(Warning: spoilers ahead)
I read it. The plot was excellently contrived. The way it mixes fact and fiction is great. But as a whodunit, it's a bit rubbish. Dan Brown is continually treating both his characters and readers as simpletons. Now I realise it's not an easy thing to invent clues and a treasure hunt, and these clues are pretty well done. But does he have to layer on the dramatic irony so thickly? “Here's a clue which is really really obvious to you, reader. Now look at the stupid characters – they can't figure it out. Here's some more really really obvious clues this time, in case you didn't get it, reader. Ha ha! Silly characters – they're so dumb. Let's have the bad guy make an entrance and force the issue.”
e.g.
– they steal an armoured car and don't realise it has a tracking device?
– they are really, really slow over the “knight a pope interred” clue. A Pope! Pope is even capitalised in the clue! OK so the American has an excuse, but surely Sophie does cryptic crosswords…
– Newton? Rosy flesh? Seeds? Suggests what?
– and surely any idiot would have scrambled the cryptex after re-closing it. But no, just go ahead and let the bad guy know you opened it…
It's a prime candidate for your typical Hollywood film.
I'm a dumb america and didn't get the A. Pope thing =( hehehe
It wasn't untill they figured out it was Newton did I get the apple riddle ;p
And even though it's going to be made a film… Hallywood will
a) Fuck it up horribly (more then likely under the Church pressings)
and
b) Will be protested *GREATLY* by the Church just like they do the book.
I foresee people accually picketting the theaters on opening night.
(http://livejournal.com/users/silvercougar)
I didn't mean that Americans are dumb, just that symbologists aren't as used to deciphering cryptic clues as cryptanalysts are (btw, I also felt that Brown confused cryptology with cryptanalysis). And of course Langdon was a symbologist, so he had a one-track mind. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as they say.
(http://livejournal.com/users/elbeno)
Sides Cubans… Cubans are the gem of all cigars!
(http://livejournal.com/users/silvercougar)