Dan Brown Books: Looking for Meanings

I believe that reading a book is a quest for meanings. One should be ready to see them, to interpret them and to enjoy the process. Which I did reading Dan Brown books. I’d like to share my impression of his books Deception Point, The Da Vince Code, Digital Fortress and Angels and Demons.

Every good book combines both tokens of the epoch and some universal human problems. Sometimes the epoch in which the writer creates his book is manifested through events described or details mentioned. It seems to me that the very spirit of the books by Dan Brown points out to the 21 century, the epoch of information and technology.

First of all the characters of the books are people who professionally work with information. Whether it is Robert Langton (Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code) who is a scientist and a symbologist or a professional cryptographer Susan Fletcher (Digital Fortress) or an NRO data analyst Rachel Sexton (Deception Point). Dan Brown treats these characters and their skills with utmost respect.

Dan Brown describes the process of gathering information as an intellectual challenge. One may doubt whether it is very interesting to search a library for information… but not after they read Dan Brown. He treats a library search as a real adventure and books as a great treasure. A computer data base or a library is a treasury of potential knowledge and one needs a keen mind to unfold its secrets. This idea can be traced back to all his books.

One more thing Dan Brown describes in much detail is people thinking. He enjoys the idea-bearing process when an idea emerges through association, brainstorming or revelation. It seems to me that Dan Brown takes a special pleasure in watching people thinking and describing the process of idea creation and sharing. The latter is quite characteristic for all his books: usually several partners share an intellectual insight. In Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code these are Langton and his lady-partner, in Deception Point it’s a group of scientists and a data analyst, in Digital Fortress these are main characters and a group of programmers. Intellectual partnership is very fruitful and results in a deeper understanding of the situation which helps the characters to survive and quite often to save the world.

In his books Dan Brown describes enthusiastic people who believe in what they’re doing. As one of his characters says: “Passion and curiosity drive innovations.” Innovation is a key to development which is the essence of life. At the same time, Dan Brown realizes that knowledge can be dangerous and should be revealed only to the worthy. A person who possesses knowledge should be responsible for the gift he has and it’s his personal moral choice to share it or not. It turns out that the basic problem of people is misunderstanding or miscomprehension of each other. To understand a person we need to know his or her background and that’s what Dan Brown gives us when he describes his characters. We get to know more and more about the main characters throughout the book.

Dan Brown makes his characters reflect about their past and make new conclusions. The characters face their fears and overcome them, becoming stronger. And finally there is one more feature that unites all the characters of his books. They all search for meanings to learn the truth. They try to extract meanings from the things around and eventually become quite close to extracting the meaning of life itself.