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*spoilers that talk about the overall theme and quality of the book...without getting into details about characters or specific events*
Did anyone read the book? It has been selling like wildfire, so I picked it up from the library. I decided to read it like fiction, and simply ignore Brown's nutty belief's that he is telling a true story.
I was actually very disappointed. He simply is not a skilled writer. I suppose he drew in a lot of people who had not read a lot of mysteries and thrillers...which is why he got away with using a lot of clichéd writing, but even so I just can't understand why it was so popular.
It was like he wanted to imitate Ludlum and write a conspiracy thriller...but knew that he did not have the writing talent, so he decided to pretend that he was telling a true story to stir up controversy. It really reminded me of those nuts who think that NASA faked the moon landing and string together poorly written rants to try and convince people of their theory.
Of course that is ignoring the offensive nature of the book. He claims that Jesus married marry Magdalene and had a daughter with her. It gets worse. He believes that the church wanted to hide the fact that Jesus had children, so they have been murdering his descendents when they found them over the last 2000 years. And he does not understand what is offensive about that.
Even given the offensive nature of his book, I could understand his popularity if he could actually write. However his writing just seems heavy handed...the way he tries to hide things from the reader is very clumsy, and his idea of a twist ending is just absurd. I guess I have been spoiled by reading to many of Ludlum's books (who Brown claims to admire...but sure had not studied enough) but even so it was just clumsy writing.
I guess I should be glad that he has not written a book about Methodists tracking down and murdering the decedents of John Wesley to hide some secret from the world...though who knows, that might be coming next.
Was anyone else as disappointed as I was…or were you guys smart enough to avoid it?
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I read it. I enjoyed it. It wasn't the best book in the world, and certainly doesn't deserve all the attention it has received.
My favorite "Bad Part" of the book is where the protagonist explains to the girl about her father's cult activities being a sex rite and she is suddenly totally cool with it. Talk about a blatant "convenient conversion" story.
Oh, and, nothing about the book offended me, just for the record.
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Personally I thought it was a great read. I'm not very religious so the idea's presented didn't offend me. I quite enjoyed it and recommended it to my wife and she enjoyed it as well. I was unaware that the premise of the book was something the author truly believed.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I am very religious, but the ideas didn't offend me. In fact, I find it very believable that there might be people on earth that believe those things.
I happen to believe other things.
But it was a fun fast-paced read.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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really, the writing quality bugged me more than the content. I knew what I was getting into when I got the book...the only thing that bugged me about the details were the exream ones (such as the church murdering the decendents of christ).
The thing that bothered me the most was how he paced things...and his methods of suspense. Like I said before, I think Robert Ludlum has spoiled me, since he has written similar books (but set as fiction...not as 'truth') and they are just amazing.
I guess when I have seen something done so well, I get annoyed when something is similar but not done as well...sort of like with star wars. If you look at 1 and 2 as movies on their own, I guess they are not that bad...particularly 2. However once you look at them as star wars films, they really make you groan.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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Was this book put forward as 'truth'? I read it as fiction, and never thought it was anything else. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I would say that you would have had to not pay much attention to the conversation it created to say it didn't come off as stating truth. From what I have heard, it was poor scholarship mascarading as fiction.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Dan Brown says he believes the theories put forward in the book. His 'research' is very sketchy, and relies on books written by other conspiricy theorists that are not taken seriously by most real academics. It is pretty much all guessing and strange interpretation.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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I got the feeling that he believed it. Subtle things seemed to suggest it, like the above example I mentioned. When someone believes something deeply, they often make such errors in writing. I could say the same for some of Heinlien's works, but I don't know if he believed them or if he was just putting out ideas and asking people to consider them.
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I didn't read the DaVinvi Code, but I did read Angels and Demons. I was really disappointed. Brown is just not a very good writer in my opinion.
I also read the book Holy Blood Holy Grail just to see what the whole controversy was about. Some of the reasoning about why they think Jesus was married seemed logical at least, but some of it was pretty outlandish.
At one point, they promote the idea that Barabbas was the son of Jesus. Jesus was killed in his place in order to preserve the line.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I have to agree, the writing was lamentable at best. his characters were pathetically predictable and off-the-shelf, the plot was transparent (although there were a few things at the very end i didn't expect), and the style was sophomoric. the only thing that made it readable was the pace (which, incidentally, kept me up all night until i finished it about 6 hours after i started it).
As for his claims (ie, jesus being married, having had children, etc etc), these aren't really new. i remember reading a book based on the dead sea scrolls and some of the recently discovered gospels that came to the same conclusions (maybe this is the sketchy research that was referred to), and i remember learning about the council of nicea and the invention of the trinity when i was like 13 or so. i guess many people aren't aware of the extent to which much of contemporary christian doctrine and iconography was manipulated by the early catholic church. that's my suspicion as to why it's so popular: fast paced book that's hard to stop reading mixed with enough obscure knowledge and theories that people find it an interesting alternate reality. it also blurs the line between truth and those theories leaving you to wonder exactly how much of his constructed world is real.
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