Friday, March 16, 2007

Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown

Ah... why do I do this to myself? Oh, wait, I wanted something to read in the hustle and bustle of airplanes and airports during a long trip. Something that wouldn't require more than an infinitesimal amount of neurons to get through. It served that purpose, but not without considerable amount of pain. I had already had a taste of Brown in The Da Vinci Code, that nonsensical, plainly stupid fast action page-turner that hopes to incite "oohs" and "aahs" with every sentence. This is similar drivel. It's not fantasy, it's not sci-fi, it's not a thriller, it's not a mystery, it's not a feel-good love story, and it's aeons away from being literature. It's not even a book. It's more like a collection of used sheets of toilet paper tainted with half-lies, misconceptions, half-baked, and nonsensical and ideas. It is real garbage and assumes that the reader cannot reason enough to see its deep flaws.

The only ability that Brown has is the talent to confuse fact and fiction for the minds of the less knowledgeable or the incurious reader. Mr. Controversy scores big in this abysmally nonsensical extrapolation of a few facts fished out from other novels (perhaps The Illuminati Trilogy) and third-rate science fiction movies. Read it and weep; you've been warned. Mr. Langdon is more bullet proof than Indiana Jones, but without any charm and much less credibility. The "anti-matter" stuff is silly in a childlike way. Brown is like Marylin Manson in the intent to shock and to horrify. Manson at least scored one with me when he recorded Mechanical Animals (not to mention a few select songs from other albums). Brown, on the other hand... well, never again.

No comments: