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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  Letter from... the entirely guilt-free conscience of a Dan Brown fan
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Letter from... the entirely guilt-free conscience of a Dan Brown fan

Dan Brown's books are amongst the few objects of entertainment that activate the same pleasure centres of my brain that Bollywood films did back in the 1980s and 1990s

It is amusing, and not very hard, to poke fun at Dan Brown. Photo: BloombergPremium
It is amusing, and not very hard, to poke fun at Dan Brown. Photo: Bloomberg

What a tremendously exciting few days it has been.

Not only have I just procured a copy of Dan Brown’s latest, but I have also just downloaded Artemis, the new audiobook from Andy Weir of The Martian fame. God only knows how I am going to get any of the other mountains of reading I am supposed to get through over the next few weeks. I have dozens of papers and books on early Islamic history and Islamic numismatics to carefully read and annotate by the end of the year—an academic obligation. And there are the books I am reading for the purposes of essays, columns, and reviews for this newspaper. And finally, there are the papers and books I have to read for the sake of a bunch of side projects that I am great at starting and terrible at completing.

Too many books to read. It is a wonderful problem to have, especially if you’re paid to have it.

But for the next week or two, all these things will have to wait. Dan Brown and Andy Weir will have first dibs on my attention span.

I really do love Dan Brown’s novels. And not in an ironic, snarky way. I actually enjoy them. And I have absolutely no shame in admitting to this. Ever since I read The Da Vinci Code, I have made a point of procuring a Dan Brown book as soon as it hits the market. And Brown rarely disappoints.

Of course, he writes to an entirely predictable formula. You know exactly what is going to happen at every turn of the page in a Dan Brown book. Indeed, you could argue that Brown really only writes just one book over and over again. Except for the details of the denouement itself, the rest is the same thing over and over: Tom Hanks goes somewhere, meets a woman, gets into trouble, goes somewhere else, miraculously recalls some stuff from Wikipedia, discovers something amazing, avoids death at the hand of a strange psychopath type. The end.

And you know what? I love every moment of it. Yes, yes I cringe sometimes. In fact, the latest novel is perhaps his worst yet. I have already cringed several times before Hanks has boarded his first private jet so far in this novel. But... I love it.

Why? I am not sure. I think it has something to do with nostalgia. Dan Brown’s books are amongst the few objects of entertainment these days that activate the same pleasure centres of my brain that Bollywood films did back in the 1980s and 1990s. Back when we stayed up at night in our flat in Abu Dhabi, watching the weekly Hindi blockbuster on Dubai Channel 33. (Was it Thursday evenings? Or Friday? I forget now.) Or on a rented VHS tape.

What undiluted joy that was. Sitting together as a family, punching the air as Amitabh Bachchan punched a rich scheming capitalist in the jaw. Can any NRI child of the 1980s ever forget the first time they watched Karma, or Shahenshah, or Mithun’s Commando? And then ran around school for several days, shouting “Haraam zaade" and “Riksha mein hum tumhaara baap hai" in a thick Malayali accent at the slightest provocation?

I say NRI children, because back then life was still far from drowning under a deluge of... video culture. So, you consumed your Hindi and Tamil and Malayalam film in a thin drip-feed.

Few things can evoke that feeling of formulaic wonderment in me any more. Dan Brown novels are one of those things.

***

Sometime in 1997, whilst flying back to college after visiting family in “the Gulf", I picked up a novel from an airport bookstore: Temple by Matthew Reilly. Now when it comes to airport books, things usually go in one of two ways. Either I find an author I will then voraciously consume forever—Reilly, Sjowall and Wahloo, Arnaldur Indridasson—or books read for exactly five minutes and then put away are located again, decades later, with a boarding pass still inside at page 11.

Temple was a revelation. It was a complete and total masala thriller. I couldn’t put it down. I read it non-stop, leaving my dorm room only for meals and classes. Since then, I have read every Matthew Reilly. Much like Dan Brown, Reilly’s work has kind of plateaued in terms of quality and originality of late. Temple remains his best work, I think. For years afterwards, I gifted people copies of Temple, and recommended it for brainless entertainment. You should try it.

Dan Brown’s best book has to be Angels and Demons. That is a proper good novel. If you are the type who left Da Vinci Code after a few chapters and then never looked back at Brown except to snark, give Angels and Demons a shot.

It is amusing, and not very hard, to poke fun at Dan Brown. But I like his insistence at packing his books with historical references, niche brands and semi-famous tourist spots—even if he often does it with the subtlety of a sheet metal press. For instance, before reading Origin, I had not heard of Kiton suits, the Guardia Real or the Francoist use of the “victor" symbol—all of which is most interesting for a person of secular, universal curiosity. Some people give him a hard time though. Which is sometimes unfair. Has anyone read Robert Harris’ recent super-masala novel Conclave? No? Wait till you read the ending. I mean, even Brown doesn’t go that far.

Of course, if you don’t like Dan Brown, then you don’t like Dan Brown. But then, you probably also don’t like Shahenshah.

How do you sleep at night?

Letter From... is Mint on Sunday’s antidote to boring editor’s columns. Each week, one of our editors—Sidin Vadukut in London and Arun Janardhan in Mumbai—will send dispatches on places, people and institutions that are worth ruminating about on the weekend.

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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Published: 18 Nov 2017, 11:22 PM IST
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