Literary Glance: The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown (with some comments about Tom Hanks)

I haven’t read a Dan Brown novel since The DaVinci Code way back maybe in 2005.  The DaVinci Code was huge in the mid-2000s.  It was one of those novels that everybody read, and I kind of liked it (that’s my book review).  I didn’t know much about the Leonardo DaVinci stuff and the conspiratorial stuff involved, and I figured a bunch of it was fake, but I didn’t care about what was real and what was fake if it was a good book.

The DaVinci Code was so huge back then that even some of my students were reading it (or they claimed that they were). Since they were also interested in Leonardo DaVinci, I bought a couple copies of books about Leonardo DaVinci (I think I bought them cheap at the Scholastic Book Fair and kept them in my classroom), and students borrowed them, until eventually a couple students just kept them permanently (I think that was called stealing back then, but I had gotten some mileage out of those books and didn’t really care at the time.  I’m not going to go back and try to figure out who took them).

I have to give author Dan Brown credit. Leonardo DaVinci was an interesting guy. If you’re going to write a thriller based on a historical figure, Leonardo DaVinci gives you a lot to work with. Dan Brown made a good choice.

Dan Brown’s new book The Secret of Secrets seems to focus on noetic science, which I knew nothing about going into this, but noetic science so far is kind of interesting. In fact, the topic of noetic science is more interesting than the characters in The Secret of Secrets.  Robert Langdon from The DaVinci Code is back, but I’m not really interested in his career.  He’s got some relationship going with another famous doctor/scientist, but I’m not really interested in her.

When I’m reading The Secret of Secrets, I find myself skimming the plot (I’m not sure what’s going on) and reading the noetic science and theology stuff.  Those topics are more interesting than the romance and the plot.  I mean, this is fiction; I know there’s supposed to be a plot in a novel, and there’s usually some type of relationship involved between the characters in the novel (otherwise, what’s the point?), but so far the plot and relationship are just getting in the way of the interesting nonfiction topics.

I guess I could just stop reading The Secret of Secrets altogether and read about noetic science from a few websites. Or I could grab a nonfiction book or two. Who needs Dan Brown?

A couple/few of Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon books have been turned into movies, but I don’t know if they’re any good.  I always thought that Tom Hanks was miscast in that role of Robert Langdon.  When I originally read The DaVinci Code, I visualized Langdon a lot differently, but that could be my fault.  I still associate Tom Hanks with 1980s comedies, so my brain doesn’t always connect with him playing serious roles.  During Saving Private Ryan, I was waiting for him to do a pratfall on Omaha Beach.  It’s probably in the director’s cut.

The Secret of Secrets is being adapted into a series on Netflix, but I think they’re getting a new guy to portray Robert Langdon. That’s probably a good idea. I was hoping that Tom Hanks would pratfall in the series, but he’s getting kind of old for that. He’s older than I am, and the last time that I pratfell, I couldn’t move my neck for six months. The next pratfall I do will probably be unintentional, and that’s going to suck.

Here’s a good Tom Hanks pratfall. Just think of this as Robert Langdon in college.

*****

I’m probably not going to finish reading The Secret of Secrets, but I might brush up on noetic science. With the internet, I don’t need Dan Brown or Robert Langdon.

For more Dysfunctional Book Reviews involving books and movies, see…

Top Gun: Maverick with Tom Cruise vs. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe  

Charlie Brown in Peanuts vs. Crash Davis in Bull Durham 

The Godfather by Mario Puzo vs. The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola  .