![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katsarisWell, I didn't have as much time or mood to write entries as I had hoped in my previous post and I'm leaving today at 4pm for Samos -- still these ten days have been relaxing enough for me. Slept a lot. Ate a lot. Read a lot: got the chance to get and read the second volume in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, plus Tides of War by Stephen Pressfield. And I've gotten the 3rd, 4th and 5th volumes in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King to last me the journey back to Samos and the days to follow.
:-) Not that I had missed out on reading during my stay at Samos -- there I pretty much read the whole that Dan Brown had to offer (not that it was much, and he quickly proved repetitive and morally vacant -- the Da Vinci Code is the only one of his books really that's worth anything I think), plus lots of Agatha Christie, and the "Gates of Fire"+ "The Last Amazon" by Steven Pressfield. These last two are *greatly* recommended.
Will return to Athens for good around the 20th of November. Will be sure to get myself again an ADSL connection then -- and this time (unlike the last time I had ADSL at home) I'll make it be both faster and without limitations on monthly downloads. :-)
Dan Brown:
The obvious problem with Dan Brown's books is the repetition. 'Nuff said about that, anyone who's read more than one of them, will know what I mean.
The less obvious but deeper problem with Dan Brown's books is the way that *all* his books end with pretty much the coverup of the whole situation with the implicit or even explicit assent of the protagonists: and this being seen as a good thing. Dan Brown seems to think that it's a good thing when a elite (whether of priests or of governmental officials or of secret cultists or whatever) decides which secrets is good for the public to know and which aren't.
In "The Da Vinci Code", the earth-shattering secret kept by the Priory of Sion is not only not revealed, but we are told they never mean to reveal it. Frankly that really made me sympathetic to the serial murderer that was moving against them.
In "Angels and Demons" (translated in Greek as "Illuminati"), the book ends with the coverup of the guilt of the guilty party, with some mumbled words about how redemption must come from within or whatever such crap. It so reminded me of Christodoulos that I'd feel the urge to throw up -- such words mean *nothing* and they've never meant anything at all. Fear of the truth is fear of responsibility. If I was in the protagonists' place there I'd have said: "You have two days to make the truth known, then we're going to the press". That they allowed a murderer to go on being revered, that they allowed his slandering words to be uncontested by the truth -- that's utterly unforgivable.
In "Deception Point" (translated as "Arctic Circle") the protagonists are in the end again too eager to hide the truth about a tremendous lie and horrible conspiracy. The fact that several murders took place in order to protect that lie doesn't seem to matter to them in the end. The bad guy is basically allowed to win even in his death, with having NASA protected, the election result turn out as *he* wanted it to turn out... Bah, I say, bah.
And in "Digital Fortress" there's in the end no real distinction between good guys and bad guys. The female protagonist herself at one point proposes the course of action that in the end ends up being what the villain had already set in motion: Killing those who stood in the way of the US government being able to pry open all the private communications in the world. It seems that secrets are only bad when private individuals hold them, not when the omnibenevolent US Government, Roman Catholic Church, NASA or Respected Wealthy Cultists hold them.
If Dan Brown could just rip out all his last chapters, the ones with the coverups, and replace them with ones where the public becomes informed of the secrets and we learn of some actual public backlash against the liars and villains... they'd be far better.
But Dan Brown's ultimately conservative to the core in this issue and to such an offensive degree that it ends up undemocratic and classist -- not only are all the established institutions presented as basically benign (if sometimes mislead) but also in the end of his books nothing must disrupt the established order of things.
The only book that somewhat escapes from this attitude is "The Da Vinci Code" which is why it's the only book I can recommend -- there most of the book encompasses a more liberal attitude about sex, religion, gender-relations and life in general. And the offensiveness of secretivity is restrained in a handful of sentences only. And atleast the authority figures in that book don't end covering up their *own* sins, as in the other books, nor do they seem to act entirely out of self-interest in said coverup.
:-) Not that I had missed out on reading during my stay at Samos -- there I pretty much read the whole that Dan Brown had to offer (not that it was much, and he quickly proved repetitive and morally vacant -- the Da Vinci Code is the only one of his books really that's worth anything I think), plus lots of Agatha Christie, and the "Gates of Fire"+ "The Last Amazon" by Steven Pressfield. These last two are *greatly* recommended.
Will return to Athens for good around the 20th of November. Will be sure to get myself again an ADSL connection then -- and this time (unlike the last time I had ADSL at home) I'll make it be both faster and without limitations on monthly downloads. :-)
Dan Brown:
The obvious problem with Dan Brown's books is the repetition. 'Nuff said about that, anyone who's read more than one of them, will know what I mean.
The less obvious but deeper problem with Dan Brown's books is the way that *all* his books end with pretty much the coverup of the whole situation with the implicit or even explicit assent of the protagonists: and this being seen as a good thing. Dan Brown seems to think that it's a good thing when a elite (whether of priests or of governmental officials or of secret cultists or whatever) decides which secrets is good for the public to know and which aren't.
In "The Da Vinci Code", the earth-shattering secret kept by the Priory of Sion is not only not revealed, but we are told they never mean to reveal it. Frankly that really made me sympathetic to the serial murderer that was moving against them.
In "Angels and Demons" (translated in Greek as "Illuminati"), the book ends with the coverup of the guilt of the guilty party, with some mumbled words about how redemption must come from within or whatever such crap. It so reminded me of Christodoulos that I'd feel the urge to throw up -- such words mean *nothing* and they've never meant anything at all. Fear of the truth is fear of responsibility. If I was in the protagonists' place there I'd have said: "You have two days to make the truth known, then we're going to the press". That they allowed a murderer to go on being revered, that they allowed his slandering words to be uncontested by the truth -- that's utterly unforgivable.
In "Deception Point" (translated as "Arctic Circle") the protagonists are in the end again too eager to hide the truth about a tremendous lie and horrible conspiracy. The fact that several murders took place in order to protect that lie doesn't seem to matter to them in the end. The bad guy is basically allowed to win even in his death, with having NASA protected, the election result turn out as *he* wanted it to turn out... Bah, I say, bah.
And in "Digital Fortress" there's in the end no real distinction between good guys and bad guys. The female protagonist herself at one point proposes the course of action that in the end ends up being what the villain had already set in motion: Killing those who stood in the way of the US government being able to pry open all the private communications in the world. It seems that secrets are only bad when private individuals hold them, not when the omnibenevolent US Government, Roman Catholic Church, NASA or Respected Wealthy Cultists hold them.
If Dan Brown could just rip out all his last chapters, the ones with the coverups, and replace them with ones where the public becomes informed of the secrets and we learn of some actual public backlash against the liars and villains... they'd be far better.
But Dan Brown's ultimately conservative to the core in this issue and to such an offensive degree that it ends up undemocratic and classist -- not only are all the established institutions presented as basically benign (if sometimes mislead) but also in the end of his books nothing must disrupt the established order of things.
The only book that somewhat escapes from this attitude is "The Da Vinci Code" which is why it's the only book I can recommend -- there most of the book encompasses a more liberal attitude about sex, religion, gender-relations and life in general. And the offensiveness of secretivity is restrained in a handful of sentences only. And atleast the authority figures in that book don't end covering up their *own* sins, as in the other books, nor do they seem to act entirely out of self-interest in said coverup.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
It turns out that part of "Thud"
Date: 2005-10-23 10:46 am (UTC)Turtledove
Date: 2005-10-23 01:34 pm (UTC)Another is the Videossos cycle which I think features the Byzantine Empire and if I remember form the reviews Mohammed is a Greek Orthodox Christian, instead of the founder of Islam (I think that is the series). Another seires has an alien invasion halting WWII where the Axis and Allied forces team up to fight them....and the Nazis get nuked :)