This is another deeply predictable book by Dan Brown. At least when I read The Da Vinci Code the plot seemed original. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t. These two books have virtually identical plots, just using people in place of objects. You could see the ’surprising’ ending a mile off, and some passages were extremely frustrating to read.
Let me provide you with an example…
‘My father could argue two sides of a Mobius Strip.’
Quite funny, a fairly astute and witty comment.
Langdon laughed, picturing the artful crafting of a Mobius Strip
A little flowery, what with all the ‘artful crafting’ poop. It’s hardly difficult to ‘craft’ a Mobius strip, school kids across the globe do it regularly.
a twisted ring of paper, which technically possessed only one side.
Yes, we know what a Mobius strip is. You’d have to be pretty slow not to know. And I particularly like the italics, just to emphasise what an amazing point he’s making.
Langdon has first seen the single-sided shape in the artwork of M. C. Escher.
No, Langdon would first have seen it when he was in short pants at school.
Why does Mr Brown insist on making a meal of the smallest points? He does a similar thing later on, taking two paragraphs to explain what a relief is (the artform, that is, not the relief you get when reaching the end of one of these tedious passages) - eventually explaining it in terms of the picture on the back of a penny.
One point at which I actually laughed out loud was this:
Glick’s first monthly review had come back filled with superlatives - resourceful, sharp, dependable.
If it was so filled with superlatives, why is it that the author cannot list even one. Or doesn’t he know what a superlative is?
The storyline is good, and it’s an entertaining book, but don’t expect anything deep and meaningful (and try not to cringe when he tries to include philosphical comments) and try not to get too frustrated with some of the more tedious, unnecessary explanations.
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