction too.

jodiodi said:
If I want entertainment, I pick up something that draws me in and takes me to another place and time.

If I want entertainment, I pick something that draws me in, takes me to another place and time and doesn't insult my intelligence.

jodiodi · May 4, 2009

Sorry to have insulted you, ms. Peaches. I merely expressed my opinion which is just as valid as yours or anyone else on here.

Not everyone likes the same thing. And no one person is the arbiter of what's good and what isn't. Some of the so called 'great literature' of the world is, in my opinion, dull and boring in the extreme and I only read it because I was going to be tested on it. Other people fawn over it like it's the Ultimate Truth.

However, I'm not going to debate any further on this point. You have your opinion, other people have theirs, and I have mine. If everyone had the same opinion of everything, life would be boring to the extreme and I'd just go ahead and kill myself to get away from it.

dpaterso · May 4, 2009

Given that the film ads are showing, I picked up Angels & Demons again, determined to get further than before (I'd given up halfway through, finding myself totally uninvolved with the flat characters). Alas, same thing happened. I'm not bothered, I've got other novels to read, and I shouldn't imagine Dan Brown cares what I think. More power to his typing finger, he's found a formula and it works for him.

jodiodi said:
Sorry to have insulted you, ms. Peaches. I merely expressed my opinion which is just as valid as yours or anyone else on here.

Quoted for truth.

-Derek

Cassiopeia · May 4, 2009

I couldn't put Angels and Demons down. I liked the DaVinci Code but not as much as the first. When I read a book, I read it for pleasure and I certainly won't pick apart his writing though I have gone through the first chapter of Angels and Demons line by line with a correcting pen to see what all the fuss was about.

Is he brilliant technically? No way. Did he tell a good tale? Well his book sales and the subsequent movies speak for themselves. I liked those two books of his. Couldn't get past the first chapter of two others of his.

We all know that many a famous writer is known to suck. I love Hemingway. People say he sucked as well. I also enjoy Alexandre Dumas, Margaret Mitchell, Prince Machiavelli and many more.

Look, he made it, we haven't. I'd rather spend my time working on my writing than going off on how someone sucks. It just seems like jealousy and bitterness rationalized through nitpicking his skills.

He's made it. We should be so lucky.

seun · May 4, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I can't wait 'til seun sees this thread. Please don't lock it 'til then.

You rang?

To give a serious answer (in place of my usual Dan Brown should be shot at dawn), Brown has an interesting idea - and I use the singular on purpose as he only seems to have the one idea - for his work but that's as far as it goes. Nothing about his work is original; he's a terrible writer in terms of character, dialogue and plot and his repetitive, samey style makes me want to poke my eyes out.

Saying that, he knows what makes an interesting story. It's just a shame it's not even slightly original or well-written.

Alitriona · May 4, 2009

We can only aim to be as good as we can be. Most of us will never reach the impossible high standard laid down by some readers and writers. I loved The devinci code because I loved the idea behind it, most of the concept I found very easy to believe. If he tied half truths together and made some stuff up so what? I didn't read it thinking of it as a history book.

On the other hand I didn't enjoy angels and demons at all and it wasn't because of the facts. I wasn't pulled in by it, either the characters or the story and had to force myself to finish reading it. I never put a book down half read. When I read I can see the books in my head as a movie, this one I couldn't. So for me that's not a good sign.

But it sold and the movie is on it's way to the cinema, that speaks for itself. I would love to reach as many people as he has.

Rarri · May 4, 2009

Have to admit i didn't like The Da Vinci Code, i got 50 pages in and just couldn't force myself to read any more of it. I know other people enjoy the books though, so good for them, but personally i didn't enjoy it.

Momento Mori · May 4, 2009

Searching:
As a student studying Engineering and with an interest in quantum physics and theology, I found his research appaling.

In the judgment for the English copyright case that Brown won a couple of years ago, the judge discussed the evidence for how Brown researches his books and it turns out that it's his wife who does all the initial research for him, which she breaks down and puts onto Post-it notes so that he can incorporate it into his story.

In fact, from the way the judgment was phrased, his wife seems to have a lot of input into the books from that respect, which is why the judge noted how strange it was that she wasn't called as a witness for the case.

MM

Wayne K · May 4, 2009

After all this I feel a little foolish for having enjoyed Davinci Code. Thinking about it now I was smoking a lot of cocaine at the time.

The guy with the frying pan was right.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl5gBJGnaXs

Bubastes · May 4, 2009

I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, but since I listened to the audiobook, I was much less aware of the awful writing mechanics. When I picked up the actual book, I found myself tripping over the terrible prose.

Dan Brown may not be particularly original, and his writing style is aggressively bad, but he knows how to keep readers hooked. That's a skill I want to have, and I've actually spent time going through his books analyzing how he does it.

Jerry Cornelius · May 4, 2009

Searching said:
Having picked up Angels & Demons recently, I must say I was greatly dissapointed. As a student studying Engineering and with an interest in quantum physics and theology, I found his research appaling. It reads as if someone just learned this stuff (not very well I might add) and then decided to use this newly learned general knowledge as a core spine of their novel.

And it's not just the physics either. Somewhere in the mess he explains that Shaitan is an Islamic word. Of course, Islam is a religion and not a language. Then he says muslims worship gods in temples. There is only one god, Allah and the worshipping happens in a mosque. If I had a sister, and if she was twelve she would know this.

And then, to top it off he vomits out a brilliancy like "he had contended loins" desciring his highly evil, highly mysterious villain after he has sex. Dan geniously names the felllow Assassin, not forgetting to demonstrate his wikipedia prowess by explaining that the word comes from Arabic Hashshashin (which he got right) and that they smoked Hashish (which he got wrong).

But then, that's just me. What do you think?

You're absolutely right. Brown is dreadful.

If anyone likes it, I recommend they check out something like Foucault's Pendulum, which is along the same lines in terms of ideas but infinitely superior in execution.

Alpha Echo · May 4, 2009

jodiodi said:
As the saying goes ..

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I don't believe pretty much anything I read in fiction. By its very neature, it's 'made up'. As for Mr. Brown's writing quality, have any of you read any fiction lately? I mean the kind of paperbacks you can pick up at Wal-Mart or the drug store. It's brain candy and meant to entertain which translate into an aspriation no higher than 'tell a good story'. If I want fact-based information, I'll read Scientific American or The New England Journal of Medicine. If I want entertainment, I pick up something that draws me in and takes me to another place and time.

I agree completely. I actually enjoyed The DaVinci Code, the story, not the writing. I am going to read Angels and Demons because I want to see the movie (I like Tom Hanks) but have a policy to read the book before I see the movie.

But a lot of what I've been reading lately has been horribly written. I'm reading The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie right now which is actually very similar in that it tries to tie in history, and the characters are trying to make sense out of puzzles...etc. But I have been so disappointed with the writing. I'm sick of how she describes the beautiful heroine, I'm sick of the unnecessary adverbs, and I'm sick of how she uses dialogue to summarize what's happening in the story. But I'm almost finished, and so I will finish it. It's very disappointing though...I'm trying not to let it take me away from the story (which really isn't as good as I had hoped, however).

What do you guys think of Dan Brown

Searching

jodiodi

Reflections of Reality

scarletpeaches

Searching

Izz

Doing the Space Operatic

Searching

Izz

Doing the Space Operatic

Wayne K

scarletpeaches

blacbird

thethinker42

Abnormal Romance Author

SPMiller

Prodigiously Hanged

jodiodi

Reflections of Reality

scarletpeaches

jodiodi

Reflections of Reality

dpaterso

Also in our Discord and IRC chat channels

Cassiopeia

Otherwise Occupied

seun

Horror Man

Alitriona

Attends The School of AW

Rarri

Momento Mori

Tired and Disillusioned

Wayne K

Bubastes

bananaed

Jerry Cornelius

Alpha Echo

I should be writing.