Dan Brown Day

Two hundred signed copies of the book — said to be the only ones on sale in the world — had not sold out several hours after Waterstone’s opened the doors at its flagship store in Piccadilly, Central London, at 7am.

Dan Brown's new book The Lost Symbol was launched today, yet despite the hype hasn't been greeted with Harry Potter type enthusiasm, reports Mary Bowers in The Times. Apparently, about 40 people had queued from before dawn to secure copies of the book, including fans from Pakistan, Denmark and (wait for it) Malaysia.*

Early reviews in the New York Times and LA Times have been largely positive although David Sexton reviews the book in London's Evening Standard and finds it :

Moronic, derivative and clunky in fact everything his fans were hoping for.

Random House Australia marked the launch by roping in 40 to read the book from 9am, with the first to finish giving their review to the waiting press at noon. (And the world champion speed reader Anne Jones claimed to have devoured the 506-page novel in just 41 minutes and 55 seconds.)



Will there be another novel after The Lost Symbol? Perhaps you could write it with the help of Slate magazine's Dan Brown Sequence Generator. Very funny!

Postscript :

*Maybe all the British buyers had gone to the supermarkets to buy? The Guardian reports that :

Tesco was selling 19 copies a minute from displays next to its fruit and vegetables and Asda shifted 18,000 copies by 4pm.

Dan Brown : Mac & Cheese

Viewed through the prism of the media, his record-breakingly popular novels are universally condemned as dishonest tat.

Andew Collins at The Times looks at the phenomena of Dan Brown (the author Steven King has called "the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese") and joins the rest of the world in the countdown to :

... the internationally synchronised publication on September 15 of Dan Brown’s next helping of processed slop.

The Dan Brown Key

Wanna write like Dan Brown? Here's the key:

Take a sacred treasure. Add a secret conspiracy. Attach a name well known to scholars — Dante, Poe, Wordsworth, Archimedes, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, the Romanovs, Vlad the Impaler, “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,” whatever — and work it into a story that can accommodate both the Glock and the Holy Grail. If there’s any room left for the Knights Templar or DNA samples from Biblical figures, by all means plug them in. ... The much-borrowed Brown formula involves some very specific things. The name of a great artist, artifact or historical figure must be in the book’s story, not to mention on its cover. The narrative must start in the present day with a bizarre killing, then use that killing as a reason to investigate the past. And the past must yield a secret so big, so stunning, so saber-rattling that all of civilization may be changed by it. Probably not for the better.

If Dan Brown floats your boat, you might like to check New York Times' Janet Maslin's list of novels which combine in good measure some of the elements in the list above. Some of the titles she mentions:

Julia Navarro Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud
Steve Berry The Alexandria Link
D.L Wilson Unholy Grail
William Dietrich Napoleon's Pyramid
David Stone The Echelon Vendetta
Palmer Michael The Fifth Vial
Giulio Leoni The Mosaic Crimes

... and of course, the much awaited (though not by me!) new one from Mr. Brown The Solomon Key. Date of publication not yet announced, although other writers are capitalising on Brown's success by writing the book about the book even before the book itself has hit the market!!

First Books That Bombed

Some writers, like Stef Penney, make it big with their first novels. A surprising number of "big name" writers had first novels which totally bombed. John Walsh and Guy Adams list a few in the Independent, including Helen Fielding, Dan Brown, Salman Rushdie ... and surprise surprise ... Anthony Burgess. I had always thought Burgess' first novel was Time for a Tiger but it turns out to have been A Vision of Battlements. (What??)

Just as well their publishers gave them a second chance!

Liar! Liar! Books on Fire!

Cast your eyes down this list and tell me, how many of the books on it have you read?

1. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R Tolkien
2. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
3. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – John Gray
5. 1984 – George Orwell
6. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone – J.K Rowling
7. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
8. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
9. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
10. Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank

Honestly?

Or were you just bluffing to impress me?

According to a poll of over 4000 bookworms conducted by the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council (MLA), a third of British adults have lied about reading a book to appear more intelligent according to a new survey.

The poll revealed that:

40 per cent of people said they lied about reading certain books just so they could join in with conversation. ... Most people expand on their literary repertoire to impress a new date, 15 per cent have lied about the books they have read to a new colleague and five per cent have told porkies about their reading habits to their employer.

As Head of Library Policy, John Dolan, says:

It’s fascinating to see that so many people are trying to impress others with the books they haven’t actually read.

And the top ten above lists the books the Brits most often lie about.

Malaysians of course don't lie about reading books they haven't read ... even if it would be professionally expedient for them to do so!

Or do they?

Guilty Pleasures

Which writers do you turn to for a comfort read - for something light and enjoyable and page turning ... even if you may not necessarily admit to enjoying them in public?

A survey carried out on behalf of the Costa Book Awards in the UK has revealed that:

Stephen King has beaten JK Rowling to the title of the UK's favourite literary guilty pleasure. ... the thriller writer is the most popular choice among readers looking for an indulgent read, with the adventures of Harry Potter coming a close second. ... 85% of those surveyed admitted to having an author they turn to for sheer gratification, but whom they might not admit to reading in pubic. Third place in the survey was tied between John Grisham and Dan Brown, while the fourth position was split between Danielle Steel and Catherine Cookson. Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels were placed fifth.

And on the Guardian blog, Richard Lea asks which books you'd choose for hangover reading (or, I suppose, a bout of flu) and gets some interesting replies.

I've only read the first book in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, but was so totally charmed that I will save the rest for a relaxing respite from books much heavier. I would read Stephen King and Rowling with great pleasure. Maybe I'd also add Roald Dahl to the list, and Nick Hornby.

I wouldn't be ashamed to read any of my choices in public.

But if those of you with an image to protect feel your choices make you look a little less high-brow or un-cool, those nice people at Costa Coffee offer you free dustjackets to print off and wrap round your embarrassment!

Dan Brown's Trial by Magazine

Thought the plagiarism charges against Dan Brown were now over and done with? Now, it seems, he faces trial by magazine.

In the July issue of Vanity Fair, Seth Mnookin raises new questions about the originality of The Da Vinci Code and takes up the cause of Lewis Purdue who lost a court case against Brown in the US courts earlier this year. Purdue claims that Brown's book was a rip-off of his own novel, Daughter of God. (I hadn't realised before this that the publisher Random house was suing Purdue, and not the other way around.)

According to The Age, The Vanity Fair article lists several points of similarity between the two books, among them:

... the key to the mystery is hidden in artworks, there are Swiss bank accounts, and there is a shadowy group in the Catholic Church. In Perdue's book, an art collector is murdered to protect the secret. In Brown's book, a curator is murdered to keep the secret.

When Ed Condren, an English professor at UCLA, performed a textual analysis of Perdue's work and The Da Vinci Code for Vanity Fair, he concluded:

I didn't think there was any question the one borrowed from the other. Daughter of God and The Da Vinci Code employ identical narrative strategies. These novels share the same background story, not only in the personages and events they refer to, but more important, in the identical ways they distort these historical events to support their nearly identical stories.

John Olsson, the director of Britain's Forensic Linguistics Institute, says of the book:

This is the most blatant example of in-your-face plagiarism I've ever seen. It just goes on and on. There are literally hundreds of parallels.

And it also looks as if Brown lifted an exact passage from Leonardo's Lost Robot, written by academic and robotic expert, Mark Rosheim.

There's also the suggestion that Brown's wife, Blythe, who did much of her husband's research may have sent Purdue mysterious e-mails under the name Ahamedd Saaddodeen. Quite what these e-mails were about I haven't been able to find out online.

But as they say, the plot thickens.

*Picture nicked from Florence Photo Gallery.

Related Posts:

Index: Rogues Gallery of Fakers and Plagiarisers

Da Vinci Codswallop

Yes, as =] so succinctly put it:

Dan Brown 1, Baigent and Leigh 0

Across the Atlantic though, Lewis Purdue is fighting on, and I wish him luck.

The judge ruled that novelists "remain free to draw in ideas and historical research". I'm glad of that, though I do not feel like popping the cork of a bottle of champagne to celebrate Brown's victory. We know he took the easy way out, swiped fascinating material and churned out (and this is really what can't forgive him for) a third-rate novel that all the marginal readers of the world applaud as if it were in itself some kind of holy grail.

And he didn't even do his own research as it turns out ... it was his wife who downloaded stuff from the internet for him (often without the sources being clearly noted).

Don't know about you but I have no respect for writers who don't get their own hands dirty with digging up the facts ...

Related post:

Holy Plagiarised Madonnas (1/3/06)

Holy Plagiarised Madonnas!

Now Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code interests me not at all, and I'd happily go along with The Visitor's assessment of its literary merits. But I have been watching the press for news of the plagiarism trials against the author, because the issues raised are important to all fiction writers who use information from other published sources. At what point does using become plagiarism?

Last August, Brown appeared at the District Court in New York to defend himself against the claims of writer Lewis Perdue that he had lifted elements of the Da Vinci Code from two of his novels, Daughter of God, (2000) and The Da Vinci Legacy (1983). Purdue said he felt violated, like somebody had broken into his head. The judge concluded that:

Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas ...

- a line that was used by Dan Brown's defence in the current hearing at London's High Court where two historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing Brown over his plagiarism of their earlier work The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

As copyright lawyer David Hooper says in the Guardian:

If people were able say that's my idea, that's my theme, it would make the whole creative process incredibly difficult. ... It's one thing if somebody has picked up somebody else's book and copied large chunks of it, but how on earth do you know if somebody's taken too much of somebody else's theme?

Anyway, it's interesting to make comparisons with another case that came to light some years back. The following from Moby Lives:

You've got to admit, it's an unusual premise for a book: a little boy survives a shipwreck and winds up sharing a lifeboat with a large, predatory cat. Sound familiar? ... Well, if you're thinking it's the premise of one of the most talked–about novels of the year, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, last month's winner of the Booker Prize, you're right. But it also turns out to be the plot of book called "Max and the Cats," by esteemed Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar ... which was published in 1981.

Scliar decided not to sue, although he certainly had a case. Purdue intends to appeal against the New York court's decision. I don't hold out much hope for him, but at least the publicity should be good for his book sales.

Pulping Fiction?

Getting rid of unwanted books can be problematic whether you are a publishing company seeking to offload unwanted stock, or an individual suffering from the immense bookguilt that follows the purchase (and - heave forbid - secret enjoyment) of a terribly trashy novel that doesn't do your street cred any good.

The Bookseller tells of one company's ingenious solution:

Web-to-print publisher the Friday Project has hit on a novel way of getting rid of old editions of its title London by London . It considered burning the outdated copies, then looked into pulping them--but the first option was too reminiscent of the Nazis, and the second just a waste. So its preferred solution is to launch a Dan Brown Commuter Book Amnesty, offering those with 'Dan Brown trash-lit guilt' the opportunity to swap 'any old dog-eared Dan Brown book for a shiny LbL one. Free.' The publisher explains: 'That way, we get rid of our stash of first edition LbL books in an environmentally sound way and you get a book that you can actually be proud to carry on the Tube. And then we'll send all the Dan Browns off to be recycled into new--and probably better--books. Everyone's a winner! Except possibly Brown but, frankly, he's too rich to care.