Saturday, May 27, 2006

Screwtape Reads Dan Brown

Some have suggested that I am too hard on Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code. I sort of thought I might be a bit biased myself. Yet, I did not like the book when I read it in 2004. Now that I am reading again I like it even less.

So I went searching for a positive review of the book so I could try and understand why some appreciated it. The most positive review of the book I have found comes from Screwtape. You may remember his best-selling letters that were published by C. S. Lewis in the 1940's. It seems he is still writing and Eric Metaxas has posted a recent letter from Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood on his webpage.

So, in the interest of fairness, I offer a "positive" review of The DaVinci Code.

1 comment:

Chris Benjamin said...

Ebert's review is a review of the movie. He says the movie works. However he is not so enamored with the book. He says, "While the book is a potboiler written with little grace and style, it does supply an intriguing plot. Luckily, Ron Howard is a better filmmaker than Dan Brown is a novelist; he follows Brown's formula (exotic location, startling revelation, desperate chase scene, repeat as needed) and elevates it into a superior entertainment, with Tom Hanks as a theo-intellectual Indiana Jones."

I would agree with Ebert's observation.

Also, the fact that I am reading the book again does not mean by critique of the book has changed. Critical review often involves more than one reading.