Dan Brown Books.

[Excited Penguin]

I imagine a few people have read at least one of his books.  I happen to have read two.  The Da Vinci Code, and Angels and Demons. 

I wasn't a fan of either of them.  The story telling was rather dull.  Robert Langdon always had information he could have shared that would have cut the plot by a few chapters.  The writing was at times awful.  Just the way he'd begin some sentences.  And I wouldn't criticize him for that if he weren't a best selling author.  The books themselves were just... dull in my opinion.  I can understand the appeal to some people -- the cliffhanger at the end of most chapters.  It can keep some people on the edge of their seat.  

Worst of all, I think, though were the historical inaccuracies.  And those would normally be fine in a work of fiction, but Dawn Brown likes to state that he did his research.  It's gotten so bad that there's a Trope that is called Dan Browned.  He often goes far off from the truth, and of course he makes the claim that he's 99% accurate.  Which leads to people thinking things happened that really didn't. 

But that got me to thinking.  What other book makes those same claims?  Well other than a lot of them.  Most importantly: The Bible.  It makes those claims.  And it made me wonder if Dan Brown was being clever with it.  Trying to say "A book isn't true just because it says it's true."  Now, I'm not sure he's actually that clever.  But I can't help but wonder if maybe -- just maybe -- the message of his books is not to take claims at face value.

Making you ask questions like that is what defines art, whether you like it or not. Suffice it to say his works are at least readable and have gotten so much attention that you can find yourself overdoing the interpretation bit if you ever find yourself reading them and are the mindful, inquisitive type. That alone makes its undeserved popularity worth it.

That is not to say there aren't better books out there. But those same books might not appeal to everyone or fall into everyone's hands. That's just how it is. You can't expect everyone to have great taste in literature. People make do with what they encounter in their busy lives.

I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol when I was a thirteen year-old boy stuck in Vienna with nothing to do on his hands. My mom bought it for me in a library at my request. It was worth it. It's important to note that this was my first ever book that I read in english. I share your dissapointment with it now, of course, after I've read actual writers like Nabokov or Salinger, but this was the turning point for my understanding of the english language. I don't regret reading it. Don't know what more to say about that.

Now concerning your particular interpretation of his claims and style, know this. --You, the reader, are the crucial thing that makes literature come alive. Without the reader's distinct point of view a fictional book is rarely ever what the writer intended for it to be, instead it's a whole lot of text driving at nothing in particular and not worth the time spent on it. Now this is not necessarily true for all books, nor is it the same for all readers, but I think it's an important part of the process of admiring someone else's creative mental workings set in print.