Catholica editor, Brian Coyne, has spent the last couple of days absorbed in Dan Brown's latest thriller, The Lost Symbol. Not unexpectedly it's a great read but Brian asks if we should treat a writer like this primarily as an entertainer or is he someone who has an important contribution to make to the great discussions going on in society at the moment about the place and meaning of religion and spirituality in our lives?

A serious writer or an entertainer?

Readers of Catholica who were around when Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code hit the cinemas around the time Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" hit the screens may recall my question as to whether Dan Brown or Mel Gibson might have the greatest long-term impact on attitudes to religion in society.

The Lost Symbol is published by Bantam Press www.danbrownofficial.co.uk

In what must be a record time for me, I've devoured Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol, in the last couple of days. I couldn't put it down. I'm left asking myself, and you, the question: Should we read Dan Brown as a serious writer on religion or spirituality or should his books be read merely as an entertainment? My own sense is that we ought to take him seriously as a writer who must have a huge impact on what the moderately to well-educated must think about matters of religion and spirituality.

His books are read, or seen via the movie versions, by tens, possibly hundreds, of millions and while I have little doubt many see them as little more than an entertainment, I suspect also uploaded into our societal "mass consciousness" are subtle but profound changes in our fundamental beliefs regarding God and how we intersect with the Divine and how the Divine intersects with us.

I have little doubt The Lost Symbol is going to be another major triumph for Dan Brown and his publishers. It is gripping entertainment even if Dan himself is becoming a formula writer and you can almost predict what is going to happen in his stories.

Remember all the controversy — mainly connected with Catholicism and Opus Dei — associated with the Da Vinci Code? As you've probably already read somewhere the focus of this latest book is an equally controversial crew — the Freemasons. If I were a Freemason though I would not have the slightest of worries that this book is going to do their cause any harm whatsoever. I think he is actually very sympathetic to the Masons just as I think he was also actually very sympathetic to Catholics — and indeed all believers — in his earlier books.

The core theme...

Dan Brown

If Dan Brown has a target in his writing I suspect it might be those that those of us who are attracted to the sort of stuff we discuss on Catholica might label as religious nutters or fundamentalists — those who attempt to interpret sacred writings and symbols not as mythos but literally. The central character in Dan Brown's books is the academic, Robert Langdon — an expert in symbology. The core theme running through Brown's stories is that Robert Langdon is called in to explain the real meaning in some ancient religious symbols.

What I find fascinating about Dan Brown's skills as a novelist and story-teller is that perhaps 90% of what you read in his books is actual fact. It is not fiction at all. He builds his stories around verifiable facts — actual documents and religious writings that you can dig up in a good library or on the internet and actual locations where again you can check the vast majority of the facts via any reputable source. Into this fabric he weaves the fiction — a gripping human interest story. In The Lost Symbol the human interest story is a new telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son — this time the son is the child of the Supreme Mason in the United States, Peter Solomon. I won't give the plot away but, believe me, I think most parents — and particularly most fathers — will relate to the dilemmas Peter Solomon finds himself in in relation to his son.

It was interesting arriving back from the holiday where I read this book to find an email announcing that Sr Joan Chittister will be in Australia in a few week's time for the World Parliament of Religions in Melbourne. She is giving one public lecture sponsored by John Garratt Publishing at the Veneto Club, Bulleen on 1st December and the topic is: What Happens when Classical Spirituality meets Modern Science? Are the Two Irreconcilable? I would submit to you that that is the central theme that runs through all the books of Dan Brown. I would further submit that Dan Brown believes they are reconcilable — and I suspect that is what Sr Joan will also argue at her lecture. The two principal secondary characters in Dan Brown's book are two women. One a diminutive director of Security for the CIA, Inoue Sato, and the other the daughter of Supreme Mason, Katherine Mason, who is a research scientist at the Smithsonian Institute. In different ways both of them are connected with research at the very edges of of current research looking for answers at the junction where religion and science meet. The way Dan Brown weaves all this into his story is simply marvellous.

As in all Dan Brown's stories there are parts of this book where coincidence and credibility are strained to the limit but I suspect that is unavoidable for a writer engaged in this genre of writing. In fact the skill of the writer most shows in these sections where he, or she, is able to push the limits of credibility and coincidence to the limit but not to the point where the reader is left in a totally unbelieving state. Dan Brown has become a master at this.

Brian Coyne

Brian Coyne is the editor and publisher of Catholica.

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©2009 Brian Coyne

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