I admire Mr H's principles (I heard that at Latitude too and I'm sure the man himself has confirmed it in a podcast) but I must admit I enjoyed reading the Da Vinci Code. Utter, utter bilge, obviously, but it's just got so much energy it steamrollers over the fact that Dan Brown is one of the worst writers ever to pick up a pen. But then I like Clive Cussler for similar reasons, so maybe it's just my trashy taste. I can't say I'm bothered about Dan Brown's new one though - I presume it's just more of the same...

I read it by a pool on holiday. It was fine - a pretty good story written in a style that works but doesn't bear in depth discussion. And Mr H's abilty to resist the last page is entirely feasible - its one of those books where the journey is more entertaining than the destination - like half the books I read on holiday (I try to balance a thinking book with a non thinking book. Da Vinci Code is in the latter category keeping Lee Child company).

Yes - more of the same. I'm on holiday. It was cheap at the airport. A chase through Washington to unlock the lost secret with occasional pit stops for clunky dialogue, unnecessary exposition, and short lectures about the Masonic Order, and other exciting topics:

""Our normal numbers are Arabic." Langdon had become so accustomed to clarifying this point for his students [that would be students taking a course in mathematics at Harvard] that he'd actually prepred a lecture about the scientific advances made by early Middle Eastern cultures, one of them being our modern numbering system, whose advantages over Roman numerals included 'positional notation' and the invention of the number zero."

Actually 'zero', I believe, originated in India and was exported to the Arab world later.

And the twist when it arives, comes lumbering over the horizon like a large, grey, four footed elephant with large, flapping big ears that are more suggestive of the African Loxondonta than the ironicalistically less big, or some might even say more small, Asian or Indian Elephas Maximus that almost never appears in Masonic iconography.

Hardly great literature but there does seem to be an awful lot of snobbery about his books. Usually written by frustrated novellists who would no doubt kill for his sales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccuracies_in_The_Da_Vinci_Code

That's right, the wikipedia entry of inaccuracies in the Da Vinci Code is in fact longer than the page about the book.

Whoops!

that he presents almost everything in the books as fact. Explicitly so in his latest. You just know that half of the people who read it will take it as a given that there is a secret Masonic chamber under the Capitol building and that the Smithsonian is a front for weird scientific research. It isn't, is it?

he merely took some well established esoteric theory that was two millenia old, wove into a dodgy penny dreadful, and by default increased a trendy upsurge in Catholic conversion for the dimwitted.
Priceless.

I have read Da Vinci Code - as many on here have said, the writing was pretty poor and the plot was at best implausible but it was a mildly exciting piece of light entertainment. I have no desire to read either Angels and Demons or the latest one because it seems to me they will just follow the formula that raked in the dosh and there is nothing wrong with that as long as people are aware of it. In fairness a positive benefit that Dan Brown has given the world is that he has encouraged many adults to read a book probably for the first time since they left school and surely that is not a bad thing? In the same vein J K Rowling lured children into the written world including my son and regardless of the merits or otherwise of her books, for this she should be applauded.

Easy really.

The money it raises though is surely good for the publishing industry, and if it promotes reading to non-readers then it can't be all bad?

Introduce us to a sinister character in chapter 1, introduce Langdon and his way into the story in chapter 2, then introduce Langdon to an attractive young woman with whom he quite definitely does not have sex with before going on the run with her, solving puzzles? Does they then meet a nice helpful character, who then turns out to be the bad guy after all, while the sinister one we met right at the start turns out not to be so bad after all?

If it does (even roughly), then I think I might not bother, seeing as that was pretty much the plot of both DVC and Angels and Demons.

Lots is said about Brown's ability to 'tell a story', even when they are clearly awful writers. It's the same defence that is given for Jeffrey Archer. I tried one Archer book, Shall We Tell The President. It was worse than awful. I resented the time spent reading it that I would never get back.

Compare him to other good storytellers like Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett or JK Rowling. Pratchett's 'Nation' is a fabulous book, clearly written by someone with some talent and the ability to weave humour amongst some very deeps themes, especially for something that is supposed to be a 'children's book'. And while HP 5,6,7 are clearly in need of some fairly ferocious editing the HP series clearly unwraps a good story and tells it well.

In comparison Brown always feels so flat to me.

And his ilk always seem to me to be the literary equivalent of Britney Spears, i.e. massively successful while demonstrating very little talent. (Waits for someone to start a discussion on the merits of Ms Spears)

I'd have thought the Massive would have been happier discussing topics like
"Best One Hit Wonder - Cold Comfort Farm or Confederacy of Dunces?"

"Lesser Novels by well-known authors"

"Charles Dickens remasters - Essential purchase or marketing rip off?"

... it requires so little talent, and yet the rewards are so obviously large, then why don't one of you try it?

the casting for the film version of the DaVinci Code was spot on - a dull overrated actor plays the lead role in a film version of a dull overrated book. Perfect.