The Works of Dan Brown

[tamaradixon]

I just finished "Angels and Demons" and couldn't help but feel "The DaVinci Code" was basically new characters slotted into the same formula. Anyway, another quick read. A popcorn book I guess.

I just bought "Deception Point". Shame on me.

[Deleted]

If his next book is about the freemasons and founding fathers, maybe it will be like Dave Barry's Da Vinci parody:

CHAPTER ONE: Handsome yet unmarried historian Hugh Heckman stood in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., squinting through the bulletproof glass at the U.S. Constitution. Suddenly, he made an amazing discovery.

''My God!'' he said, out loud. ``This is incredible! Soon I will say what it is.''

CHAPTER TWO: ''What is it?'' said a woman Heckman had never seen before who happened to be standing next to him. She was extremely beautiful, but wore glasses as a sign of intelligence.

''My name is Desiree Legume,'' she said.

Heckman felt he could trust her.

''Look at this!'' he said, pointing to the Constitution.

''My God, that's incredible!'' said Desiree. ``It's going to be very surprising when we finally reveal what we're talking about!''

CHAPTER THREE: ''Yes,'' said Hugh, ``incredible as it seems, there are extra words written in the margin of the U.S. Constitution, and nobody ever noticed them until now! They appear to be in some kind of code.''

''Let me look,'' said Desiree. ``In addition to being gorgeous, I am a trained codebreaker. Oh my God!''

''What is it?'' asked Hugh in an excited yet concerned tone of voice. ''The message,'' said Desiree, ``is . . . ''

But just then, the chapter ended.

CHAPTER FOUR: ''It's a fiendishly clever code,'' explained Desiree. 'As you can see, the words say: `White House White House Bo Bite House, Banana Fana Fo Fite House, Fe Fi Mo Mite House, White House.' ''

''Yes,'' said Hugh, frowning in bafflement. ``But what can it possibly mean?''

''If I am correct,'' said Desiree, ``it is referring to . . . the White House!''

''My God!'' said Hugh. ``That's where the president lives! Do you think . . . ''

''Do I think what?'' said Desiree.

''I don't know,'' said Hugh. ``But we're about to find out.''

CHAPTER FIVE: Hugh and Desiree crouched in some bushes next to the Oval Office.

''We'd better hurry up and solve this mystery,'' remarked Desiree anxiously. ''It's only a matter of time before somebody notices that the Constitution is missing.'' She had slipped it into her purse at the National Archives while the guard wasn't looking.

''The answer must be here somewhere,'' said Hugh, studying the ancient document, which was brown from age and the fact that he had spilled Diet Peach Snapple on it.

''Wait a minute!'' he said. ``I've got it!''

''What?'' said Desiree, her breasts heaving into view.

''The answer!'' said Hugh. ``It's . . .

But just then, shots rang out.

CHAPTER SIX: ''That was close!'' remarked Desiree. ``Fortunately, those shots had nothing to do with the plot of this book.''

''Yes,'' said Hugh. ``Anyway, as I was saying, the answer is to hold the Constitution up so that it is aligned with the White House and the Washington Monument. . . . There, do you see what I mean?''

''My God!'' said Desiree, seeing what he meant. ``It's . . . ''

''Hold it right there,'' said the president of the United States.

CHAPTER SEVEN: '' . . . and so you see,'' concluded the president, ``you two uncovered a shocking and fascinating secret that, if it should ever get out, could change the course of history.''

''Mr. President,'' said Desiree, ``thank you for that riveting and satisfying explanation, which will be fleshed out into much greater detail once there is a publishing contract.''

''Also,'' noted Hugh, ``we may use some beverage other than Snapple, depending on what kind of product-placement deals can be worked out.''

''Good,'' said the president. ``Now can I have the Constitution back?''

They all enjoyed a hearty laugh, for they knew that the movie rights were also available.

[girlnamedcarl]

If his next book is about Freemasons and Founding Fathers, it will be a novelization of the reprehensible movie National Treasure, and I will have to set something on fire. Something like Dan Brown, perhaps.

[Deleted]

tamaradixon said:

I just finished "Angels and Demons" and couldn't help but feel "The DaVinci Code" was basically new characters slotted into the same formula. Anyway, another quick read. A popcorn book I guess.

I just bought "Deception Point". Shame on me.

Well, you must come here when you finish Deception Point. I'd love to snark on it with you. That was my first foray into Dan Brown. My mom raved about it.

[incognito]

Carrying this over from the movie thread...

In this week's Entertainment Weekly magazine, there's an article/interview on the DVC movie. The interview is with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. One particularly memorable bit comes when the interviewer brings up the now-infamous phrase of "Harrison Ford in Harrison tweed" and Tom Hanks says (paraphrasing), "That's a mirror image of Dan Brown. Or at least how Dan Brown fancies himself."

He's only confirming what we all know, but I still laughed.

[foxfair]

::scream:: That Dave Barry parody is hilarious! Thanks for posting that, Poorfrances.

Well, just finished this book. Potentially great story, and I can totally see why this hit a nerve (who doesn't love a conspiracy and this one had just enough detail/relation-to-reality to make it exciting) but holy sweet God, Dan Brown is a terrible writer. I mean, I laughed out loud at frequent intervals. At one point he actually has a single line, in italics...:

"Inconceivable!"

Oh. Dear. I mean, I have no problem with any of the ideas in the book - as many have pointed out, it's fiction. Getting pissed because fiction isn't true would be...kinda dumb. But...it's so bad! The pacing is so bad (could it be any more simplistic? it's just one close call after another...again and again and...again)! The writing is so bad! The whole book is just one giant string of cliches.

I'll probably see the movie because I have hope they can keep the good and get rid of the bad but I don't know, I take a kind of personal offense at having to read crap like that (and once I started I did want to finish...I'm a Type A). Dan Brown, get thee to a highschool writing class!

[thingamajig]

But...it's so bad! The pacing is so bad (could it be any more simplistic? it's just one close call after another...again and again and...again)! The writing is so bad! The whole book is just one giant string of cliches.

I know! I couldn't believe how bad the writing was. I mentioned to my mom that I'd checked it out from the library, and I asked her if she'd read it yet. She said, "Oh, hell no. I got about 2 chapters in and threw it away. It sucked." My mom does not toss books away lightly, so she must have thought it was really atrocious. I did finish the book out of sheer stubbornness, but I couldn't even judge the "controversial" ideas in the book on their own merits, because I couldn't get past the terrible writing, pacing, plotting, characterization, etc. I kept calling my mom up and reading her the especially bad lines, and she just kept saying, "I told you it was bad! Why are you still reading that?!"

[emersende]

My mother read it and said that she knew a lot of the history behind it, she just couldn't tell where the history ended and the fake stuff began, so she felt like she was being tricked. Dan Brown tricked my mother!

[Deleted]

foxfair said:

Well, just finished this book. Potentially great story, and I can totally see why this hit a nerve (who doesn't love a conspiracy and this one had just enough detail/relation-to-reality to make it exciting) but holy sweet God, Dan Brown is a terrible writer. I mean, I laughed out loud at frequent intervals. At one point he actually has a single line, in italics...:

"Inconceivable!"

I've read the translation to Spanish, so someone deprived me of that Vizzini moment. It's not fair!

But I totally agree with everything you've said about it.

[Deleted]

Watched the National Geography special on "The Da Vinci Code" as part of their Bible week program--I was almost embarassed for Dan Brown as the hostess of the program was rapid-firing away "Well so where, exactly, did you derive this-and-that conclusion from?" questions, and he came up with seriously lame answers to them. He would say something like, "Well in fact, it's a well-known story in southern France (place where Mary Magdalene supposedly landed, can't recall the name), that she was there, and gave birth to a baby, who was named Sarah. And when the program went there and started asking the locals questions, the unaimous response was pretty much: "WTF is he talking about? Never heard this before."

Dan Brown wouldn't admit it, but after watching the program I start to think of his works as historical fanfictions. Bad ones.