Dan Brown Template
Dan Brown has established himself to become one of the favorite authors
among the casual readers. It’s not uncommon to find a person who owns at least one of his novels- me being an example. Owning all four isn’t rare either, but sometimes I wonder whether or not anybody have noticed that Dan Brown’s novel all have few things in common.
Because just from the two I’ve read (and the remaining I previewed), I draw these observations:
(Disclaimer: To those who don’t want to be spoiled by "twists" so glaringly obvious, you can turn away now)
1. Dan knows about technical/scientific stuffs, and he’s not afraid to exploit it. Every of his novels have at least 1 high tech gadget. He could have majored in Engineering subject. This I like.
2. The hero, most of the time, is a professor. Robert Langdon, a Harvard Symbologist professor, starred twice, so that have to count. Then there’s the hero in Digital Fortress, who also happened to be an English Professor.
3. The heroine is always attractive to the point of absurdity. I don’t think it’s easy to find an IQ 170+ female digerati who don’t look gaunt and messed-up.
4. I’m assuming, and I’m sure this is accurate, that somewhere along the way the hero and the heroine falls in love.
5. This annoys me: every prologue chapter involves a person’s death - and it always is a result of assasin’s snarfings.
6. The assasin is often, if not always, some kind of cripple/outcast. In Da VInci Code we have an albino. In Digital Fortress, the assasin is deaf.
7. Dan always rely on scene-transition method of telling stories. Chapter by chapter we see events on different character’s perspective. I can say it is effective once, but use it in all four novels, and it gets pretty old.
8. The antagonist’s identity is always unknown at first, but think a little and you’ll know who’s scheming. By the time the identity of the antagonist is revealed, I’m never surprised. I predicted who the Teacher of Da VInci Code is well before Robert Langdon found it out himself.
9. Dan’s method of storytelling is fast-paced; so fast, you’ll sometimes risk yourself to not absorbing the story well enough. I’ve completed Digital Fortress quite fast, yet right now I couldn’t even remember the name of some of its major characters. At least, I have to admire Dan’s method of keeping the readers hooked until the conclusion.
10. Chapter 2/3 is always a scene of the assasin telling the antagonist how the plan went. I’ve read to this part of Angels and Demons and Deception Point to confirm this, and they are the only two remaining Dan Brown novels I haven’t completed.
Overall, Dan Brown’s novel are quite entertaining. But beyond the controversies presented in Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons lie formulas presented over and over again. So my suggestion? Read these one of these two novels (i’ve been told that Angels and Demons outdo Da Vinci Code storywise). THen just move on to other authors.
And regarding the controversies presented in Da Vinci Code? He’s not the first one to have done it. He’s just presented it in a more palatable manner. Umberito Eco, for instance, have written about Knight’s Templar in his novel Foucault’s Pendulum nearly 20 years before Dan Brown’s prime.
