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SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
Fall Books and Giving Dan Brown a Break
 About three weeks ago, I read a newspaper article with an “editor’s choice” preview of the publishing world’s fall 2009 releases, that listed title, author, publisher, and a one-sentence description of each book. These lists are great for people like me who like to anticipate our next batch of “good reads”, and I pored over it gleefully with uncapped highlighter pen in hand! First, the September Fiction. I highlighted Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow…”The author’s latest historical novel…” and Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery, “…looks back at the life of a famous chef.” Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, “…London’s Highgate Cemetery is the setting of Niffenegger’s follow-up to The Time Traveler’s Wife.” Then I got to author Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol followed by the question, “Will this be the novel that finally gets this guy some attention?” The remark was meant to be humorous, I guess. But I still get the feeling that poor Mr. Brown has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the publishing world. Despite selling over 80 million copies of his blockbuster 2003 book, The DaVinci Code (which stayed at the top of the best seller list for almost 3 years), selling the rights to it for a movie adaptation, and attracting similar star-quality treatment for his previously unnoticed book Angels and Demons, Dan Brown still doesn’t seem to get any respect. Literary critics have been having a field day with Dan Brown’s writing ever since he hit the big time. They pan his punctuation, his pacing, his plotting, his character development, his knowledge of geography, and even take exception to his choice of subject matter. Historians have accused (even sued) Brown for borrowing from their research – and I even read that his books have caused a stir among those in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church. Yet, the books continue to sell and sell, and Dan Brown has become a veritable cash cow for Doubleday. Say what you will about Dan Brown and his books, the fact is, he is a wildly successful author and millions of people (including me) find his books hugely entertaining. I pre-ordered my copy of The Lost Symbol months ago and it arrived by U.S. Mail, as promised, about a week ago. I would have started reading it right away, but my college-age son got to it first. And that’s OK. The waiting list at home is much shorter than the one for this book at the Library! This past weekend, I read a post-release commentary on The Lost Symbol in which the writer felt compelled to gloat that the book had sold only 1 million copies in its first week, and compared it to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which sold 8 million copies in its first week. I could almost hear the “Nyah, nyah, nyah!” spurting between the printed lines! I don’t know where all this venom is coming from, but I say, let’s not be so hard on poor Dan Brown. It’s popular fiction, after all. And if he gets millions of people reading - and he does - he’s OK in my book.
Category: Staff Reads |
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