facts and fiction
I finished reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code", and I can understand what the fuss was all about. It's a nice book, it is nicely written, it has a nice flow to it, and it doesn't take any effort reading. Because it deals with Da Vinci and art in general, and because it revolves around secret societies, I can see why people would think they will be somewhat smarter after reading the book.
In actuality, the book is built very similar to an 80s quest game, with its riddles and puns. The writing is sloppy, not in the sense that it's bad (because it's quite good imho) but in the sense that it seems Mr. Brown chose the easy way out... Instead of writing clever dialogues or give a detailed account, he gives the reader most of the information in a shortened version. Example: Character A wants to explain something to Character B. Instead of relaying the information to the reader through the dialogue, the author writes something like "Character A then explained to Character B the origin of the symbol, which was.." etc.
After reading the book, it's obvious the author made an extensive research before writing the book. I can appreciate it. It is unfortunate that he also felt the need to dump everything he has learned in the book, regardless of relevance. It's a nice addition when it happens once or twice or maybe 15 times, but it can get tiresome after that.
One last thing that bothered me was the author's need to finish each and every episode with a cliff hanger, or at least with something he think is a cliff hanger. It's okay mister, I already bought the book, I'm in chapter 67 now, not much chance I will stop reading now. No need to end each episode with "and then they opened the chest and couldn't believe their eyes...."
All in all though, the book is fun, it's a light reading material, and it has a lot Templars, Masons, Opus Dei, Priory of Sion and others. You can sometime wonder how much of the conspiracy theories is true and what accounts are based on facts and how much is just made up.
Oh well... perhaps I'll continue with Ivanhoe...
In actuality, the book is built very similar to an 80s quest game, with its riddles and puns. The writing is sloppy, not in the sense that it's bad (because it's quite good imho) but in the sense that it seems Mr. Brown chose the easy way out... Instead of writing clever dialogues or give a detailed account, he gives the reader most of the information in a shortened version. Example: Character A wants to explain something to Character B. Instead of relaying the information to the reader through the dialogue, the author writes something like "Character A then explained to Character B the origin of the symbol, which was.." etc.
After reading the book, it's obvious the author made an extensive research before writing the book. I can appreciate it. It is unfortunate that he also felt the need to dump everything he has learned in the book, regardless of relevance. It's a nice addition when it happens once or twice or maybe 15 times, but it can get tiresome after that.
One last thing that bothered me was the author's need to finish each and every episode with a cliff hanger, or at least with something he think is a cliff hanger. It's okay mister, I already bought the book, I'm in chapter 67 now, not much chance I will stop reading now. No need to end each episode with "and then they opened the chest and couldn't believe their eyes...."
All in all though, the book is fun, it's a light reading material, and it has a lot Templars, Masons, Opus Dei, Priory of Sion and others. You can sometime wonder how much of the conspiracy theories is true and what accounts are based on facts and how much is just made up.
Oh well... perhaps I'll continue with Ivanhoe...