Dan Brown

I cannot believe the hype around Dan Brown, or that people take his sub standard 'thrillers' seriously, even some idiots believing they may be true! I've read everything he's written and its all shit. He cannot hold a candle to the master of this genre - Robert Ludlum.

Bob

Bob

I think you are being a bit extreme.

Dan Brown has taken a very old theory about the Jesus / Magdelen line and made it into a story. Nothing more or nothing less.

If you treat it as entertainment, then it is a reasonable book.

Regards

Mick

I must say I've been put off reading Dan Brown by the types of people that have recommended him to me. (Which is not an attack on Nuno - oblique or otherwise.)

I read the Da Vinci Code a few weeks back prompted by all the hype. Hundreds of pages of 'here's a concocted riddle and aren't the protagonists clever to work it out'. zzzzzzz. From half way through I couldn't figure out how a decent ending could emerge from where it was going. It seems neither could Dan Brown.

At least I got it as the last pick in a 3 for 2 deal.

Ian

I´ve just ordered the Da Vince Code in English.I´m doing the First Certificate in English and reading is a good help.I´m just curious about the story and by the imediate sucess of this book! I will get the book next week

quote:

I've read everything he's written and its all shit

Hasn't he written 4 or 5 books? Why on earth if you read one or two books by an authour and found them "shit" would you persevere with his next 3?

Me thinks you may have read them on release and are now following the NME principle of dismissing something you like when it becomes popular/mainstream

Jonathan

Jonathan, you're absolutely right.

No-one sells this many books without being both successful and extraordinarily popoular (by definition) at what they do.

Trivia tip: he is the only author ever to have held the numbers 1 - 4 in the UK bestseller list simultaneously. Most people answer JK Rowling to that question...

He knows how to write a real "page-turner" which is a great skill. Even if a cursary analysis of the books leads one to be able to work out how it's done (short alternating chapters ending on cliff-hangers) doesn't make it any less successful. He is exploiting something that works, for all he is worth. Who wouldn't?

I don't think he, or anyone else, has claimed they are great literature.

It's become as fashionable for people to say they don't like his books as it is for wine drinkers to say they "don't like Chardonnay". Both are just rebelling against the popularity. If he published a new book under a pseudonym they'd lap it up just as much as they might enjoy a glass of chablis.

I doubt I'll read another because they seem predictable in a curious way, and the characterisation is very thin. However, I won't dismiss them because I think they are beneath me in any way.
They are the paper equivalent of watching a Bond film or similar and enjoyable enough for that. The computery-one I recall was quite good as thrillers go.

I always have at least two books on the go. Something factual and something fictional. If the factual thing is heavy going, or I am wading through literature (I just finished Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow which is rewarding, but necessitates concentration) then I alternate with something much more lightweight and easier to cope with on a tube train (or I guess beach for that matter). Brown has this in spades which is why he has become so popular. Good luck to him.

I read all the Dan Brown books because
a) my 14 year old son brought them into the house
b) I had read the hype around him and was intrigued by the number of people who considered his books worthy of reading and thought I should investigate
c) I continued because I could not believe what shallow predictable rubbish The Da Vinci Code was. It worsened when I read the one about the Pope. I had worked it out by chapter 2. I finished them to confirm my belief and to enable me to disregard the opinions of anyone who thought Brown had anything to say to anyone with a reading age over 12.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry

Dan Brown has taken a very old theory about the Jesus / Magdelen line and made it into a story. Nothing more or nothing less.

If you treat it as entertainment, then it is a reasonable book.

Regards

Mick

That´s why I´m interested on the book.That´
s a very old story and Dan treat it as entertainment.Don´t forget all the books written about this old theory,right now!
The good news is that all english version is less expensive than the portuguese.

Lousy author, but reasonable books. DC and A&D were much better than the other two books. If you liked DC & A&D, there's a book called "Rule of Four" which I preferred, on a similar(ish) theme.

John

I've read "the code" & the 'one about the pope". Both gave me the same feeling. They were easy to read but at the end of them I thought "why did this take so many pages?"

A bit like eating crisp-bread to try to put on weight.

I really enjoyed 'Angels and Demons' and 'Deception Point' by Dan Brown.

I've come late to 'The da Vinci' code, but am currently really enjoying that as well.

It's not just about writing a good escapist yarn, that holds one's attention - there's also a lot of fascinating researched knowledge in DB's novels.

John.