I've read all of Dan Brown's books, and while the quality of the writing varies from good to cringey, one thing has always remained true for me: he makes me keep turning those pages. So I would have gotten around to reading this book eventually, but there was a big line on the hold list at the library (I think I'm 72 on said list) and I didn't want to buy it, so it probably would have been a while before I got around to it. Also, I'm not sure I would have made it a DDR book as I'm usually looking for something more substantial for that category. But I was talking to a friend of mine who was halfway through the book, and he had become fascinated by some of the science that is referred to, and he asked me if I'd read it so we could talk about it. Well, I'm always up for a "book club"--though most of the ones I've joined have pooped out prematurely. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to start with the Amazon preview, and then I will hang out at Barnes & Noble and see how much I can read there when I'm not on dad duty. Yeah, I know. Sorry.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,888*), September 27, 2025
Read to page 67. (? End of Chapter 13.) No page numbers, so I jyst counted them. It might not correspond to the printed page count. But if it does, it means I'm about 10% of the way through the book. Unfortunately, the Google Books version doesn't get me any farther, and there's no way for me to get to Barnes & Noble tomorrow. So...gonna have to read something else for Sunday. But I know just the thing.
"The afterlife is a shared delusion…created to make our actual life bearable."
“If I’m not back in an hour, send one of those dogs to dig me out.” This one just shows one of the lapses in Brown's writing. (One of many.) Langdon is planning to run 3 kilometers to a pool, shower, swim laps, then walk back. I am confident that no one could do that in one hour. This is picky, I know, but it bugs me when writers don't pay attention to what they write.
"Einstein had famously declared: Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous."
To be continued....
* Same day I finished Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Ames Carlin, so same DDRD number.
Day 2, September 29, 2025
Yep. So...here's a thing: "...the human brain represented only percent of a person's body eeight, and yet it consumed an incredible 20 percent of the body's energy and oxygen. The blatant mismatch...was proof that the brain was doing something so incomprehensible that traditional biology had not yet been able to grasp it." (101)
Is this true?
Read to page 139. (Real page number this time. Thanks, B&N.)
Day 3, September 30, 2025
I was about to give into temptation and order the Kindle edition of this book ($15.99), but went to check the library holdings one more time and--
Voila! Clean living strikes again.
Read to page 250. Now let me get this straight: I'm supposed to believe that the Golem stuff and the find the manuscript stuff are not connected in any way? That is some stunning bullshit there.
On the other hand...
Day 4, October 1, 2025
Read to page 404. Yowza. The pages DO fly by.
Another thing: no editor would agree to publish a book s/he hadn't read a piece of, yet here the editor has only the vaguest idea what Katherine's book is about. I'm calling bullshit there, too. Not to be too garsg, though, as Mr. Brown does keep me turning those pages, warts and all.
Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA): Katherine explains that this inhibits / suppresses overall activity of neurons. Not too long ago I read somewhere that drugs do the same thing. * They do not enhance the brain's neuron's firings, they inhibit it. Thus hallucinations are actually input from areas of the brain that normally do not come to the surface because of the other activity of the brain.
Langdon makes reference to a line from "one of his favorite novels": "It is said that in death, all things become clear." The line comes from Digital Fortress...by Dan Brown. Ha ha.
Note to self: look for the Netflix documentary How to Change Your Mind.
* And just a few pages later, Dan Brown has Katherine say the same thing. Great 🧠 think alike.
Day 5, October 2, 2025
I occasionally have my differences with Dan Brown as a writer, but this from page 473 forgives many sins:
Also, Dan Brown (via Katherine Solomon) mentoned this--
--which turns out not only to be real, but available via the LFPL. And it's so far up my alley that it's scraping my uvula. Next up, maybe.
No comments:
Post a Comment