M R. X. DentithDan Brown has released a new book, #TheSecretOfSecrets. Like every other release since #Inferno, I’ll be reviewing it chapter by chapter
Correction: since #TheLostSymbol. In my defence these books blur together (other than #AngelsAndDemons, which in retrospect is the best thing he’s ever written)
Anyway, my operating assumption is this book will be messy because his presumed co-author, his former wife, Blythe Newlon, is no longer helping him with plotting. His last book, #Origin, was a mess and I expect this one to be worse
The prologue reveals that the story is set in Prague and the villain is obviously disguised as the Golem of Prague. This better not end up being a novel about protocols…
Chapter 1 is all about noetics & Langdon’s new love interest (he has to have one per book). It’s all very Ian Fleming: fancy hotels, named brands, and the like. The chapter also features both a stereotypical lecture given by the love interest, & Langdon being an insufferable bore during the lecture
Brown doesn’t realise that his creation is being an insufferable bore during the lecture, but if someone did what Langdon did to his supposed love interest during a talk of mine… Well, there would be consequences
Chapter 2 gives us some vague back story of the villain, who seems to think they are a real golem, as well as ominous and cryptic revelations that Langdon’s girlfriend is about to change the fundamental nature of how we understand consciousness
None of this will matter in the next book; in #Inferno a virus was released that made a significant part of the worldwide human population infertile. That has had no bearing on subsequent books
Chapter 3 largely tells us things we already know about Langdon (show, don’t tell, Dan!) but it does reveal that the villain of the piece lives in an all black apartment with black lights for lighting. So, basically a goth night club!
In chapter 4 we discover that Katherine (the noetic girlfriend) not only claims that ESP is real and has been proven so in labs, but also believes that people though the Earth was flat until relatively recently… Oh, and she seems to have been kidnapped
Chapter 5 reveals that she has not been kidnapped and thus Langdon evacuated a hotel on a hunch that could have been quashed had he read a note on a bedside table. Obviously Langdon has been in too many Robert Langdon novels and now just pulls fire alarms for any old reason!
Thus far this book is better written than #Origin and yet not at all interesting
Chapter 6 is two pages long and just reveals that the golem (who is being set up as the villain of the story, so probably won’t be the actual villain by the end of the book) has the hots for Katherine.
Something needs to happen soon as this far these posts read like a Mel Brooks’ commentary: all description and no insight!
So, chapter 7 is meta. It’s about how Penguin Random House (publisher of #TheSecretOfSecrets & the in-fiction publisher of noeticist Katherine Solomon’s forthcoming) uses secure virtual workspaces for really important, best-selling books. It reads a little like Brown saying “I’m still big!”
At the same time, the secure virtual workspace has been hacked. So, suck it Penguin Random House: Dan Brown obviously thinks your security sucks!
That’s enough for tonight; tomorrow things will resume!
I won’t be reading any more chapters until tonight, but one thing I failed to note yesterday is that Brown’s prose is no better. At one point the nominal villain “climbs obscurely” and what Brown means is “the villain climbs the stairs into his hideout”…
Chapter 8 a) maintains the myth that absinthe is a potent hallucinogen (showing that Brown has never drunk the stuff) and b) reveals that unbeknownst to the hero, a bomb was defused earlier that morning. So Langdon was right to pull the fire alarm after all!
There’s also some more noetics stuff, largely arguing for human precognition. The book has the usual boilerplate of “The science described is correct” but the experiments Brown is referring to that seemingly prove the humans are precogs are dubious at best…
Chapter 9 is the back story of the Golem of Prague, rather than the backstory of the Golem who is the nominal villain. Even then Brown chooses one of the less interesting versions of the story of Rabbi Loew’s golem
Chapter 10 is yet another case of narrative procrastination. Possibly the introduction of the American Embassy attaché might lead to something later, but by the end of the chapter no one knows anything more than they did 6 pages earlier
Meanwhile, in chapter 11, Penguin Random House is having IT problems, which we could have guessed from the essentially the same chapter about Penguin Random House a few chapters earlier
Chapter 12 features an interrogation of Langdon by the Czech secret police, who—quite reasonably—find his explanation of why he pulled the fire alarm fantastical: Langdon’s girlfriend had a bad dream and Langdon thought he saw part of that dream come to life on his morning run
Said police officer, Captain Janáček will likely be a thorn in Langdon’s side for two thirds of the book until he becomes a reluctant ally come the conclusion
I spoke too soon: the attaché, Michael, turns out to be doing some off-the-books work for the US ambassador that probably is plot critical. So much for chapter 13
In chapter 14 the Golem goes to a bar (but not to drink) and Brown spills all the goss he read about Prague in a Lonely Planet guide
Chapter 15 takes us back to Penguin Random House, where an editor is happy to work off paper and an IT person is keen to hack the hackers. Another pointless chapter of narrative procrastination
Chapter 16 is a taxi ride to a lab in Prague, and features Langdon reminiscing about teaching his students the Barnum Effect. I can’t help but think that Robert Langdon must be one of the most irritating Ivy League lecturers ever!
Chapter 17 is yet another Penguin Random House episode. At least an editor gets kidnapped; it’s an advance of the plot in some sense!
The problem with this book is that the blurb on the back reveals a crucial plot point that hasn’t occurred yet, and this all this preamble (at least a tenth of the book) seems very boring
Chapter 18 reveals that the villainous organisation is called Q, its leader is on nootropics, and the whole “A Golem enters a bar” was just so he could send an email…
Chapter 19: in which Captain Janáček gets someone to first shoot a door and then spin kick it open!
Chapter 20 is all about how Yanks don’t really care about data sovereignty.
Chapter 20 is all about how Yanks don’t really care about data sovereignty.
This book really isn’t very interesting yet. Where’s the weird art interpretation and making sense of weird symbols? Two chapters ago Brown decided to explain what Signal is…
Chapter 21 finally suggests that Langdon is about to do one of his patent symbology interpretation things. And then there’s the revelation that his girlfriend is not a materialist. Which one could have worked out from the whole “She believes in precognition!” thing earlier
Chapter 22 reveals that Langdon has indeed worked out what an art piece meant, but only to find out that there is a second puzzle. So, finally the main character is doing something. However, as I prepare for bed, something just struck me
Captain Janáček has not arrested Langdon for pulling a fire alarm; he just wants to question him and his girlfriend. They have gone to where Katherine should be; a lab outside the city centre.
Finding no one is answering the door Janáček has ordered the main door be shot at & now he wants a demolition team to blow up some art to get access to an elevator. This seems like a hideous overreaction to an American tourist pulling a fire alarm because they thought there was a bomb in their hotel
But that is the “quality” of plotting and characterisation one gets with a Dan Brown novel. That and a lot of product placement. Good night!