In Defense of Dan Brown

Dan Brown and his book The DaVinci Code has dominated conversation at writer's conventions since the blockbuster was released in 2003. Much of the conversation is centered around second guessing as to the safety of fledgling authors comparing their books to his. Much also is devoted to the quality of his writing. Somehow, Dan Brown has managed to become a literary Barry Manilow. Everyone was buying his product, making him extremely rich in the process, but now he's deemed lowly by people who have yet to be -- and likely never will be -- published themselves.

Granted, there isn't a huge amount of lyricism, character development or memorable turn of phrase, but the book has managed to do one thing brilliantly: take a topic familiar to few, dust it off and raise it from the basement of academia into the light of mainstream culture. That's an enormous undertaking. I'm sure there are those who would love to bottle that success and use it as they try to stem obesity, teen pregnancy or domestic abuse.

Last year, a friend of mine told me how Toni Morrison was named the most influential writer of the last 25 years. I respectfully disagree. I love me some Toni, but influential? No way. Especially, not up against the record of someone like Dan Brown. Here's why:

• Brown has sold more than 65 million copies of The DaVinci Code. Toni Morrison may have sold that many all together over decades. But let's suppose that Jazz has sold 25 million copies. I feel confident in asserting that at least 50 million of the copies sold by Brown actually have been read. And given that one copy of a good book may be passed around to five other people, that would be a total readership of 250 million. Even if readers made an admirable stab at Jazz, however, most likely abandoned it, unable to catch the wave of her lyricism. Frankly, when they have to work too hard, most readers give up. Based on their own abandonment of the book, I doubt these potential readers passed it on to anyone else. I've seen reviews in which Brown's work was called "an easy read" as if that equates to "an easy write" or even to poor writing. It's often is more difficult to construct prose that appeals to a sixth-grade sensibility as we are taught to do in journalism so that everyone can gain knowledge from the printed word. Influence hardly is possible if the reader is unable to decipher the prose.

• I don't recall driving by churches and seeing "Song of Solomon Deconstructed, 7 p.m. Sunday" on their marquees. The premise of The DaVinci Code was the hot topic of most book clubs, many churches and an awful l of water coolers for a long time. Song of Solomon may have made the reading list of a couple of African-American book clubs and college courses, but in my opinion, forced reading doesn't provide the maximum intellectual result.
  

• As important as some of the issues in Morrison' book Beloved are, The History Channel has never devoted a week of prime-time programming to its themes. Heck, I don't recall them giving up an hour. Yet the channel has packaged programming on a variety of themes from The DaVinci Code, including Mary Magdalene, the Templars Priory of Scion and Opus Dei; and decoding the alleged symbolism of the painter's Last Supper.

• The DaVinci Code also has had a huge economic impact. Aside from the staff who made the aforemenetioned History Channel programming, there are those who conduct tours to DaVinci Code sites in France and England and developers of games and myriad other licensed products. There are the dozens of books on related topics. In fact, I found it quite ungrateful of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail to turn around and sue Dan Brown when he put their book back on the bestseller list. Aside from the staff of the feature film Beloved and the publishing house that released the book, I can't think of any great economic boon generated by Toni Morrison books.
  

We should be careful as we throw around words like "good writing" and "influence." Especially those who live in glass houses.