Wow has it been awhile since I was here. Hooo... well what can I say, I've been busy and sick, live with it.
Ok... update-o
I went out and bought a Dan Brown book, having read the trash that is
Beast by Peter Benchley and the drivel that is
Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton. Thus having sated my lust for large sea creatures and dinosaurs - previously admitted as being my guilty pleasures of the literary world - I moved on to... well it's not exactly fine literature but it's certainly several large steps up from the dwelling of Benchley. First though I must remark on Crichton. This man cracks me up. Every book I've read by Crichton begins with a vague background history the reader is supposed to take as fact regarding some sort of scientific process or experiment being done as we speak that no one by way of authority or watchdog is watching. This work of course will one day inevitably lead to our doom as Crichton goes on to explain in his story. The little background blurb is always written in this dark, dreary tone of impending doom... every book, regardless of the difference in scientific work, it's the same, "Since 1984 the American government has been working on Nano-Technology and has now sold it to private companies, companies reporting to no authority figure, companies with no morals only pushing on for greater advances and more money... companies some would say, run by Satan himself!!". Well maybe not the Satan bit in there but it almost could be, you could slip it straight in. Anyway, his other big constant is for the reading to take huuuuuge fucking leaps of faith in regards to the scientific "evidence" he provides. Example... actually I was going to site a silly thing about the researchers using bits of amphibian DNA to finish making Dinosaurs in
Jurassic Park but I realized that making Dinosaurs from DNA found in bugs trapped in amber is a big enough leap on it's own, suffice to say you can't be too picky if you want to enjoy a Crichton book... the more naive the better. Anyway on to Dan Brown.
Dan Brown's the dude who wrote
The Da Vinci Code that everyone is
all gung ho about lately. I didn't pick up
The Da Vinci Code, I'm waiting for a cheaper illustrated version to come out, I think that could make for quite an enjoyable read, instead I picked up the prequel
Angels & Demons. In both books we find symbologist Robert Langdon using his Harvard brain, his water polo swimming body (they call him The Dolphin) and his "surprisingly deep voice" to overcome various evil entities. Notice I never said his military training in there... something I think Mr. Langdon is secretly hiding somewhere. Now I have a problem with this book right off the hop, and I'm assuming this will continue into all Robert Langdon "adventures" as the cover states. That being, this is just a fucking book. To say "Robert Langdon's first adventure" on the cover implies that this character is the main character and thus the reader learns the story through him. This is not the case in Brown's writing. In a novel where we have a running main character, a la Hercule Poirot of Christie fame, Conan Doyel's Holmes, or even Harry bleedin' Potter, we find a third person
limited omniscient narrator, a narrator who knows everything the main character thinks or feels but is as blind to other characters as the main character in the story is. This helps to create the mystery, to draw the reader into the character, and to make the main characters stunning discovery's stunning to the reader as well... no "I knew that was coming" moments. But no, Brown takes the easier way out and makes a simple third person omniscient narrator who spoils the mysteries before they're even laid out. He makes a stunning discovery and we're going, "uhh yeah, get moving". To make matters worse, the characters he mentions the least... glaringly doesn't delve into in fact, are the hidden baddies. By not mentioning them however, they stick out like sore thumbs. In the case of
Angels & Demons, the guard whose childhood we learn about we certainly know is not a baddie, but the guard who's name is repeatedly mentioned but nothing more said, the only other guard to have his name mentioned, we suspect from the start so at the end when all the craziness is going down we aren't surprised at all. Uniformity my dear Mr. Brown goes a long way. If your narrator can tell me about everyone's childhood dramas and their dreams, then you'd do well to make sure everyone gets equal playing time so when the time comes for the big betrayal the reader might be a little surprised to find that the nice young guard was actually a bastard. Stating over and over how the other guards didn't like Frank and his beady eyes in between periods of reminiscing about Bob's long walks with Father Joey doesn't exactly make the number of likely traitors limitless. However, this does not mean that the book isn't entertaining. It's several steps away from fine literature, but it is entertaining in the subway book fashion... you can put it down anywhere, anytime, and pick it up and be right back into it. I did quite enjoy the book, I look forward to
The Da Vinci Code but it could have been so much better, he's had an excellent idea for a character and storyline, it's just too bad he didn't look back to his english 110.6 notes on narrative or better yet called up J.K. Rowling to ask her how she made so much money.
Oof, jeez I can prattle on sometimes.
Other than reading (and dissecting apparently) Dan Brown, I have been very sick. Deathly some would say. I spent the entire weekend on the couch, which sucked mighty hard. The entire weekend on the couch can be seen as a good thing but in this instance it very much was not. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for my rant on not being able to find a Steve Alten book in Saskatoon.
