[ SECRET POST #3715 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3715 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 39 secrets from Secret Submission Post #531.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've read all the books in the secret, and I think Dan Brown is objectively the best writer out of the lot. His writing may not be fantastic, but it's certainly not comparable to Eragon or The Vampire Diaries.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, this. He's not perfect, no, but he makes as much sense as he can and his stories work well, of predictable.

He does do some good research, but also chooses to make some of them fantastival (like the priory in Da Vinci Code to be more than they actually are irl).

[(Anonymous)]

My controversial opinion is that I don't think Da Vinci Code is the ~worst book ever~. It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall the premise being fairly developed and the writing okay. Characters may or may not have been awful or just plain forgettable. Still though, as an easy-to-read but relatively engaging adult novel, I never understood what the haters are freaking out about. I don't remember anything being particularly offensively terrible about it, not compared to your other random adult-targeted drug store novel.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not well-written, and also, everything about the premise is a giant load of conspiratorial horseshit that people took way more seriously than it deserved

[(Anonymous)]

So the anti-Christian stuff offended people, then?

I really have no problem with fiction exploring "conspirational horseshit" as a premise.

[(Anonymous)]

Exploring it as a premise is obviously fine. But I think the book itself takes it seriously, and people reading it certainly did, and that was really annoying. Not so much because it was anti-Christian, but because it had no relation to reality and was a load of nonsense that didn't deserve to be taken seriously.

[(Anonymous)]

Nayrt

I wouldn't necessarily call it anti-Christian, per se. It's just that some people find the idea that Jesus was very human (so human that he got married and had sex!) to be blasphemous and offensive.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, well, I definitely don't care about that. lol I mean, I get why very religious people wouldn't like it, but that's probably not the target demographic anyway. I never understood the intense backlash to Da Vinci Code, but if it was related to the "blasphemy", oh well, c'est la vie.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't consider it blasphemous but I also don't think there's any evidence for it, and there's certainly not any reason to believe that the Catholic Church has been engaged in a plot to conceal evidence about it for 2000 years

It's fucking stupid, anon

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, well, there's not a lot of evidence for a lot of stuff in the Bible, you know - including the Flood, and all those stories about the Jews fleeing Egypt and the seven plagues.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure sure.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, are you equally outraged by religious fiction? If what bothers you is people taking stuff that blatantly is not true, to be true.

[(Anonymous)]

Religious fiction is a broad category. If it's something like Left Behind, yes that's just as stupid. But I think there's a difference epistemologically between positing a relatively detailed historical conspiracy on the one hand, and positing the existence of God on the other. So if it's just fiction that's religious in theme, that doesn't bother me - any more than a book would bother me if it dealt with the themes of Da Vinci Code without positing their truth. Actually I really enjoy conspiracy fiction.

[diet_poison]

I've only read two Dan Brown books - The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons - and I thought the stories were really good but the characters were boring. The characters were just devices for the story, which is funny because sometimes it's the other way around.

That said, I also enjoyed A&D considerably more than TDVC; is that an unpopular opinion? The latter seems to be talked about a lot more.

[ceebeegee]

Angels and Demons is GREAT. I liked that book a lot more than DVC--it's much tighter IMO. I think Brown is a pedestrian writer (someone's always wincing or cringing) but he makes you want to visit these cities and cathedrals and artworks, he brings them to life. I visited Rome a year after reading A&D and never would've thought to see the St. Theresa in Ecstasy or the Fountain of the Four Rivers if I hadn't read it.

[diet_poison]

aaaa I would love to go to Rome! Sounds awesome!

And yeah, I agree with your overall assessments, though I'd have to read more of his books. And they are fun even if I think the MC is self-inserty and boring lmao. I like the places and the stories.

[feotakahari]

Dan Brown's skill is that he is really, really good at modulating tension, making you feel just the right amount of tension at just the right times. He seems to care more about this than about any other aspect of good writing.