Dan Brown and the Mystical Cabal of Inaccurate Novels

Dan Brown, the author of "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels & Demons" and a new novel that I am now reading, has somehow gotten saddled with the impossible claim that he researches his fiction so carefully that all the key details about secret organizations and codes and stuff are all true. The new book, about Freemasonry, makes a similar claim to such verisimilitude, which practically defies careful readers to spot mistakes. I have spotted three already, though I confess none impinge directly on the plot, or on any secret organization's plots, real or imagined by Brown or others. One of the mistakes is a reference to Congress choosing to site the capital on a swamp. Actually, the politicians of the day, knowing that George Washington was a shoo-in to be the first president and that by peacetime profession he was a surveyor, hired him to site the capital, between the headwaters of the Potomac and its confluence with the Anacostia River. Washington chose the southernmost location, though part of it was indeed wetland, because it was the closest site to his home at Mount Vernon. Then, as now, residents of that area want the shortest possible commute. The other two mistakes pertain to Metro, the capital's rail transit system. A "conductor" three cars back from the front of the train is ordered not to open the doors of a train. Metro trains do not have conductors. There is an "operator" in the cab of the first car, who announces stations, overrides the automation if circumstances warrants, and runs the train manually during tests, etc. Federal agents also ask when a train arrives, only to be told by the station attendant that there is no schedule, only 11-minute headways between trains. This is what the public is told in Washington, but there actually is a schedule, and the attendant would have known that and could have provided an arrival time to the feds. In his previous novels Brown was accused of more fundamental errors, as when he referred to a close vote by a convention of clerics deciding whether various gospels were divinely inspired - there are, and this is true, several books that purport to be gospels which do not appear in your Bible because the convention Brown wrote about decided they were apocryphal, but experts on the subject accused Brown of getting the vote wrong. I don't remember the other errors because I read his novels for fun, not enlightenment. Brown is held to a more severe standard, I think, because his publisher insists on asserting that everything is true in his novels except the deliberately made-up bits. Hollywood makes movies that are inaccurate all the time and we sit still for it because Hollywood agrees that it's not true and explains that it creates movies to entertain and changes facts around to support the drama. For example, the musical "1776" and the movie based on the musical, using many of the same cast members, has one cowering member of the Pennsylvania delegation vote with Ben Franklin when he suddenly develops a backbone. That was actually another member of the delegation who isn't portrayed at all in the musical. And Caesar Rodney of Delaware, portrayed as an old man dying of cancer who nonetheless rides to Philadelphia for the crucial vote, was not an old man at the time and did not become that ill until later. The radio commentator Rush Limbaugh understands that you are held to one standard or another depending on how you frame your offering. Limbaugh says he is an entertainer, not a journalist or commentator. The TV series "Law & Order" takes its inspiration from today's headlines but takes care to make sure its stories do not come too close to the truth, making more defensible its assertion that the characters in the show are fictional and are not intended to represent anyone in real life, even though I think they sometimes are. I get the impression that those who criticize Dan Brown are more upset at his portrayal of bad guys some of whom are affiliated with Freemasonry, the Catholic Church, and other organizations that have been known to do good for the world from time to time. As for myself, I have no important bone to pick with the man except that his explanatory passages get a little Brothers Karamazovish (wordy). Postscript: I finished the book Sunday afternoon. The pious who didn't like "The Da Vinci Code" might like this book better. As for me, I guessed both of the key parts of the ending, so it was a little bit of a letdown.

Comments

[Steve]

I will shake hands on that...just a normal handshake though.

[Scott]

Still a good read, even with mistakes. I never take a book so at face value that I believe every word in it as gospel. Strictly as entertainment... A good read.

[Michael]

Who knows who the Freemasons are? A hidden society of businessmen who rule the financial world in a corrupt way as they did when they were Knights Templars. What is the difference for them to Crusade versus Muslims who believe in Jihad? Both Believed that, what they were doing was for the Church. Both believed they were right.

Bernie Madoff may have been part of a group of Freemasons involved in swindling others. One sells information, the others do the task of swindling. One got caught.

Da Vinci was never there at The Last Supper. How would he know where Jesus actually sat?

[But, then, you've never been at any Masonic suppers, either! HMD]

[j. k.]

I have yet to read Dan Brown's latest, it is on my reading list, but I agree with all of the above. I love reading his books because, for the most part, they're entertaining. I love a good conspiracy theory, but I'm not going to knit pick at the details. I'm in it for the "possible" adventure.

[Michael]

Maybe not in this lifetime. I don't care too much for formal dinners.

[Rob M]

Michael, you're just too funny!