"I believe the power of Dan Brown is very simple..."

... writes Sam Anderson in a piece, "Intelligence Service," for the New York magazine's "Books" page:

I believe the power of Dan Brown is very simple: He exists entirely to make us feel smart. He is devoted to reader empowerment like Keats was devoted to euphony. Every clause, every punctuation mark, every plot twist, puzzle, and factoid is engineered precisely to flatter our intelligence. This isn’t necessarily something to sneer at; I don’t think Brown is a cynical panderer. It’s just that his “pleasure-the-reader” instincts (an unconscious authorial cocktail that every writer has) push him, very urgently, to satisfy one of our most primal human needs: the lust to be oriented, to master one’s environment, to recognize patterns, to process chaos into order. The Da Vinci Code is intelligibility porn: You get the satisfaction of understanding, over and over, without any of the real-world effort.

I actually agree with Anderson for the most part. But I disagree with the belief that Bown isn't a cynical panderer; I think he very likely is very much a cynical panderer, based on the public record. Another difference is that I don't see this, um, "talent" of Brown's to be a good thing, based as it is in fabrication and flattery. But Anderson's analysis does echo something I wrote back in this March 2005 essay:

Burstein admits that the Code is not well-written, but explains that literary quality is beside the point: "Say what you will about some of the ham-fisted dialogue and improbably plot elements, Dan Brown has wrapped large complex ideas, as well as minute details and fragments of intriguing thoughts into his action-adventure-murder mystery." There you have it: "large complex ideas," "minute details," and "fragments of intriguing thoughts." Burstein is correct in stating that those are the main attractions of Brown's novel. And such ideas, details, and thoughts are not presented as "just fiction," nor are they taken as "just fiction" by a large number of readers. ...

The novel was described by New York Times as a "riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilaratingly brainy thriller" and has garnered effusive praise from numerous reviewers. The Library Journal raved, "This masterpiece should be mandatory reading"; the Chicago Tribune stated that the book contained "several doctorates’ worth of fascinating history and learned speculation"; Salon magazine described the novel as "an ingenious mixture of paranoid thriller, art history lesson, chase story, religious symbology lecture and anti-clerical screed."

Wired magazine marveled: "The Da Vinci Code shines–brilliantly–in its exploration of cryptology, particularly the encoding methods developed by Leonardo Da Vinci, whose art and manuscripts are packed with mystifying symbolism and quirky codes." Numerous critics opine about how "smart", "intelligent", and well-researched the novel appeared to be. "His research is impeccable," stated New York Daily News and The Mystery Reader noted that the "smart suspense novel . . . incorporat[ed] massive amounts of historical and academic information." Just fiction? Not on your life–the Code is as a textbook for hip, smart people looking for answers to ancient, troublesome questions.

Anderson's use of the description "intelligibility porn" is, I think, rather apt. Pornography is a vile combination of denigration, selfishness, and fantasy. It objectifies and warps what is outside of oneself for one's selfish pleasure, with no concern for the person or thing objectified. It willingly engages in manipulation for the sake of pleasure. It's not just that porn is lustful; it is essentially and emphatically opposed to truth, both about oneself and reality, and finds pleasure in that destruction of truth. And that, I hold, is the case with The Da Vinci Code and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Angels & Demons. As Anderson writes about reading a certain passage in the novel: "Only in retrospect did I recognize I’d been manipulated to feel that way, and at that point it didn’t matter: In fact, I felt even smarter to have figured out I’d been manipulated. Brown’s genius is so deep it’s recursive." In other words: willingly addicted to the repetitive manipulation of his emotions and thoughts. Good art can move us, transport us, inspire us, and shake us; but it doesn't manipulate. Put another way, good fiction should be honest (which is why, unfortunately, much religious fiction is so lousy).

The usual response is: "Well, you're making far, far too much out of a work of fiction! Lighten up!" Or, in the words of a "reviewer" on BN.com of The Da Vinci Hoax:

The Da Vinci code was a work of fiction, which means it WASN'T MEANT TO BE REAL. Dan Brown is an excelent writer who had an idea and wrote on it. Just like any excelent writers out there. Most of the anti Da Vinci Code fanatics are just christians with a grudge and need to realize that the bible is also a book and cant be proved to be entirely factual either. I dont understand why people have to complain about fictional books, their not real.

In which case, I turn to something written by G. K. Chesterton in one of his first books, Heretics:

In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature.  Good literature may tell us the mind of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

It does much more than that, it tells us the truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture.  The more dishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public document. A sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particular man; an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind. … [M]en's basic assumptions and everlasting energies are to be found in penny dreadfuls and halfpenny novelettes. ("On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set")

"Cynical and immoral." Exactly.

Comments

[Ed Peters]

good insight. npi.

[David Charkowsky]

I thought this was really good, especially the part about "taking pleasure in destruction of the truth". Well done.