
The World According to Dan Brown - greifswalder
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/books/dan-brown-origin.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&_r=0
======
neves
> he himself prefers literature that is instructive and, ideally, not wholly
> invented. “I feel like if I’m going to take time reading, I better be
> learning,”

The problem is that he chooses his "facts" for more interesting plots. He
gaves interesting theories, facts and detailed descriptions, but you don't
really know what is accepted knowledge or not. It is like getting your news
from Fox, you spent so much time filtering it that it isn't worth.

BTW, I've just read Da Vinci Code for the first time after it was one of the
few available books in a island after drowning my Kindle. I was impressed how
a so successful book had such a poor narrative. His characters building were
primary, and did some narrative tricks to deceive the reader. The conspiracy
theory thing was the only interesting thing. No more Dan Brown for me. Better
to stay with Humberto Eco.

~~~
teilo
> but you don't really know what is accepted knowledge or not

This is his primary problem. When he presents his "facts" he is often not
presenting obscure but well established facts, but wide-eyed conspiracy
theories that have been soundly refuted and are not taken seriously by
legitimate historians or scientists.

If he bothered to do even a little research, and look for original historical
sources, such as contemporary accounts or archaeological evidence to confirm
what he has read in his fringe conspiracy books (in other words if he bothered
reading well-researched and vetted books from credentialed historians), most
of his "facts" would evaporate and he would lose his plot devices.

I don't really care that he uses this stuff to create a narrative. It's
fiction, after all. But I have a real problem when he presents this crap as
fact to an audience that lacks the discernment to know better. He is, in my
opinion, intentionally misleading people, and making them more ignorant, to
line his own pockets.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Does he present it as fact? The books are marked fiction, does he have
additional responsibility beyond that? It is pretty easy to separate the non-
fact/conspiracy garbage that he uses to drive the plot from the facts/history
he uses to build setting.

~~~
Semaphor
I only read Da Vinci Code. To me it felt more like a propaganda piece for
conspiracy theorists.

~~~
DonaldFisk
I have avoided reading it (and watching the movie), but I have read about it,
and it's full of historical conspiracy theories. (I was actually surprised it
makes no mention of the Oak Island Money Pit.) Many of the conspiracies are
debunked in this documentary by Tony Robinson:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAtoP5nFhh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAtoP5nFhh4)

------
PakG1
I've never read Dan Brown. I do remember a friend reading The DaVinci Code and
thinking the book was garbage. I have watched the movie Angels and Demons and
thought it was ok, but nothing special. Now I stumble on a discussion of a
bunch of software engineers discussing how much Dan Brown's books suck. Most
of these people are as skeptical as you can be when it comes to matters of
religion and faith, so it's not like they're hating on Dan Brown because of
his choice in subject matter, the way one might accuse me (I'm a person of
devout Christian faith). So honest question. Does Dan Brown really suck that
much? If yes, why are his books so popular? It seems that either he's a good
writer or he's managed to hit a nerve that people latch onto due to their own
preconceived desires. If it's the latter, then does Dan Brown sell to his
readers the way that President Trump sells to his base or Michael Bay sells
Transformers movies to me? Donald Trump doesn't seem to have a clue what he's
doing sometimes (I'm Canadian, so again, outsider perspective), but his base
seems eat him up due to his message. Everyone says that the Transformers
movies suck, but I just love watching big robots bashing each other so much
that I can't tell if they're bad movies; the movies seemed fine to me. Is Dan
Brown in this category? Or is it possible that all of these learned and
analytical people in this discussion are wrong and he's actually a good
writer?

~~~
Kuiper
Also in the category of "generally regarded as objectively bad yet also
immensely popular," see junk food.

Junk food is not engineered to leave you feeling satisfied--in fact, it's
quite the opposite. Junk food is designed to give you a brief and fleeting
pleasure only for as long as it is in your mouth, and then leave you feeling
empty and unsatisfied afterward--that's why "you can't eat just one," and
people will eat through an entire bag of potato chips and still want another
bag. It is momentary, fleeting pleasure--and the fact that it leaves you
feeling unsatisfied is exactly the thing that makes it addictive.

I'd compare Dan Brown's books to addictive junk food: the act of consuming it
is unsatisfying, and that's a feature, not a bug. The page you're reading
isn't satisfying, but he does a great job of creating this sense of
anticipation that, on the _next_ page, some amazing mystery is about to be
unraveled. They're "page-turners:" you don't really get a ton of satisfaction
from the page you're currently reading, but you want so badly to see what is
on the next page that you speed through the page, usually reading quickly
enough that you don't really notice how unsatisfying it is.

If you ask people why they find it impossible to put Dan Brown's books down,
you'll always get some answer indicating this, like "I just had to see what
would happen next!" This is also why many people read "page-turners" like Dan
Brown's in a single sitting: each chapter ends on a cliffhanger. There's no
logical stopping points, because the "effectiveness" of each page is
predicated on the anticipation of the page that follows.

------
gwern
> Mr. Brown, 53, spent four years writing and researching the book. He is
> nothing if not disciplined. He rises at 4 a.m. each day and prepares a
> smoothie comprising “blueberries, spinach, banana, coconut water, chia
> seeds, hemp seeds and … what’s the other kind of seed?” he asked. “Flax
> seeds, and this sort of weird protein powder made out of peas.” He also
> makes so-called bulletproof coffee, with butter and coconut oil, which he
> says changes “the way your brain processes the caffeine” so as to sharpen
> your mind. His computer is programmed to freeze for 60 seconds each hour,
> during which time Mr. Brown performs push-ups, situps and anything else he
> needs to do. Though he stops writing at noon, it’s hard for him to get the
> stories out of his head. “It’s madness,” he said of his characters. “They
> talk to you all day.”

From "The Role of Deliberate Practice"
[https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-ericsson-
deliberatepractice....](https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-ericsson-
deliberatepractice.pdf)), Ericsson 1993:

> The best data on sustained intellectual activity comes from financially
> independent authors. While completing a novel famous authors tend to write
> only for 4 hr during the morning, leaving the rest of the day for rest and
> recuperation (Cowley, M. (Ed.). (1959). _Writers at work: The Paris review
> interviews_.]; [Plimpton, G. (Ed.). (1977). _Writers at work: The Paris
> review. Interviews, second series_.]. Hence successful authors, who can
> control their work habits and are motivated to optimize their productivity,
> limit their most important intellectual activity to a fixed daily amount
> when working on projects requiring long periods of time to
> complete...Biographies report that famous scientists such as Charles Darwin,
> (Erasmus Darwin, 1888), Pavlov (Babkin, 1949), Hans Selye (Selye, 1964), and
> B.F. Skinner (Skinner, 1983) adhered to a rigid daily schedule where the
> first major activity of each morning involved writing for a couple of hours.
> In a large questionnaire study of science and engineering faculty, Kellogg
> (1986) found that writing on articles occurred most frequently before lunch
> and that limiting writing sessions to a duration of 1-2 hr was related to
> higher reported productivity...In this regard, it is particularly
> interesting to examine the way in which famous authors allocate their time.
> These authors often retreat when they are ready to write a book and make
> writing their sole purpose. Almost without exception, they tend to schedule
> 3-4 hr of writing every morning and to spend the rest of the day on walking,
> correspondence, napping, and other less demanding activities (Cowley, 1959;
> Plimpton, 1977).

~~~
empath75
I can really only get 3-4 hours of coding done a day without needing to
recharge. I’d love if I could just get to work at 7, code until lunch and then
go home, read a book, etc.

~~~
wry_discontent
I've been pondering about how to get something like this set up for myself. I
think it's what makes remote work most appealing to me. If I'm out of the
office environment, there isn't a concern about "butt in chair" time, and I
can work purely around productivity.

Sometimes I am at my desk and I can tell that I'm not going to get anything
done for the next two hours, not because I'm in meetings, but because my brain
is kaput. There's no reason for me to pretend to work. If it's 2:30, and I'm
out of coding capacity, I could probably recharge with 1-2 hours of relaxation
and rest, but that kind of thing isn't encouraged in an office. I'm supposed
to work when I'm there. It's idiotic.

------
chewz
The original book that Dan Brown plagiated (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) is so much
better. I have read it few years prior to DaVinci Code and could only
recomend.

[https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Blood-Grail-History-
Shocking/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Blood-Grail-History-
Shocking/dp/0385338457)

------
GlenTheMachine
Brown wrote one book about the space business, “Deception Point”. IIRC, the
plot was that a couple of aerospace companies had faked a meteorite with
fossils in it, in order to leverage a huge increase in the space industry from
Congress.

He made the mistake of naming the companies involved in the conspiracy. These
were companies that, in the book, were powerful enough to buy off Senators,
pay massive bribes, and leverage incredibly advanced technologies. He named
three, and they weren't who you might expect (Boeing, LockMart, Northrop-
Grumman) - they were from the original generation of “new space” companies.

When I read the novel, I had worked with two of the three companies. One had
gone bankrupt five years after the novel was published. The other had, as I
recall, three employees.

No more Dan Brown for me.

------
robotron9000
> Of his novels, he said: “This is the kind of fiction I would read _if I read
> fiction_.”

Well that explains a lot.

~~~
dwighttk
I thought Garth Marenghi was the only author who has written more books than
he has read.

~~~
escapecharacter
Yes, these are the kind of references I’m into.

What a lovely show.

------
mark_l_watson
I have read a couple of his books and enjoyed them. Not favorite reads, but
worthwhile. On he other hand, I love the movies with Tom Hanks playing
Professor Langdon. When Dan Brown now writes, I wonder if he pictures Tom
Hanks in his mind when write writes the Langdon character.

------
open-source-ux
I have never read a Dan Brown book (yes, really). Is he the type of writer who
focuses on the plot rather than the literary merit of the words and sentences
he writes?

Here's something the British author Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) said
in a 2013 TV interview that I've always remembered:

 _" Yes, there is a difference [between a storyteller and a writer]...For a
storyteller, it's the events that are more important than anything else, the
events in the story, how they fit together, how they unfold...plot is a very
important thing for me.

But for a writer, I suppose words and sentences are the important things and
plot is of less importance. Really, of course, they should be of the same
importance."_ [1]

Is Dan Brown a storyteller rather than a writer? (If one goes with Pullman's
distinction)?

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2TNXC4rxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2TNXC4rxU)

~~~
haikuginger
This[0] is a good sample of what Dan Brown's writing feels like.

[0][http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-
re...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-
brown/)

------
entropy_
I made the mistake of reading Digital Fortress at some point. The entire plot
is predicated on the existence of a computer at the NSA that can defeat any
encryption through brute force without even knowing the underlying encryption
scheme. You give it ciphertext it outputs plaintext. Not satisfied with how
ludicrous that is, as in it can be proven impossible by anyone with even a
passing familiarity with what encryption is, he also goes into all these
actual numbers like it can break 2k long keys in under a second so even using
much larger keys it's only a few minutes. Completely ignoring the fact that
key spaces grow exponentially with key size and instead assuming it's
linear... This is all in the first couple chapters so I'm not even spoiling
anything

Researched his books are not... At least that one wasn't, because if he'd
consulted even a first year CS student they could've told him it's all wrong.

That whole experience turned me off of Dan Brown books (even though I had
previously read Angels and Demons and enjoyed it, knowing his research was so
shit in areas I'm knowledgeable in makes it harder to read books about things
I'm not because I know I will be coming away with wrong ideas stuck in my
head)

~~~
meta_AU
One of his other books opens with a few pages on how anti-matter is the
solution to the world's energy crisis due to the amount of energy stored
inside it. Totally ignoring the efficiency issues of producing it in the first
place.

~~~
MereInterest
I'm fine with there being an explicit deviation from reality. "Angels and
Demons" has one, spending a few paragraphs about how it explicitly broke
conservation of energy. I'm fine with that, as it fits with the theological
overtones of the book as a whole.

It's everything else that makes no sense whatsoever.

* A single lone researcher getting beam time on the LHC, without anybody knowing what the experiment was doing. I don't care how brilliant a person is, you're not doing experiments at that scale without having it be approved ahead of time.

* Perfect antimatter containment in large quantities. There's going to be some leakage, resulting in detectable gamma rays.

* Portable antimatter containment. Penning traps require large magnetic and electric fields, not exactly conducive to transportation.

* Countdown on a storage device with no safety margin. I can understand having a countdown to the engineered safe period. I cannot understand having the storage device shut off at exactly that time, rather than continuing to use whatever power it has.

* Inability to track wireless cameras. There is a camera pointed at the hidden antimatter containment device, and no attempt is ever made to track the signal from that camera.

* Failure to use binary search. (This is the only one that doesn't occur within the plot's setup, so avoiding giving spoilers.)

------
erokar
Is this Dan Brown the ski jumper? Everybody knows he never jumped more than 20
meters. Why the fuck should I listen this guy?

------
pfortuny
Anyone who at this point in time writes about the Sagrada Familia CATHEDRAL
should be banned from reporting or intervieweing.

Sorry but this only proves sloppiness.

Really.

~~~
thatcherc
Why? I think if you said the Sagrada Familia minor basilica [0] people who
don't already know about it might not know what that means. I certainly
wouldn't. According to Wikipedia [0], it's only not a cathedral because it's
not the seat of a bishop.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família)

~~~
mcphage
> According to Wikipedia [0], it's only not a cathedral because it's not the
> seat of a bishop.

On one hand, I do agree with your major point; calling it something other than
a cathedral would be needlessly distracting. On the other, your comment
amounts to "it’s only not a cathedral because it’s not a cathedral." Being the
seat of a bishop is what a cathedral _is_.

~~~
coldtea
> _Being the seat of a bishop is what a cathedral is._

It's what cathedral's etymology _is_.

Words are defined by how they're used, not their etymology. Most people just
use the word to mean any large church.

In fact, from dictionary.com: (2) (in nonepiscopal denominations) any of
various important churches.

Also: Following the Protestant Reformation, the Christian church in several
parts of Western Europe, such as Scotland, the Netherlands, certain Swiss
Cantons and parts of Germany, adopted a Presbyterian polity that did away with
bishops altogether. Where ancient cathedral buildings in these lands are still
in use for congregational worship, they generally retain the title and dignity
of "cathedral", maintaining and developing distinct cathedral functions, but
void of hierarchical supremacy.

The term "cathedral" actually carries no implication as to the size or
ornateness of the building. Nevertheless, most cathedrals are particularly
impressive edifices. Thus, the term "cathedral" is often applied colloquially
to any large and impressive church, regardless of whether it functions as a
cathedral, such as the Crystal Cathedral in California or the Arctic Cathedral
in Tromsø, Norway.

~~~
mcphage
> It's what cathedral's etymology is. Words are defined by how they're used,
> not their etymology.

Sure, but we're talking a Catholic church here, and for Catholics, it's not
just the etymology—it's the currently used definition as well.

