Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

Every once in a while, there comes a book which rises beyond some black marks on bound rectangular pieces of paper and becomes a phenomenon. The popularity charts have to be redesigned to calibrate the way the book catches popular imagination. Often, this popularity wave is based on real talent and brilliant story-telling; at times on sheer "catching the right public mood at the right time".

Da Vinci Code is such a book. By using a new paragraph and using the word "such", I intend to escape the need to classify Da Vinci Code into one of these two categories, I'll leave that decision on the reader. Consider it a tribute from me when I say that whatever the basis - the book's popularity is rivaled only by Harry Potter in the recent times.

Da Vinci Code is a classic conspiracy theory book. Take an established institution, take a somewhat right-wing arm of that, link it to several well-known names/ institution. The conspiracy theory in question is as bizarre as it gets - that Christ was married, that a secret society exists to guard Christ's bloodline through centuries and that the modern church is intent on destroying that bloodline. Crazy enough to get people interested. Add to that several well-researched truths and half-truths and a few carefully chosen fabrications of imagination and voila, the theory is believable enough to make people turning pages to find out more.

Dan Brown, however, is not a historian. He is a fiction novel writer. That of course is his winning point. He presents us with a story based in present, with characters we can relate to. He hits us with the conspiracy theory not as some obscure history, but as the necessary link between the incidents happening in the story. Its the brilliant combination of well-done research, a good enough story and a very interesting twist to history that makes Da Vinci Code the winner.

Weak points - the ending. Almost an anti-climax. Perhaps there was no better way to do it, but I was expecting something more grand. By the end of the novel, you have the shadow of twenty centuries hanging on your head and right when you are expecting a big bang, all you get a is whimpering sound.

Recommendation - What? You mean you have not read it yet?

Rating - YYY
Rating Guide - Y is good. More the hearts, better.

Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

Suppose I am writing a thriller. What should be my choice for the profession of the hero? A professor? A real, practising, middle-aged Harvard professor; not an ex-CIA agent passing time as a professor? What about the heroine? A physicist? What kind of a story is this turning to be? Both the main characters are nerds. What else can I do to completely ruin my story? Create some wild, senseless conspiracy theory about church and make priests as villains? Yes, I have achieved the perfect recipe for a disastrous novel.

BUT there is a way out, you know! The novel I can be writing can be Angels and Demons. And I can be Dan Brown!

Angels and Demons takes you into the world of ancient societies and symbols, into the rather bloody past of the Catholic Church. It is very difficult to resist a well-yarned conspiracy theory and Angels and Demons comes out at the top. Dan Brown’s protagonist, Robert Langdon, the rather-charming Harvard symbologist, who became more famous in the later work, Da Vinci Code, makes his first appearance in Angels and Demons and leaves you wanting more of him. Angels and Demons is not as sensational as Da Vinci code, relying less on sensationalising big names like Leonardo Da Vinci and more on the actual conspiracy theory and the involvement of the characters in it.

Angels and Demons is a beautiful symphony of diving into the past to explain a theory and then relating it to the current-day happenings in the narrative. The story moves at a fast pace, the facts and the theory are presented interspersed with exciting happenings and the book never becomes too theoretical. I won’t say anything about the plot, just go read the book.

In the end, I must mention the ambigrams in the book are simply amazing. Too good! Dan Brown must hand over half of his royalties to his artist for creating those beautiful pictures. And those of you, who don’t know what an ambigram is, read the recommendation below.

Recommendation – Go for it! In all probability, you may like it better than Da Vinci Code.

Rating – YYY
Rating Guide – Y is good. More hearts means better.

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith

In childhood, my grandfather used to tell me stories from Vedic mythology and I was fascinated. My grandmother, on the other hand, used to tell me stories from her experience. How once dacoits entered her house and she caught one of them! Or how my grandfather used to be respected as a doctor in all those villages where he was posted! While my grandfather’s stories served to inspire me to higher and more complex things in life, I always used to enjoy my grandmother’s stories more. Perhaps because they were truer to life; or perhaps because it was a story of my people.

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is one such story. A story written at our level. It’s not really about my people, I being an Indian and the story being set in Africa, but it feels like one. Alexander McCall Smith spins a story of humanity that sounds like a friend telling you a set of interesting incidents.

And what an interesting story it is! The No. 1 Ladies Detective agency is the story of Mma Ramotswe, Botswana’s first and only lady private detective. It’s the story of a woman wanting to do something unique and unconventional, not for the sake for being different, but for the sake of a belief that she would be good at it. Mma Ramotswe does not dazzle you with the brilliant logical reasoning of Sherlock Holmes, the Victorian manners of Ms. Marple or the psychological understanding of Hercule Poirot. Instead, she brings the art of detective-work to mere mortals like us with her sheer human warmth, honesty and a determination to do what’s right; with a generous dollop of common-sense thrown in. Her cases are not of wives’ poisoning their husbands, there is no Professor Moriarity plotting world domination; there’s just missing husbands, wayward daughters and lost children. The sort of cases which move detective work from the pages of fiction to real-life.

Alexander McCall Smith narrates the stories with the ease of an accomplished master. He makes you smile that knowing smile when you identify with what the protagonist is doing because you would have done the same thing. Not one but several times. And wins you over in the process. So much so that when the book ends, you feel like – “Is that it?” I am sure every reader will await the next book of the series with eagerness.

Recommendation – Go for it.

Rating - YYY
Ratings Guide – More the number of hearts, better the book. 5 is maximum.