I will not read Dan Brown’s latest 17 Sep 2009 He’s a pap writer. Nicely chewed and digested screenplays for filming. Nothing deep, nothing that might stretch a reader. Obvious plot turns. So the reviewer at First Post UK suggests some other reading. I add this: I am surprised that the reviewer did not suggest some Umberto Eco novels. I have long thought of Brown as Eco Lite. In particular Foucault’s Pendulum, and of course, Name of the Rose, but even Baudolino shines next to the entire Brown corpus of pap. Philosophy Pop culture
Ecology and Biodiversity 12 Days to Species publication 3 Feb 2018 Due 15 February! Details here Read More
Metaphysics Descartes before the horse – does information exist? 8 Mar 201122 Jun 2018 I have been kind of busy with actual, you know, work, which is ironic because I do not actually have, you know, employment. But I am teaching. Anyway this is by way of being an apology and apologia for not having posted lately. Be assured much Wilkinsy goodness is being… Read More
Evolution God and evolution 2: The problem of creation 4 Apr 201322 Jun 2018 Objections to evolution from the particular perspective of religion come in three forms: the problem of creation, the problem of purpose and the problem of chance. All other objections are general philosophical ones, and I’ll discuss them under that heading. The problem of creation The majority of believers in the… Read More
Eco, asked to comment on The Da Vinci Code‘s relationship to Foucault’s Pendulum, replied that Dan Brown was a character from FP, which is perfectly true. I just finished re-reading Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, which is very very Eco. Though the things he does with Platonic metaphysics make me wince.
I love and hate Stephenson in roughly equal measure. On the one hand, he writes about the things I find interesting (and I have all his novels), but then he screws the pooch with his Pythagoreanism and occasional supernaturalism. I wish he wouldn’t. But I’ll read his next novel too…
Heh. I thought that the society in Anathem is what you would get if Pythagoras’ sect of mystic geometers had prospered and become the dominant world religion (except they seem to have dropped the dietary taboo against beans). But the supernaturalism, yeah: the immortal Enoch Root, the mysterious Solomonic gold, and all the reality-bending weirdness at the crisis of Anathem — the stories gallop along so well, a wonderful carnival ride of action and ideas all rooted in a universe we recognize as ours and then Boom! Something completely off-the-wall happens.
I like the inclusion of Rushdie in those slagging off the book, given the turgid prose he is oft praised for. Though he does occasionally write interesting stories.
Foucault’s Pendulum is a bit turgid. I did enjoy it (and the punchline, coming from an academic, is hilarious), but it takes a long time to set the whole thing up.
Dan Brown is crap, at least on the basis of the only novel of his that I’ve ever read The Da Vinci Code. Also on that basis I never want to read another one of his novels. I don’t think that Foucault’s Pendulum is turgid and although I will agree that it is probably not so well written as Name of the Rose I actually prefer it. If you like this sort of thing you will probably like the novels of Lawrence Norfolk, Lemprière’s Dictionary, In the Shape of a Boar and The Pope’s Rhinoceros.
I thought that The Da Vinci Code was readable and even mildly enjoyable, if predictable. Then I read ‘Angels and Demons’, at the recommendation of my brother, which was horrifyingly and offensively terrible.