The Works of Dan Brown

[Deleted]

What I don't like are literary elitists who assume that anything that is mass marketed and perhaps unchallenging or at least, not brilliantly written must be popular because the common person is not as knowledgable as they are.

Well, we'll agree to disagree but just for the record, as a compulsive reader of Jilly Cooper, Steven King and Penny Vincenzi, and as an editor who works on commercial and mass-market fiction/non-fiction, I'm no literary elitist!

[Deleted]

I normally enjoy thrillers so I was expecting to get thorough this really quickly. I was surprised when I realised I'd left it alone for over a week and had no real desire to finish it. It was a sound 'meh' from me when I did.

I really don't get the fuss that surrounds it.

[heyalice]

I sell books for a living and let me tell you, we still sell at least 100 copies of this book on a weekly basis. It's amazing and I was shocked that the illustrated version has done so well.

[Deleted]

I think it's the hype that did the book in for me. It's crap, poorly written and based on a silly idea that's full of holes and historical inaccuracy.

I'm reading the book now and, good lord, the "dialogue" is ridiculous, but I find the premise (the Priory of Sion, Sangreal documents, the gospels Constantine got rid of, and the Holy Grail stuff as explained so torturously by "Langdon") utterly fascinating. Knowing nothing about the real history behind what Brown is putting forth, and having a feeling that some of it is either stretched for truth or outright wrong, could someone point out one of the major fallacies in the book or steer me towards an historical book where I might learn more ? I'm just really curious of the ideas -- and am certainly not relying on this book as any sort of source.

ETA: never mind...found a good start at Wikipedia

Langdon? Tool.

Amen. And it comes as no surprise to me they picked Tom Hanks to play him in the film.

[Shanmac]

I get that the book has crappy dialogue, etc., and maybe I'm just too easy to please, but I liked it. It was a welcome respite from some of the more serious books I read. It was fun, and I plowed through it in one sitting.

[roxpopuli]

After spending $24.95 on the hardback copy of this book I feel entitled to a minor rant, it may be the only way I'll ever get any value from this book. No, that's not strictly true as I used the book to flatten a particularly large cockroach just the other day.

I'm in love with Simon all over again!

Bad writing aside, what freaks me out is how many people took the book seriously. Like Dan Brown wasn't a fiction writer, he was some super sleuth who had uncovered the greatest conspiracy of the Middle Ages. Morons!

[Shanmac]

I know! I was telling my mom about the book, and she's going, "Wait -- what?!?" Fiction, mom, it's fiction. Being a (not particularly devout) Catholic, I took particular glee in how church officials started denouncing the book -- again, it's fiction, people.

[Deleted]

shanmac said:

I get that the book has crappy dialogue, etc., and maybe I'm just too easy to please, but I liked it. It was a welcome respite from some of the more serious books I read. It was fun, and I plowed through it in one sitting.

I kinda liked it, too, junky dialogue aside. The religious stuff and the code-breaking was really interesting to me; I normally read sociology books for fun.

I just read a good (B+) review of Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail in the new EW. Seems Rat Scabies, the former drummer of the Damned, is as equally interested in finding the Grail as was Teabing, who was fictional, I know.

[tamaradixon]

Scooby-Doo ending aside, I was shamelessly hooked for 2 days. It passed a weekend at the cottage, and for that, I am thankful.

[tydomin]

I'm a bookseller, and the demands for this hack writer's work is an appalling sign o' the times. It's a big snowball that rolled down the side of a steep mountain and just keeps gathering momentum. It's all zeitgeist, man; conspiracy, religion and third-rate, barely literate potbolier. Why one thing like this somehow catches on and 9999 others do not remains one of the great mysteries...a conspiracy, most likely....someone should write an aful bestseller on the subject.