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Mardi, 15 août 2006

I hate Dan Brown

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Catégories : [ Livres ]

http://www.danbrown.com/

© Dan Brown

Don't take me wrong: I enjoyed reading Da Vinci Code (but much less Digital Fortress). It's not so much that being a geek I know more about computer security and cryptography (which are at the core of Digital Fortress) than about history and theology (which are the heart of Da Vinci Code), than the liberty the author takes with reality. I don't mean by that all the small but difficult technical details that non-specialists don't even start to imagin, but the small details that are (or should be) common knowledge, or are at least easy to check.

For example, he claims in Digital Fortress that the Giralda in Seville has a height of 419 ft (140 m) whereas it is actually 320 ft (97.5 m) tall. Many people I've told this claimed “Whatever, it's only science-fiction after all!” Well, in my opinion, writing science-fiction is not an excuse for sloppy background research. Another example from Da Vinci Code: Brown claims that Paris was founded by the Merovingians, whereas it did exist already five hundred years earlier. What's the point in twisting reality like that? It does not add anything to the story, so it can be reasonably attributed only to sloppy research (some people mentioned that Dan Brown has a hidden agenda. Whatever). And I won't even go into the details of biblical history.

Well, the guy is a charlot, and he proves once more that with good marketing, you can sell anything.

[ Posté le 15 août 2006 à 15:14 | pas de commentaire | ]