My affair with Dan Brown started with the by now popular bestseller ?The Da Vinci Code? and whatever said and done about the historical research part, the book was engrossing enough for me. I guess maybe my intellectual capacities are quite low, so I really didn?t have any issues with what some allege historical misrepresentation.
And the second in the series ?Angels and Demons? was good, though the action had by now shifted to the Vatican. But some how I was discerning a familiar predictable pattern in both the books. Both the books had some stunning similarities
In both the novels a respected person in his field is murdered in the beginning of the novel Jacques Sanuriere in the Da Vinci Code and Leonardo Vetra in Angels and Demons. Both involve secret societies, The Priory of the Sion in DVC and the Illuminati in Angels and Demons. While Robert Langdon was the primary character in both the novels, in both the cases the female character is beautiful, sexy and intelligent.
And yes oh yes, again in both the novels, the guy whom we presume to be the good guy turns out to be the bad guy, and the guy we presume to be the bad guy turns out to be the good one. Both have a contract killer running around murdering people. Now interesting though Angels and Demons was some how I could not help feeling a sense of déjà vu, when it came to the clue solving part. The code cracking which was interesting in DVC, seemed so dull in Angels and Demons.
Anyway when I picked up Digital Fortress on a flight from Delhi to Pune, I assumed that this book would be different as this time it was related to my field computers and so there was not going to be any religious mumbo jumbo stuff or theories about secret societies. But minutes into the novel, it just hit me like a bolt in the blue. Just like our own Karan Johar or Yash Chopra, it seems Dan Brown had patented his own formula for writing, and its that which hits you in this book.
The Dan Brown Formula
Every book begins with a murder of a well known luminary in his field, in DVC it was the Louvre curator Jacques Saeuniere, in Angels and Demons it is the CERN scientist Leonardo Vetra and so in Digital Fortress it?s an ex Japanase cryptographer Ernie Tankado of a supposedly secret organization called NSA( National Security Agency) who gets bumped off in the beginning. So we have a heroine Susan Fletcher who is beautiful, sexy, intelligent, and supposed to have an IQ of 170 but at times behaves like a besotted high school teen.
In fact compared to the female characters in DVC and Angels & Demons, this is one of the worst heroines I have ever seen. And the hero is a brilliant linguist called David Fletcher but cant seem to figure out some basic terms. And in typical Bollywood style we have a nasty Shakti Kapoor type character who happens to be Susan?s colleague and always keep leering at her.
Anyway to come to the story, again the crux of the plot seems same here. Sauniere gets bumped off in DVC, as he doesn?t agree with the Brotherhood?s principles, and same for Vetra in Angels and Demons, and so does Tankado, since he is critical of the NSA?s attempts to indulge in electronic eavesdropping. But before he drops dead, he has set in motion something sinister. He has created a code that would render the functionality of TRANSLTR which is the NSA?s giant code breaking machine totally useless. This unbreakable algorithm is what is called as ?Digital Fortress? which if release would wreck TRANSLTR.
So in time honored Dan Brown fashion it is deemed to save the world from a major disaster. And of course again in true Dan Brown style, we have a bit of globe trotting here if DVC was in England & France and Angels was set in Rome here its Spain. I don?t want to reveal further and spoil the plot, but if you have read Angels.. & DVC, I am pretty much sure half in to the book you could easily make out the master villain and the end.
Why this Sucks ?
For starters though this is a book on computing and cryptography , its just full of bloomers, and many a time I had to blink my eyes in disbelief at what Brown passes off for computing. I could write a separate article on the bloomers itself.
But for a moment even setting aside all the computer techno stuff, and looking at it from a lay man?s point of view, just as a thriller, Digital Fortress is pathetically bad.
The plot is riddled with so many gaping holes, you could just drive your car through them.
NSA is considered a super secret organization, and it sends the hero on a mission to get the code, though the hero is nowhere remotely connected to computers, he is a linguist.
The supposedly brilliant team of NSA cryptologists cant make out the difference in the isotopes of Uranium and that is the number, when in reality, even a high school kid could have easily solved it.
I do know that the US has a National Security Agency, but I don?t think its that secretive.
And yes the romance between the hero and heroine is so corny, that you could forgive yourself for thinking you are reading a Mills and Boon novel. Somehow I don?t get this, most of the heroes and heroines in Brown?s novels are incredibly beautiful/handsome, intelligent and smart, but they are always into some kind of mess or other.
Sample this piece of writing ?’’His strong jaw and taut features reminded Susan of carved marble. Over six feet tall, Becker moved across a squash court faster than any of his colleagues could comprehend. After soundly beating his opponent, he would cool off by dousing his head in a drinking fountain and soaking his tuft of thick, black hair. Then, still dripping, he’d treat his opponent to a fruit shake and a bagel.’’ This is the description of the hero. This sort of corny stuff, just made me want to throw the novel into the dustbin.
If I still didn?t, its because of the only interesting character in the novel Ernie Tankado, the crippled Japanese cryptographer, who comes up with the unbreakable algorithm. He is really smart, intelligent and seems to have views of his own. The best parts of the novel feature him. And he really makes you feel for him, which is not the same in the case of the hero and heroine, who seem to be transported straight out of a Mills and Boon novel.
So I request you all to give this book a royal miss, and if you want to read a good thriller, Alistair Maclean or Robert Ludlum is a better option any day.