I reviewed Dan Brown’s latest, Inferno, over at the National Post. Given the embargoes and secrecy and rules surrounding the release of the book, I ended up with about 24 hours to read and write about it, so the whole thing’s a bit of a blur. Then again, I think Dan Brown books are meant to be blurs. Puzzle-packed and jetting around and not knowing quite what the hell is going on but that’s okay, you don’t really have to.
You’ve got to hand it to him, though: he’s found his thing, and nobody does it like he does. And as they say of a certain beer here in Canada – the one I drink, as a matter of fact: “Those who like it, like it a lot.”
Hi Mr Pyper…reminds me of Led Zepplin…”…and the piper’s calling you to join him”
Your book with a beautiful blue presumably Venetian scene by Michelle O’Kane, and I confess I DO judge books by their covers (as publishers well know) and it is superior to the red one I see on your site)..and i’m not a horror genre fan!!!…your book appeared on the Rockhampton Central Queensland, Australia library shelf last week and I just read it. I musn’t scare easily, I didn’t find it horrifying but did think you’ll be on a winner here with the god & devil obsessed US of A-ans. But what I wanted to actually convey to you was that you surely need to make an acknowledgement of debt to Dan Brown? So I was surprised to see you have a review of his Inferno on your site… or is his influence so great now, that this kind of trope…literary, gothic, religion drenched clue hunt is just considered a general genre? I can’t understand all those snobbish dismissals of him…ridiculous…probably insulted Catholic prejudice? Like you say the point of his books aren’t artistic prose; it’s to tell good stories of mystery and imagination. What I looked for in your book was any little gems of truth (because as a metaphysical poet speaking from ex-peri-ence I can vouch for the veracity of sign-led journeys of confirmation like this). And you’ll be happy to know that I found some..1. p118 “I think it’s about opening my mind. Using what I know of the world, of myself. All that I’ve studied and taught, all that I’ve read….etc” 2. p130 “You’re a professor of myth right?…the history of man’s efforts to make sense of pain, of loss, of mystery…that’s what you are, what you’re actively creating. A fiction that works in a tradition of previous fictions.” 3. p142 “The only book I’m working from is the real world around me…” When I reconsider these again I am reminded of the craft of DB. And his particular and original use of this exciting and mysterious (and REAL!) Kosmic magic by which his stories move through the meaning & ghost-drenched literary past. What do you say to this Andrew? PS Thanks for the book!
Regards Pat