Yes, I am halfway through the Dan Brown bestseller-recently turned box office flop. Before you cross your fingers in front of your face and hiss at me for reading a book by a heathen, I would like to expand on a few of my observations on the book: 1. Dan Brown is not a good writer. He writes like I imagine Michael Crichton would after a bad stroke. There are too many "surprises", too many attempts at cliffhangers, not enough down time for the reader. The dialogue, as my older brother says, "makes me want to vomit." I think the only reason Brown's book is "The #1 Worldwide Bestseller" (as the cover of the book purports) is because of the controversial contents, which brings me to my second point. 2. The ideas of the book are not really that controversial. Every couple of years, usually around Easter, another report about secret documents containing information that Christ's bones are hidden in Pittsburg or Pakistan try to overshadow the true reason for the celebration of Easter. Brown sensationalizes Indiana Jones-esque myths about the Holy Grail and secret societies that we have already heard, for crying out loud. His motive seems to be a contempt for the church, but that's another thing I have noticed: 3. Brown doesn't really understand the Christian faith. In one section of the book, the main character, Robert Langdon, muses over the use of a cross symbol as odd in the Christian faith. "Langdon was always surprised how few Christians who gazed upon 'the crucifix' realized their symbol's violent history was reflected in its very name: 'cross' and 'crucifix' came from the Latin verb cruciare-- to torture" (Brown, 157). Duh. The reason Christians celebrate a symbol of torture is because we should have been the tortured ones, but instead "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). So Christians rejoice in Christ's brutal and bloody death, just as we rejoice in His ressurection. I'm only halfway through the book now, and when I'm finished I'll try to write a little more on the book if anything else comes to mind. Have any of you read the book or seen the movie? What did you think? |
Name: Ruthie
I read the book....I thought it ended badly as well - as if he got sick of writing it. I do agree with you though, that he tried to pack in too many surprises, like he was trying to keep us interested. The movie was slightly better than the book, but only b/c they changed the ending. Overall, Jordan and I thought it was a waste of our time (we read it together and then saw the movie) the book did make us want to finish it to see what else he would try to throw in and see how he was going to wrap it up, but in the end we didn't see what all the hype about. We also didn't see why this was such a "big" thing to the Christian society. It seemed like every youth pastor etc was like "we need to really be able to defend our faith against this" however it just seemed ridiculous. it'd be like someone believing that the movie national treasure was true. Anywho. Those are my few thoughts on the book/movie.