![]() ![]() ![]() Chesterton:Ī good novel tells us the truth about its hero but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. It brings to mind a wonderful quote from G.K. So, Brown never “debunked” his novel on the contrary, he played (and continues to play) a coy game in which he rides on the coattails of his supposed research while hiding behind the skirts of “it’s just fiction” whenever said research is taken to task. And while reviews would mention the “fast-paced plotting” and such (as if dozens of two-page chapters equate to fast or good plots), the obsession for readers was with the historical claims and the attending conspiracy theories-few of which, it should be mentioned, are original with Brown. Yes, “get informed,” indeed! Let’s recap the basics: The Da Vinci Code initially received so many positive reviews and attention precisely because Brown insisted vehemently that the novel was based on deep research and historical fact. How insecure do you have to be that you need to debunk a book that has already been debunked by its own author? ![]() Get informed! Dan Brown himself has said the Da Vinci Code books are works of fiction FFFFIIIIICCCCTTTIIIIOOOONNNN. It’s a sad commentary on humanity that people here are railing about how the characters in Dan Brown’s book are relaying historical information. What baffles me is that there is a book out there that is “debunking” a work of fiction. I’ve noticed, for instance, that most of the more recent reviews of our book The Da Vinci Hoax have taken up this idiotic but popular trope. ![]() The most aggravating aspect of the entire Da Vinci Code phenomenon-did I mention the novel has sold over eighty million copies?-is the smirking taunt: “Don’t you know it’s just fiction?” However, my focus here is not Brown’s many sins against the art of fiction but about how the use of fiction and narrative provides a cover for Brown to twist the truth. He takes what might be charitably described as a loose view of the relations between nouns and verbs, subjects and predicates, between words in general.”) (“Whatever else you want to say about Brown,” noted Matthew Walther in a caustic takedown in The Week, “he is certainly a memorable writer. What I did notice, however, is that Brown is still a dreadfully dull writer whose relationship with the English language is tenuous, even tortured, for a man who claims to have once been an English teacher. In my defense, I did co-author a book with medievalist Sandra Miesel about The Da Vinci Code, I slogged through all of its prequel Angels & Demons, and I watched the movies for both- reviewing the latter, admittedly with little patience or mercy. To be honest, I gave up after the third chapter, which is where my free Kindle preview ended. But Brown’s novels aren’t really about characters or plots they are about Big Ideas and Controversial Subjects-in this case, the great and abiding tension between Catholicism and science, and how the former is (of course) threatened by the ceaseless progress and stunning insights of the latter. The latter once again features Robert Langdon, a “symbologist” whose thin personality is matched perfectly by Brown’s even thinner writing. Brown continues to produce “masterpieces” -although, to be fair, few have bestowed such lavish praise on novels such as The Lost Symbol (about the Masons and conspiracies), Inferno (about Dante and overpopulation), and, most recently, Origin. ![]()
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