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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 tho

by PakG1 9y ago

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?

codingdave 9y ago
I read the Da Vinci Code when it came out, and just didn't find the narrative to hold together. The logic was bad, there were gaping plot holes, unbelievable story lines, etc. It has been too many years to recall the details, but I do recall my overall impression being that he just wasn't a very intelligent author, and I couldn't muster up enough suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. That being said, I do know intelligent people who enjoy his work, and his books and movies have been successes, so I don't take my own bad impressions of his work too seriously - I'm clearly in the minority. So if other people enjoy his work, I'm not going to come down on him or them because of it all. To each their own.
Kuiper 9y ago
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.

by PakG1 9y ago

codingdave 9y ago

I read the Da Vinci Code when it came out, and just didn't find the narrative to hold together. The logic was bad, there were gaping plot holes, unbelievable story lines, etc. It has been too many years to recall the details, but I do recall my overall impression being that he just wasn't a very intelligent author, and I couldn't muster up enough suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. That being said, I do know intelligent people who enjoy his work, and his books and movies have been successes, so I don't take my own bad impressions of his work too seriously - I'm clearly in the minority. So if other people enjoy his work, I'm not going to come down on him or them because of it all. To each their own.

Kuiper 9y ago

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.