Warning: This post contains spoilers for the novels Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Digital Fortress. If you intend to read any of these novels, I suggest you turn back now and start reading someone else’s blog instead. I have a nice list of links over there. If you click it, well then…. you’re on your own.
“If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all” is a common criticism of certain authors; Jane Austen springs to mind. More recently, though, I have found a certain rigidity and adherence in Dan Brown’s novels. Of course, I am by no means an authoritative expert; I’ve only read three of his novels: Angels & Demons (AD), The Da Vinci Code (DVC), and Digital Fortress (DF). (Deception Point (DP) is out there somewhere…)
Did you notice that all of his title have a word beginning with the letter “D” in them? Signs of a conspiracy indeed…
Anyway, let’s start as all things should—with their beginning. Invariably, a Dan Brown novel will begin with a murder in the prologue. The victim is an erudite man who either previously or currently wields some power. Bizarre circumstances surround his death. The reader does not learn who he is immediately; rather, he is forced to wait a few chapters for some context.
Then, a handsome university arts professor is introduced and is asked to help solve the murder. It’s Robert Langdon, a Havard reglious symbologist in A&D and DVC; in DF, it’s David Becker, a linguist. Both these characters go gallavanting off in Europe on some sort of quest—find the altars of the Illuminati, recover the personal effects of the murdered man, find the Holy Grail. He’s also never involved by choice; another man (generally working for the government) calls him because of his expertise.
We soon meet a beautiful (Brown likes to write about beautiful people, apparently) woman who has some relationship with the murdered man. This woman has or had a surrogate father figure (Jacques SauniA~re to Sophie Neveu in DVC; Leonardo Vetra to Vittoria Vetra in A&D; Trevor Strathmore to Susan Fletcher in DF.) This woman is quite gifted in her field, and we are almost always granted proof of this through a flashback to her childhood.
Her surrogate father always has something to hide, and this point is critical to the story. It’s usually alluded to throughout the novel.
A whole ensemble of other characters is then introduced. The real villain of the story will be someone the casual reader wouldn’t suspect. However, if you’re astute and aware of Brown’s style, you can usually make a pretty good guess as to who it is—my brother, reading A&D, soon said, “I know who the bad guy is. It’s the camerlengo. It can’t be anyone in the Swiss Guard because that’s too obvious; and besides, we know it’s someone with inside access to the Vatican. It has to be him.” Not bad.
If Brown thinks he can keep mass-producing these books, I’m afraid he’s terribly wrong. The public is just not that stupid. What’s the point in reading a thriller–even an “intelligent” thriller–if the twists are predictable and formulaic?