Die, Dan Brown, Die!

There’s an unspoken contract between an author and his reader. I think the most important clause is, "thou shalt not resort to cheap trickery." The line between sleight-of-hand and deception may be blurred, but once you cross it, you risk disgust, or at worst, on a personal level, a pledge never to read the author’s work ever again.

If I had actually bought my copy of Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code, I’d be writing him a gee-thanks-for-wasting-my-time-and-money pissed-off-as-hell note.

Thankfully, I had my copy beamed to me: thanks to the tricky deviousness of Janolo, I have (or had; I have since exorcised my trusty Clie of all crap) a digital text file of said novel. No cash for trash.

Initially, I was actually excited to see what people were gushing about. Bea couldn’t put it down; the sis-in-law was raring to get her hands on her own copy. Even my rather scholarly tito had a fresh copy peeking out from his briefcase, presumably to be read when he’s taking a break from the economic oppression of the Asian underclass. (That was a joke, people. That was a joke. I wonder if the naysayers who constantly blame the ADB for the Philippines’ woes even know how badly we’d have it if the ADB weren’t around. But I digress.)

The book is bad in the worst sort of bad – you don’t realize how bad it is until you’ve flipped the very last page. Like eating at a Mongolian Barbecue Buffet and getting food poisoning once you leave the premises, all you have is the memory of how good it was when the going was good, and a very unpleasant conclusion that makes you swear off Kublai’s forever.

I won’t go into detail here on the numerous deceptions foisted by the author on his readers. And no, don’t give me that "it’s a work of fiction" crap; Brown himself insists to this day that "absolutely all of it" was based on reality. In his own words, "all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies [in the book], all of that is historical fact." But there it is: historical fact? Dan Brown craps on it. From small white lies (like claiming that the Romans called anagrams "the great art" [in Latin, ars magna], when the Latin phrase is in itself an anagram of anagrams, so it can’t possibly have been extant as far back as the Roman period!) to his Gospel acceptance of such shaky sources as Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Brown also resorts to over-inflating the importance of the Golden Ratio, the Knights Templars and other secret organizations, and the Gnostic Gospels. My dad’s a Freemason, but to say that he’s privy to ancient secrets that could destroy the faith is about as likely as my scholarly tito working towards the absolute slavery of the Asian region!

Another thing, Dan: how many times do you think you could repeat "sacred feminine" without your reader wanting to throw your book at the wall? Maybe, like, half the number of times you mention it? Another, another thing, Dan: maybe when you write your next book, could you try to make your flashbacks sound less contrived? Your Neanderthal convicts could have come straight out of the prison in Naked Gun 33 1/3! (You know, where Leslie Nielsen goes undercover in a state penitentiary?)

All in all, it’s bad writing and cheap trickery, disguised in fast pacing that disguises how thinly fleshed out the story and its characters are. The only faith I lost while reading it is my faith in Dan Brown’s abilities. He’s not on my "next to read" list, that’s for sure.

It’s a good thing I got to read the book for free. For once in my life, I actually got what I paid for.

Further reading:
The Skeptic’s review of the da Vinci Code
Google-search on ""da vinci code" critique". Christians understandably feel threatened by the book’s claims, so a new cottage industry has been born – debunking Dan Brown. I’m leaving that to them; I’ve wasted enough time venting already.

Comments to the comments:
because when I try to comment to my own entry, somehow the Blogger interface looks all fucked up... so for now, I'll comment here...
Atty. Sassy, I hope you'll enjoy more than just the layout over the next few weeks. I've got a lot to vent. :-)
Anonymous, My guess is, the fuss was all about conscientious Christians taken aback by claims that everything they knew about their faith was a lie, with that claim being strengthened by the book's tight pacing. There may be something to the Church's perceived misogyny that struck a chord with many of Da Vinci readers - feeding to the word-of-mouth that, in hindsight, probably had little to do with Dan Brown's actual writing skills.
Bea, I hope you didn't imagine I was slandering your taste in books - if it did sound like it, I'm sorry! Please forgive me... (actually, you didn't mention how un-put-downable the book was in your blog, but you said so when you were visiting nette, me, and abu... I linked to that blog entry because it was the one that mentioned your reading the book. In hindsight, should I drop the link to your blog entry na lang?) I actually agree with you that it was hard to put down. Medyo nainis lang ako at the end because I felt he led me by the nose to a pointless conclusion. BTW, doesn't the book's ending read like a shameless rehash of The Alchemist's last chapter? Hero goes off on a quest; quest comes to nothing; then realizes that the treasure he was seeking was hidden in the setting of the book's very beginning? See for yourself; magugulat ka. Say hi to Bruno for me!