I finished reading Digital Fortress last night.
On the positive side it is a “good read”, as long as you are not expecting to enrich your intellect by reading it. You could probably describe it as a good thriller, with a number of interesting twists to the plot.
The story unfolds in two locations, the NSA in the US and Seville, Spain. As is to be expected in this genre of writing we do get some insight into the characters’ background in order to make their actions that bit more plausible, but you won’t find any deep analysis, nor would you want it.
Having lived in Spain and dated a beautiful girl from Seville it was quite nice to read a novel based partly in a city that I knew. What I was quite annoyed about was Brown’s condescending attitude towards Spain and the Spanish. He seems to have a very twisted view of Spanish society and thinks of it as almost a third world country. The book is riddled with references to Spain’s “backward” society and services. Getting sick in Spain is considered to be a recipe for death.
Maybe this might have been true thirty years ago, but the same could be said for quite a number of “first world” countries. Spain’s health service, in my experience, was as good as Ireland’s and probably a lot cheaper.
This jingoistic attitude tainted my reading experience. Even though I enjoyed the novel I could not but help being rather annoyed at the author’s attitude to Spain. Maybe he had a bad experience there as a student, but does this give him the right to refer to the country in such a derogatory tone? I think not. The author’s attitude towards the country bears little relation on the actual plot, but it does leave the more educated reader wondering how a man capable of such a twisted view could write an acclaimed bestseller like The Da Vinci Code
Michele Neylon :: Pensieri
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As a man married to a beautiful Sevillana, I couldn’t agree more. To make matters worse, I actually read this book in Seville and was appalled and confounded by the way this book insulted Spain and especially Seville.
Even his references to the buses in Seville as antiquated smoke bleching wrecks, is decades from the truth (if it was ever true).
Then again you have to forgive Mr Brown. He is American, after all (and by American I mean arrogant, insular and one of George Bush’s electorate!).
Tom
The Dan Brown formula for books:
Guy found murdered. Strange mark on victim’s body. An authority on something to do with the mark is awoken in the middle of the night to help with the investigation.
Skip to the end, it turns out that the guy who called it all in in the first place was behind it.
Avoid his books.
totally agree with the racist undertones and the disrespect. i come from spain and i am very angry to see how this american insults our whole nation, unbelievable!!!!
Haha… im spanish too, you can even hear it in the news! The thing is that spain still has a feeling of inferiority with the rest of europe and this actually hurts quite a bit…
cya friends!
¿Where is Spain? ¿In Africa? ¿They have democracy?
Beleg:
Come on!! What would have happened if a non-US best-seller writer had done the same to a US city, giving such a distorted and ignorant vision? I´m sure the reaction would have been similar.
well, i like the twists.
Kri – Whether the plot has interesting twists or not is not the issue. The racist undertones are worrying.
Michele
i was truly impressed by diSHITal fortress. i admire the way Brown describes a third-world country like Spain and i wonder if his wife really knows what Spain really looks like apart from hospitals smelling of urine, corruptive politicians and punk festivals.all very pintoresque which was really helpful in order to set the novel in a “less refined country”. Unfortunately, this is not the case of Spain.
Anyway, if DAn Brown has some spare time someday i encourage him to visit Spain and discover the real Seville,not the pathetic portrait he has created.
Well, it finally happened. Digital fortress is about to be published in Spain. I’m Spanish, and I’m annoyed and furious, and I want to thank you your consideration and knowledge understandingt that things are no like this in my beloved country. We are part of the EU, my God! How can a “seriusly documented” writer do things like that?
Ana – Do you think the Spanish version will have been “sanitised” to remove the derogatory comments?
No, the Spanish version will be uncut (fortunately). There was a Tom Clancy book that hadn’t the same luck here before.
Books have to be readed as author writed them (even better if you can read in its original languaje) and being offended for a particular opinion is not good.
Dan Brown can say what he thinks about Spain (or what he concerns to sell books) and everyone can juzge with his own culture or experience.
Vincenzo – so a Spanish translator had to translate the offensive references about their native country into Spanish?
Michele- The book is actually translated with the offensive references on it.
This is the way you can take an idea about the author and his literature.
I will like to share with you a brief passage from “digital fortress”:
“Hulohot took the Giralda stairs three at a time…Hulohot moved quickly but carefully. The stairs were steep;tourists had died here. This was not
America—no safety signs,no handrails, no insurance disclaimers. This was Spain. If you werestupid
enough to fall, it was your own damn fault, regardless ofwho built the stairs.”
You can consult it by yourself here: http://www.theeloquentmime.com/docs/digital_fortress.pdf
And you have a look at this paragraph I took from wikipedia
“The Giralda has no stairs; instead, 35 ramps are used to ascend the tower. The ramps were sufficiently wide for the muezzin to ride a horse to the top of the tower to yell the Adhan, call to prayer.”
You can figure out how much informed was Dan Brown about the Giralda!!
The case is that if a translator modiffy the Book… “errors”, this translator may be rewrite ALL the “Book”. Even the smallest details are wrong. Somebody really can believe that we drinks a filthy blueberry juice with vodka all days? or that we venerate the scrotum of Columbus? It’s stupid. This “Book” is a perfect crap in all senses and practically all the pages have decenes of errors (even appears a deaf man that hears steps! miracle!).
And the “best” of all is that Dan Brown claims that he lived during a year in Seville and studied Art History in the University of the city. It is a joke? All the description of Seville Art and monuments have the same “level” of the rest of the book. I suppose that Daniel failed all Art exams and then he decided to be avenged writting this trash about the city… hahahaha!
Well, I was not surprised when the University of Seville communicated that are not any student called Daniel Brown in its archives. This man is a pathological lier. Poor.
Please, excuse me for possible mistakes. I have not a good level of English.
Hi Bob….incredible…you don’t know where Spain is. Do you know where Europe is? i bet you don’t. Learn some geography first and then read fantasy books like this one. But first, get some culture, dear!!
Paloma – I think Bob was being sarcastic 🙂
The last part is truly pathetic, a high school student knows that the two isotopes of uranium are U-235 and 238 and all the NSA people didn’t know!What a fart this man truly is!