Dan Brown - Rubbish
December 5th, 2004Tour guides at Le Louvre are getting continually pissed off by people who have read The Da Vinci Code and have taken its fictional account to heart.
I cannot judge the authenticity of The Da Vinci Code, as I haven’t read it, although I have wryly observed that it there is a mania around it like Harry Potter - the Edinburgh branch of Blackwell’s has a Da Vinci Code board game in their window at the moment. But, if it is anything like another Dan Brown book, Digital Fortress, which I have read, then I feel sorry for the tour guides.
Digital Fortress, without doubt, is the worst book I read this year (if not this decade). I picked it up on a whim - the book was about crypto and the author had been feted a lot in the press, and I could do with some light thriller reading. Big mistake.
I am going to reveal some plot details now… this is technically a ’spoiler’, but it also saves you having to read the book, so I’m saving you a great deal of trouble.
For starters, the research is dodgy. While I am all for artistic licence, completely throwing the entire science of information theory out of the window, and coming up with some magic machine at the NSA that can crack all the world’s codes instantly, is taking it a bit too much. Brown has to come up with some fictional cipher that changes over time that is baffling it, cosntructed by a bitter ex-employee with the co-operation of the boss of the NSA. Our hero has to run round Seville trying to find the solution to the code, while our heroine in the NSA has to get to the bottom of some shadowy conspiracy. And surprise surprise, they succeed at the very last minute, and it ends happily ever after.
The hocus-pocus wouldn’t be so bad, if the book was well-written and had some semblance of a decent plot. Instead, the characters are one-dimensional cliches. All the plot ‘twists’ can be seen coming a mile off. The ‘action’ sequences are tedious recountings in slow motion. The boss turns out to be secretly in love with the heroine of the book (suprise). The holes in the plot are numerous and gaping. The so-called geniuses in the book are all mind-bogglingly stupid. The finale, as the NSA gets broken into, while the horrified cast watch a screen ’seeing’ the defences gradually being worn down by ‘hackers’, in real-time, and then at the very last minute solving the problem and saving the day, is ridiculous.
Oh, and the writing is terrible. It’s as if Jeffrey Archer was his ghostwriter - there’s no cliche unturned, no simile too bland, no characterisation too weak - Brown uses them all. Empathy with any of the characters is all but impossible. Overall, it reads like the book version of a bad Hollywood film, rather than any work of literature in its own right.
It might be that The Da Vinci Code, which he wrote a couple of years later, is actually quite good. But I severely doubt that this is the case - given the author has already demonstrated a total lack of ability to come up with a plot, research the story or even write - for most mortals, it would take a special effort to come up with a book this bad.
December 6th, 2004 at 00:52:01
some magic machine at the NSA that can crack all the world’s codes instantly
I liked that plotline much better when it was a film and it had Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier and Dan Aykroyd and River Phoenix and it was called Sneakers.
December 6th, 2004 at 09:04:41
Yes, the Da Vinci Code is almost as bad in terms of literary merit. The fact that I actually trust Akiva Goldsman (the fecking hack who is both responsible for killing the Batman franchise with his scripts for the two Schumacher films, and produced such ‘masterpieces’ as that dull Lost In Space movie) with the screen adaptation says pretty much everything.
Its a crackingly fast read, though - the trick is to just charge through it so fast you don’t stop to think how absurd it is; the book version of a Jerry Bruckheimer film.
The single biggest problem, and to be fair its not Brown’s fault, is that there seems to be a very large number of idiots out there that don’t comprehend the fact that its a work of FICTION. There are whole bestsellers dedicated to pointing out that he’s “MADE STUFF UP!!!”, like that is the worst crime an author could possibly commit.
Besides, as silly plots strung around a mass of conspiracy theories go, its still a hell of a lot better than that horrible Tomb Raider movie, which featured the world’s most incompetent Illuminati.
December 6th, 2004 at 09:27:02
The Da Vinci code was one of the few books that I gave up on halfway through. It was stupendously bad.
December 6th, 2004 at 12:02:00
I can’t speak from personal experience but my better half has read the Da Vinci Code and its predecessor “Angels and Demons” and thinks they are the best thing since Tolkien, as do countless other people I know. I guess it’s a case of “Each to their own”, but I’m still surprised to see such a negative view amongst all the positive messages I’ve been receiving…
December 6th, 2004 at 12:12:16
Hey, Akiva Goldsman is so much more than a hack. He’s got a track record of penning film adaptations of intellectually stimulating, heavyweight material in the field of mathematics and science, you know…
(By which I mean, of course, that he did A Beautiful Mind and I, Robot.)
He long ago transcended mere hackiness. Hacks look up to him as some sort of God. He sounds perfect for this…
December 6th, 2004 at 14:17:38
The ‘Da Vinci Code’ sucks.
The prose reads like you’re reading a book adaptation of a movie. Like when i was a kid my parents wouldn’t take me to see E.T., so I bought a book churned out by some ghost-writer who’d watched the movie. It reads that blandly.
Then the other problem, of course, is that the story basically sucks. Not just cliches, but in fact STOLEN cliches — he boosted good sections of the “find the anonymous swiss bank box” from the Bourne Identity for example.
ahhaah and I suppose he stole Silas the Albino from the stupid Goldie Hawn movie from the 1970’s…
Yuk. Should have never violated my rule: the only book you should ever read from an airport bookstore is Hustler Magazine….
December 6th, 2004 at 22:59:05
I have to say that I enjoyed the Da-Vinci code, and Demons and Angels. Both are good reads, if you ignore the cliches and one dimentional characters. On the other hand I did feel slightly dirty after reading them, which is what happens generally when I read thrillers. I think it is because they so shamelessly push all the right buttons that you can’t help but not enjoy them, but at the same time you are recognising what they are doing and are annoyed that you are being manipulated so easily.
Anyway, I had thought the Da-Vinci code was well researched, and the stuff about symbolism was fascinating. That was until I read Digital Fortress, which being a techie I can recognise as bollocks, so it casts doubt on everything in the other books.
December 7th, 2004 at 00:44:20
I’m glad I saw these postings, as I won’t be engaging either Angels… nor Da Vinci anytime soon (or ever, for that matter)… If anyone is interest in crypto, Neal Stephenson has one out called Cryptonomicon (not exactly an oblique reference) that is rather interesting. He fictionalizes Turing and Hacklheber, and goes into some interesting explanations of both Enigma’s functions, and -bit cyphering. He at least did enough homework to be taken seriously, and if nothing else, at 1,152 pages, it’s a couple days of quick reading…
Consequently, I found this blog due to his references to Qwghlm throughout the book…!
Ka,
James
December 7th, 2004 at 09:54:20
I kind of took it for granted that people knew about Cryptonomicon; its where Chris got the name of the site from…
Anyway, on the off chance anyone hasn’t read it, do so. Its probably my favorite novel, in fact.
December 7th, 2004 at 14:28:58
On the subject of Neal Stephenson… The Diamond Age is probably my other Stephenson recommendation for anyone who hasn’t got into him, while Snow Crash, his first work, is excellent in a futuristic sense but its reliance on Sumerian mythology as well makes it heavy going (and I have no idea on the quality of scholarship, it could be as bad as the Da Vinci Code’s as far as I know).
His latest work, the Baroque cycle, his enormous historical trilogy of 17th century science, money and politics, is enjoyable, but takes a lot of historical licence and gets over-detailed. I’d read his earlier stuff first, and get a feel for his writing, before embarking on that one.
December 7th, 2004 at 18:42:31
I agree with max. I quite enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code despite it’s factual inaccuracies, predictable plot and paper thin characters. It took me an evening to read and was better than anything that I would otherwise have watched on telly.
Digital Fortress on the other hand just pissed me off. I only finished the book because I was on a train with nothing else to read. It was the point where Brown confuses public key and one time pad crypto whilst attempting to explain how public keys work that really got me.
Neil Stephenson on the other hand may use some licence, but I get the impression that it is a conscious decision on his part and not just a failure to understand the subject matter.
December 7th, 2004 at 23:42:55
I just love it when idiots post the kind of messages I have read here about Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code! Tell me what all of you have done with your pitful lives that you have the gall to trash someone who has and will make more money than all of you combined!
Both books are international best sellers and you all sound like a bunch of jealous cry babies. Grow up and make something of yourselves instead of ragging on someone who has made a name for himself.
December 8th, 2004 at 11:26:57
Please note, “studied cryptography” is not an allowable response to “tell me what all of you have done with your pitful lives”…
December 8th, 2004 at 14:19:09
I am not jealous.
I am enraged.
Get it right Henny.
December 8th, 2004 at 23:21:16
Touched a few nerves I see!! Gee if you don’t like the writing stop bitching like a bunch of babies and write your own book. Then let’s see you get torn a new one by other “intellectuals” and see how you like it!
Oh “I am enraged” - get a life loser!
December 9th, 2004 at 00:56:47
FFS - do I need to put a “Do Not Feed The Trolls” sign here or something?