At first pass I wanted laugh – to scorn – but then I thought about it. What if they are right?
In a gushy puff piece on Dan Brown designed to hype his “long-awaited new novel”, the TimeOnline headlines the piece by calling him “the defining author of our time.”
What?!
I jumped to my keyboard ready to mock without mercy. The defining author of our time? Are they kidding?! So I sat there with my fingers poised at the ready, but the mocking wouldn’t come. Is it possible? Could they be right?
But then I thought about it. They said defining, not best, not important, not even riveting. No, they said defining.
Then I realized that in some strange, pathetic, and unintentional way, they are right. Dan Brown, purveyor of false history, pseudo-intellectualism, childish secularism, and mindless conspiracy theories is the defining author of our time.
The TimesOnline article points us to an interview in which Stephen King mocks Brown and compares his writing to mac and cheese.
On May 7, 2005, the horror author Stephen King gave the commencement address to graduates at the University of Maine, his home state. In it, he half-joked: “If I show up at your house in ten years from now … and find nothing on your bedroom night table but the newest Dan Brown novel … I’ll chase you to the end of your driveway, screaming, ‘Where are your books? Why are you living on the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese?’ ”
Mac & cheese tastes good and fills your belly but does little to nourish. An apt analogy for the defining author of our time All this, of course, says more about our time than about the author.
August 20, 2009 at 3:51 am
I think they spoke too soon. Marilynne Robinson is planning to re-write the Pentateuch. If you've ever wasted 20 minutes of your life on Gilead, you'll know that means more choppy dialogue and vintage staplers that make people have incoherent flashbacks.
It will also mean a hip, Green, LGBT-friendly upgrade for Yahweh. Pre-order today!
August 20, 2009 at 4:09 am
Stephen King just went up several points in my book.
August 20, 2009 at 4:38 am
In my family, we pass around books like a whisky bottle at a red-neck rat shoot. So, I actually did read the DaVinci code a few years back. The writing style was so juvenile, with predictable "plot twists" and scene segues right out of a Nancy Drew novel. It seemed to me that it was dumbed down to about a 12-year-old level. But then after seeing Dan Brown in interviews, I don't think it was dumbed down at all; I think he really doesn't have any writing talent. And I'm speaking not in terms of the premise of the novel, which I didn't take offense at (it's fiction) but the writing itself.
However, in all sincerity, I think in terms of authors who epitomise the decades Stephen King was the 80's, Grisham was the 90's and Dan Brown the 00's. Not a good thing, but appropriate and telling of how stupid the American reading public has become.
August 20, 2009 at 6:41 am
Half the readers were "Christians", who thought they suddenly needed to defend the Church. I never read it, never needed to. Fictional garbage. I read for enjoyment and out of interests… neither of which I saw in that half written junk. The country which elected Obama, and the ones who love him., are sure to be the same um (lets not say) who read Dan Brown's next book! Populists!
August 20, 2009 at 12:54 pm
If there's a defining author for our time, it's got to be JK Rowling. Brown is small stuff compared to her success and influence.
I also never cared to read his book(s). I did see the movie of da Vinci Code – the funny thing about movies is that the things you might overlook in an engrossing read are blown wide open on film. It was royally terrible.
August 20, 2009 at 1:48 pm
WOW! King poormouthing Brown is amusing if you remember how many authors & literary critics trashed King's works 20 or so years ago.
August 20, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I've read both King and Brown. King has much more substance to his books.
But Brown to be a defining author? I'd have to say so because he capitalized on the watered down, kumbyah, pathetic teachings of the past 40 years and knew that so many Catholics would by (buy?) into his crap just by him making that initial statement in the front of his book. So many Catholics (and Protestants) took his books to heart instead of to task.
He'll fall off soon enough though… Ann Rice was a defining author, as is like a previous poster mentioned, JK Rowling. The better ones, however, will prevail.
August 20, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I have to agree with everyone in thinking JK Rowling was more definitive- her fiction drew in people of all age groups and really involved the world wide culture. I'm not sure how popular Dan Brown is outside the States…
How could anyone get through one of his books anyhow? I'm a bit of a bookworm (always in the middle of 2 or 3) and had trouble with his terribly narrow and uncomplicated characterization of people (they were sketches and not people to me, strawmen basically…) and the twisted view of the faith seen there. I got to the middle of the 3rd chapter and gave up- it was crap! And I've read crap(like bad sci-fi/ fantasy)… lots of crap (and all Diana Gabaldon's time traveling series)… but even the crap I've read was better than his crap (at least the others' characters were more real and held my interest…)! Therefore, I applaud the fortitude of any reader that could actually finish one of his novels.
August 20, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Re: "All this, of course, says more about our time than about the author." I agree and I am interested to find out what the group thinks about what it says about our times. For starters, I can say that there is an interest in religious matters albeit the alleged dark side of it. And I don't think it is a silver lining because it appears to be an effort to discredit what religion stands for.
August 20, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I still can't get over the "Catholic" granddaughter in the book, what was her name, Sophie?
She interrupts her grandfather's orgy in the basement, freaks out, and refuses to see him again, until in the novel the "Hero" calmly, carefully explains to her (because she's a woman, after all) that it was an orgy with deep, pagan symbolic overtones.
"What a fool I've been!" She says, dabbing her eyes. "All the time we've lost!"
BLLALARAGH.
August 20, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Thanks William for giving me yet another reason why I'm glad to have stayed away from Dan Brown's books… YUCK!!!
August 21, 2009 at 1:25 am
They forgot to say the "defining writer for idiots" in that he writes absurd, untruthful stories about subjects alien to him. Better that he be called the author a pagan society that hates religion–that may be what defines him.
August 21, 2009 at 2:18 am
Isn't is a pity that the "defining author of our time" isn't John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI?
August 21, 2009 at 3:12 am
This blog is written by Vatican operatives trying to keep some important secrets from being discovered. I'm going to blow the cover on you guys in my next book.
August 21, 2009 at 1:47 pm
The funny thing about Stephen King is that he really can write some good novels and short stories. How many people know that "The Shawshank Redemption" (one of my top movies ever) was based on the King short-story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption"? The underlying themes in "Firestarter" include an exploration of the duties and drive of man to protect his offspring and the danger of government/authority reducing people to mere disposable experiments.
King certainly isn't anywhere on my reading list anymore, but I am familiar enough with his works to respect his opinion on the literary merits of other authors. I think it's hilarious that he's reduced Brown to such an elementary level.
August 21, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Wow, this pops King up about…um… quarter inch from his bad habit of calling military folks idiots and trying to throw weight around to defend it.
Hey, that's more give than I'd usually offer. ;^p
Gotta agree, though– Rowling is more defining of the broader culture, but I'd put Brown as the defining for "intellectuals." (if I had a dime for each person I KNOW is bright who thinks those @#$@# things are factual….)