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Your thoughts on Dan Brown

Greedo

Too weird to live, too rare to die
Greedo
Joined
May 2, 2011
Messages
2,603
Hi Jrefers! :)

I've been thinking about this after watching an interview with the above mentioned author on his newest work, "The Lost Symbol".

I have to say here, that I haven't read it, nor am I really planning to.
I've only read "Angels and Demons", back then I was a kid, so I'm not quite sure if I'd like it today ;) . Otherwise, I've watched the movie adaptation, as well as "The DaVinci Code".

Anyway, in an interview he went on how he is indeed a great skeptic, and that everything he said about the Freemasons was true and how he had to do such extensive research. After all the book took him six years to finish Now, again, I haven't read the book, but considering his track record of making CT nuts go nuts (although I realize one only needs to mention the word 'Mason' for them to do so ;) )...

He also thought the most shocking thing he "discovered" was a painting inside the Capitol's dome wich depicts George Washington looking down as a god :jaw-dropp :rolleyes:

I'm a bit skeptical of his claims. What are your thoughts on this matter?
 
I liked Deception Point, even though it wasn't super plausible at times (our hero sliding down a glacier and catching himself like Bruce Willis in Die Hard). I have no desire to read the Mason / woo stuff.
 
What did he say about the Freemasons?

I don't have much of a problem with Dan Brown from the little I know about him. I read the Da Vinci Code and thought the story was preposterous but I also thought that he genuinely had a talent for keeping the reader's attention and making them want to know what would happen next and I didn't think it was to be taken particularly seriously anyway. Many people did take it seriously but I think that is more their fault. Is Dan Brown responsible for his readers taking his fiction seriously?

I thought it was funny that some pseudo-historians took him to court for plagiarizing an idea of theirs given that if they were doing real history Dan Brown would surely be plagiarizing reality.
 
carlitos said:
I liked Deception Point, even though it wasn't super plausible at times (our hero sliding down a glacier and catching himself like Bruce Willis in Die Hard). I have no desire to read the Mason / woo stuff.
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You aren't missing anything. Save yourself for an author of consequence like Michael Ondaatje. Brown's stuff is popcorn for the brain
 
I think this covers it well. D. Brown noticed a few obscure facts, strung together an interesting fictional tale, and sold a lot of books. However, he was NOT a great historian, or even a great scholar. He got a lot of things very, very wrong. Not bad for a bit of fiction--sci-fi writers routinely do much, much worse--but certainly not something that proves anything.

He also thought the most shocking thing he "discovered" was a painting inside the Capitol's dome wich depicts George Washington looking down as a god
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He should check out the Pope's home. Michelangelo painted some things into the ceiling that....well, let's just say that you REALLY didn't want to annoy him while he was working, and religion in general seemed to annoy him. The famous picture of God giving life to Adam, for example, shows God and the angels looking suspiciously like a brain, and in another scene a cardinal who was getting on Mike's nerves ended up being imortalized as a demon. Lots of symbolism there, and some of it may even be real!
 
angrysoba said:
What did he say about the Freemasons?
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Nothing of consequence. There was a worried ruffle going around the fraternity before "The Lost Symbol" came out. But when it came out, there was a collective sigh of relief that Masonry wasn't being pilloried in some new and soon-to-be-popular way.

angrysoba said:
I read the Da Vinci Code and thought the story was preposterous...
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You'll find a similar thread through "The Lost Symbol" :D

angrysoba said:
but I also thought that he genuinely had a talent for keeping the reader's attention
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With 'chapters' that run a page-and-a-half, it's like he's writing the screenplay of a Jerry Bruckheimer flick.

angrysoba said:
Many people did take it seriously but I think that is more their fault.
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Oh aye. Mrs. Fitzgibbon and I were in Rome at the height of the Da Vinci Code hysteria and it astonished me how many Da Vinci Code tours there were to be found.

angrysoba said:
Is Dan Brown responsible for his readers taking his fiction seriously?
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Is any fiction author? Stupid people will believe stupid things if they want to. That's how conservatives get elected. :D
 
I've only read Da Vinci Code and it's a good, trashy page-turner and clearly inspired by 'Holy Blood and Holy Grail' which by turn is dull as dishwater.

So, the CTers go nuts because the stories about the Magic Man they got told about as a kid aren't quite what they thought. Makes no odds to me what Magic Man did or didn't do, or what his 'followers' think he did or did not do.

Dan Brown coined it in bigtime, so fair play to him for that. We've all got an appetite for a good story, especially involving scandal. History is crammed full of genuine, recorded, verifiable scandal and intrigue, but it never sells as well as the continuing saga of Magic Man and His Magic Men.

CTB
 
Dinwar said:
...The famous picture of God giving life to Adam, for example, shows God and the angels looking suspiciously like a brain...
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Cool! That's very interesting, with brainstem and all! I suppose that's supposed to mean that religion is made up, nice one :D

fitzgibbon said:
... But when it came out, there was a collective sigh of relief that Masonry wasn't being pilloried in some new and soon-to-be-popular way....
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At least that! It really annoys me how Freemasonry is being demonized with the most ludicrous assertions.
While coming out of CT-wooism, I did more real research on FMry, and found myself very interested and fascinated by it. In fact, if I wasn't an atheist, I'd be quite interested to join.


fitzgibbon said:
You'll find a similar thread through "The Lost Symbol" :D
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I could have guessed. Unfortunately the search function doesn't work for me, so excuse my laziness not to do a google-"site:forums.randi.org" search :o


fitzgibbon said:
With 'chapters' that run a page-and-a-half, it's like he's writing the screenplay of a Jerry Bruckheimer flick.
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That really struck me with A&D. At least the story moved on :rolleyes:



fitzgibbon said:
Actually, I object to the title of this thread. "thought" and "Dan Brown" really shouldn't appear in the same sentence. :D
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;) It's like with Michael Bay movies. I always say, the only way a M.B. movie can be enjoyable is if you turn of your brain for the duration of the film :o
 
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Dan Brown is a great "airplane book" writer. When I fly for work and I need 2 or 3 hours to disappear quickly, Dan Brown is great. I find his books easy and fast reads, but with with little depth.

However, when I am at home, and want to read, he is not the author I choose. I have a copy of Lost Symbol that was given as a gift, and am waiting for my next flight to read it.
 
Greedo said:
At least that! It really annoys me how Freemasonry is being demonized with the most ludicrous assertions.
While coming out of CT-wooism, I did more real research on FMry, and found myself very interested and fascinated by it. In fact, if I wasn't an atheist, I'd be quite interested to join.
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Move to France and join the Grand Orient. Become a cheese-eating-surrender-monkey! :D

Greedo said:
I could have guessed. Unfortunately the search function doesn't work for me, so excuse my laziness not to do a google-"site:forums.randi.org" search :o
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I don't know that there's a thread to that effect here. Don Brown novels are preposterous writ large.

Greedo said:
That really struck me with A&D. At least the story moved on :rolleyes:
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Story? :D

Greedo said:
;) It's like with Michael Bay movies. I always say, the only way a M.B. movie can be enjoyable is if you turn of your brain for the duration of the film :o
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Once I got into it, it was a page-turner and I realised that there was no education of any kind to be found within those pages. Sort of like a temporary temporal lobotomy.
 
PhreePhly said:
Dan Brown is a great "airplane book" writer. When I fly for work and I need 2 or 3 hours to disappear quickly, Dan Brown is great. I find his books easy and fast reads, but with with little depth.
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Same here. Pretty sure that I bought "Deception Point" at LaGuardia. I don't want to read cerebral stuff on the plane, I just want to tune out.

Thanks for all the advice - my instinct seems right about the other books. I don't mind a little suspension of disbelief in a novel, but for example I'm reading the latest by Steve Berry, and it's about "abiotic oil" and it's kind of bugging me.
 
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