lundi, décembre 27, 2004

 A Dan Brown Weekend

One recurring theme visits the conversations I've had with friends who have read the book: their amazement at reading how Dan Brown managed to patch together a solid plot with plausible sounding reasons behind paintings and sculptures and frescos (such as the " 'Cross Rome" hunt in Angels and Demons, the pseudo-authentic analyses of the pre- and post-1954 versions of Leonardo's Last Supper.) Of this, I am not particularly impressed - the large (and growing exponentially) body of literature which has emerged discrediting his "careful research" seems to suggest that he takes a rather healthy pinch of salt and poetic licence with regard to the Church and world history in general (enough has been said about this subject, you can find references here.)

Another thing which has bugged me a lot is the utter stupidity of the encryption programme explained in Digital Fortress. (Non-tech people, STOP READING HERE because this will bore the shit out of you.) This machine called TRANSLTR is supposed to be able to decrypt encrypted email through brute force, which means running all sequences of numbers and letters available depending on its encryption (64 bit encryption, 256 or 1024 etc) to read THE WORLD'S EMAIL, but some three-fingered Japanese programmer has just written a supposedly unbreakable encryption code - an encryption with a "rotating cleartext" - meaning that the text of the message changes ever-so-often, so TRANSLTR can't "brute force" through the encryption code. This is ridiculous. If the cleartext rotates, then you can NEVER know when you've truly decrypted the message, not even the original encryption method, since decryption of the message includes running the message you THINK has been decrypted through a dictionary to search for "word strings" that make sense. If the cleartext rotates, no strings are going to be found, so how are you going to know what you've decrypted is right or wrong? This bugs me as much as Swordfish, the other woeful pop-tech explaination source. (The movie was only saved by Hugh Jackman and his cute daughter for me. Never underestimate good casting, nor the Wolverine.)

Oh, and for your information, 64 bit doesn't mean 2⁶⁴, because BROWN NEVER SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHARACTER STRINGS, it's all implied that the strings are binary in nature. NO WAY. Alphanumeric passwords, anyone? That means 26 letters of the alphabet, plus 10 numbers = 36 to the power of (the number of digits in your password). Stupid assumption. (I hope my formula is right, I've forgotten a lot since programming 1101...)

His characters are also alarmingly two-dimensional. The women are always leggy and beautiful, and Brown (through his character Langdon) makes it a point to devote at least two pages (albeit spread out over one or two chapters) describing how it was incredible that these women had both brains and beauty in abundance. It's almost as if Brown himself is always being constantly surprised that the two are not complete opposite ends of the pole. The male protagonist is always strong, smart, funny ("wry humour" was the verb of choice for Deception Point), and they always have some kind of tragic lost-love story behind them (lover died from cancer, or they just fell out of love, or the situation is left angsty but open as Brown is too lazy to come up with a plausible scenario.) The villians are always power-hungry men who have "the best interest of the church/NASA/the government at heart" when plotting their conspiracy, and the gradual unravelling of the plot leads the reader into a moral crisis when the villian turns out to be the badly-misguided good guy. The villians who do the wet-work are always pawns, and always die in the end. There is always a highly-placed official who dies.

And it's always, always, always the person who helps out the protagonist the most who is the bad guy. In all four book, this has been consistent. (Highlight for the list of villians) Da Vinci Code - Sir Teabing, Angels and Demons - the carmelego, Deception Point - Pickering, Digital Fortress - Strathmore. Could you get anymore clichéd?

With Dan Brown and just S$17.99, you can! That amount buys you... a horrifying Sweet-Valley-High romantic ending where the boy and the girl get together at the end and make kissy faces at each other in romantic hotel rooms with excellent room service, all at the expense of some national government or other. (edited to add - I actually don't know how SVH romances normally end - I owned only one copy given to me on my birthday, and it was about Jessica running away from home. The ending was that she came home.)

So while it's true that his tapestry is wonderfully woven, instead of being made out of the finest silk, he uses some cheap import which (like papyrus on vinegar) disintegrates into mush with one stern stare. Brown is a lazy researcher who LIES about his "research" by putting a page in the front of his books titled "FACT" which states that all locations and ceremonies and societies mentioned in the book are real. All his novels are great 3-hour reads - if you care to totally suspend your disbelief (in the centre of an air-tight vaccum with opposable magnetic fields.)

[A Dan Brown Weekend]
Sngs Alumni @ 27.12.04 { 0 comments }

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