Book 20: The Da Vinci Code
Continuing with the book_it_2006 project...
Book 20: The Da Vinci Code
Authors: Dan Brown
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Number of pages: 496
Pages Read This Year: 6110
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B-
Short description/summary of the book: from Amazon.com
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself.
My Thoughts: I am the sort, I should tell you, who will read a much-publicized book just to see what all the fuss is about, and that's why I picked up this novel. Having put it down just minutes ago... honestly, I'm still not sure what all the fuss is about.
A murder in the Louvre museum draws Robert Langdon, an American professor of symbology, is drawn into a desperate race to either find or protect incredible secrets hidden for millennia. Langdon and the victim's granddaughter, cryptographer Sophie Neveu, are forced to unlock last-minute clues left by the dying man, which in turn point them to other clues, which in turn point them to OTHER clues, and so on and so on.
The good first -- Brown crafts an easy read, a quick page-turner that presents a lot of interesting facts and theory regarding the Holy Grail, the ancient Church and all the mystery and symbols that surround it. The ending is also fairly satisfying -- not quite what one expects, but in character with the rest of the book.
However, much of Brown's structure is infuriating. This book, by necessity, is packed with exposition... I can deal with exposition, but Brown frequently lapses into long passages that feel like he's writing a textbook instead of a novel -- dry explanations of the meanings behind symbols or words that feel as though they were lifted from an encyclopedia. Even worse are passages where he has characters flash back to previous occasions where the delivered these dry passages to other people who aren't even in the book. Brown even, on occasion, lapses into one of these tangents that has NOTHING to do with the plot, but just seemed interesting at the time.
Worse than that, however, is the way Brown crafts his mysteries. This is a book full of one mystery, one puzzle, one riddle after another -- which is all well and good. The problem is, Brown cheats his readers. The fun of reading a mystery is to give the readers and the characters the clues together, then racing to see if you can solve it before the characters in the book. Brown, on multiple occasions, deliberately withholds information from the reader (for example, the last two lines of a four-line verse) until the character themselves crack the code, then goes back and gives the readers all the clues as he explains how they stumbled upon the solution. He does this over and over again, frequently following it by commenting on how clever the characters are to have solved his mystery or, alternately, how clever the man who created the puzzle in the first place was to do so.
It's not a terrible book, and in fact has a lot of the elements I like about a good old-fashioned treasure hunt story, but in the end, I feel that Brown's writing leaves a lot to be desired. I can't help but think this is a case where a book became a huge hit because of the controversy, not because of the quality.
In the Queue: Magic Street by Orson Scott Card, Asimov Laughs Again by Isaac Asimov, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Book 20: The Da Vinci Code
Authors: Dan Brown
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Number of pages: 496
Pages Read This Year: 6110
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B-
Short description/summary of the book: from Amazon.com
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself.
My Thoughts: I am the sort, I should tell you, who will read a much-publicized book just to see what all the fuss is about, and that's why I picked up this novel. Having put it down just minutes ago... honestly, I'm still not sure what all the fuss is about.
A murder in the Louvre museum draws Robert Langdon, an American professor of symbology, is drawn into a desperate race to either find or protect incredible secrets hidden for millennia. Langdon and the victim's granddaughter, cryptographer Sophie Neveu, are forced to unlock last-minute clues left by the dying man, which in turn point them to other clues, which in turn point them to OTHER clues, and so on and so on.
The good first -- Brown crafts an easy read, a quick page-turner that presents a lot of interesting facts and theory regarding the Holy Grail, the ancient Church and all the mystery and symbols that surround it. The ending is also fairly satisfying -- not quite what one expects, but in character with the rest of the book.
However, much of Brown's structure is infuriating. This book, by necessity, is packed with exposition... I can deal with exposition, but Brown frequently lapses into long passages that feel like he's writing a textbook instead of a novel -- dry explanations of the meanings behind symbols or words that feel as though they were lifted from an encyclopedia. Even worse are passages where he has characters flash back to previous occasions where the delivered these dry passages to other people who aren't even in the book. Brown even, on occasion, lapses into one of these tangents that has NOTHING to do with the plot, but just seemed interesting at the time.
Worse than that, however, is the way Brown crafts his mysteries. This is a book full of one mystery, one puzzle, one riddle after another -- which is all well and good. The problem is, Brown cheats his readers. The fun of reading a mystery is to give the readers and the characters the clues together, then racing to see if you can solve it before the characters in the book. Brown, on multiple occasions, deliberately withholds information from the reader (for example, the last two lines of a four-line verse) until the character themselves crack the code, then goes back and gives the readers all the clues as he explains how they stumbled upon the solution. He does this over and over again, frequently following it by commenting on how clever the characters are to have solved his mystery or, alternately, how clever the man who created the puzzle in the first place was to do so.
It's not a terrible book, and in fact has a lot of the elements I like about a good old-fashioned treasure hunt story, but in the end, I feel that Brown's writing leaves a lot to be desired. I can't help but think this is a case where a book became a huge hit because of the controversy, not because of the quality.
In the Queue: Magic Street by Orson Scott Card, Asimov Laughs Again by Isaac Asimov, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz