Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins is a pompous ass, and the title of his new book is so unabashedly combative that I consistently found myself hiding it. I began reading it not long after I finished The Pillars of the Earth (or perhaps before, come to think of it), but was too embarrassed to add the title to the "currently reading" section of my blog (hence the very long delay in updating the book blog at all!).

I finally finished it, with some relief, last week. Although it's not terribly esoteric (which should probably be credited to Dawkins as a triumph, given his background), it is rather dense, in addition to being witheringly dismissive of those he seems to perceive as being unintelligent enough to disagree with his own arguments--and thus rather tiring.

It is quite brilliantly written; I think I discovered only one typographical error in the entire book, and pictured the professor himself perusing the proofs.

As far as content, I remain undecided. He presents compelling arguments for his point of view, yet his attempt to disprove the existence of God from the point of science seems somewhat misguided. He seems to believe that science should, and will, be able to understand or prove everything at some point, even if it can't right now, and I'm not sure a scientific approach is really the best way to go about discussing something like God.

When I went to Amazon for the image at the top of this post, I saw at least eight books directly confronting Dawkins' text on the first page of search results alone, so it's clear that he and his aggressively-entitled tome have stirred up some strong feelings. I am interested, and somewhat heartened, to see that there is at least a debate going on. Ignoring texts that conflict with one's worldview may be the quickest way to a quiet and unencumbered existence, but I don't believe it makes the world a better place.

Dan Brown, Angels and Demons

I'm pretty sure it was David's idea that we see Angels and Demons, although I think the reason I agreed was Ewan McGregor.

Nonetheless, being the kind of person who reads the book before seeing the film (which almost without fail makes the film less enjoyable to me and me less enjoyable to other people), I had to read it first.

I read The Da Vinci Code several years ago, and although I thought the puzzles ridiculously simplistic to propel any sort of thriller, and the writing sorely lacking, I did find it highly engaging and devoured it in approximately 36 hours.

The same was not the case for Angels and Demons (although, in an attempt to make my timeline for a Wednesday evening movie date, I did read it in about three days). I found the first third or two offensively bad. The writing seemed blatantly terrible, and the plot refused to move to a degree that I could ignore it. Thankfully, somewhere between the second half and the final third, the action picked way up, and, like a reluctant sink hole, the book finally pulled me in. (Of course, it didn't swallow me whole; what on earth was with Langdon getting into--and for that matter, back out of--that helicopter? Complete inanity.)

The film was also bad, though it didn't take quite as many hours of my life and had the distinct advantage of being shot in Rome. There was even a bit of Italian, which placated me somewhat. Oh, and Ewan McGregor.

If you're curious what the hype is about, read The Da Vinci Code. (I haven't seen the movie, so I can't speak to it.) If you're a Ewan McGregor or Tom Hanks fan (I'm sort of the antithesis of the latter, most of the time), you can probably stomach Angels and Demons--but I wouldn't recommend reading the book first.