The Da Stinky Code
So yesterday in the morning I finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I read Angels and Demons last year, and I enjoyed it for the most part. The ending was weak, and I felt cheated by a poorly constructed about-face in one character's personality, but I thought it was otherwise a decent book.
Then I borrowed Brown's latest from my mother-in-law. I wasn't particularly worried about the hot-button issues in the book as I had essentially heard of them. It would take more than a novelist to shake my faith.
It didn't take long for two realizations to dawn on me: First, I was just as drawn in by the fast pace of The Da Vinci Code as Brown's previous Robert Langdon tale. Second, I was beginning to suspect some unfortunate similarities between the two novels.
I'll not bore you with the details, but essentially this book read like Angels and Demons in a different country with different secret societies. The attractive girl losing a loved-one who raised her, a pre-eminent man of his field privy to controversial knowledge that seems, at least on the surface, to threaten the Catholic Church. The suspicious law enforcement leader, with just enough detail to finger him for the bad guy until the last minute. The close ally, built up to the reader and transformed into the real enemy based on a flimsy, misunderstood pretext.
Yes, I was offended by several assertians by the characters in the novel. I was struck more, however, by the lack of rational thought process on the part of the characters. It appeared as if some of the principal players took leaps of faith rivaling that of literal Creationists when it came to connecting the symbolic links of the plot. Such loose links and flimsy ties were not limited to the development of characters' attitudes, but the very movement of the plot in most cases.
I believe I could sum up my feelings for The Da Vinci Code by saying I lost a lot of respect for Dan Brown as a writer. He pulled a Cold Play on this one, borrowing heavily from his own previous hit single. While a change of key and some different lyrics may result in a different song, the result is the dulling of an otherwise pleasant theme leaving me disinterested yet, strangely, dissatisfied.
Then I borrowed Brown's latest from my mother-in-law. I wasn't particularly worried about the hot-button issues in the book as I had essentially heard of them. It would take more than a novelist to shake my faith.
It didn't take long for two realizations to dawn on me: First, I was just as drawn in by the fast pace of The Da Vinci Code as Brown's previous Robert Langdon tale. Second, I was beginning to suspect some unfortunate similarities between the two novels.
I'll not bore you with the details, but essentially this book read like Angels and Demons in a different country with different secret societies. The attractive girl losing a loved-one who raised her, a pre-eminent man of his field privy to controversial knowledge that seems, at least on the surface, to threaten the Catholic Church. The suspicious law enforcement leader, with just enough detail to finger him for the bad guy until the last minute. The close ally, built up to the reader and transformed into the real enemy based on a flimsy, misunderstood pretext.
Yes, I was offended by several assertians by the characters in the novel. I was struck more, however, by the lack of rational thought process on the part of the characters. It appeared as if some of the principal players took leaps of faith rivaling that of literal Creationists when it came to connecting the symbolic links of the plot. Such loose links and flimsy ties were not limited to the development of characters' attitudes, but the very movement of the plot in most cases.
I believe I could sum up my feelings for The Da Vinci Code by saying I lost a lot of respect for Dan Brown as a writer. He pulled a Cold Play on this one, borrowing heavily from his own previous hit single. While a change of key and some different lyrics may result in a different song, the result is the dulling of an otherwise pleasant theme leaving me disinterested yet, strangely, dissatisfied.