Great Expectations

“Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.” – Charlotte Brontë

After reading Monday’s post by Helen Ginger, “The Lost Book,” on Straight From Hel, I found myself wondering what it must be like to be Dan Brown, his agent, or his publisher this week.

As a fiction writer, I think I have a fairly good imagination. However, I simply can’t conceive of how it must feel to have a book released to such fanfare. The book became available on the 15th and has been a regular news item on local and national stations both before and after the release. Some bookstores opened at midnight so people could grab their copy immediately.

Is Dan worried that with all the hype his book won’t live up to readers’ expectations? Does it keep him awake at night? Since it’s already a best seller, and will probably stay that way for weeks if not years, does he care about whether or not he meets someone else’s expectations? Has he already put this book out of his mind so he can work furiously on his next blockbuster? Maybe if he had his own blog, I could find the answers to all my questions, but my limited search did not come up with one.

The article, “Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’: Why is the book biz so scared?” appeared in EW.com last month. The following is the first paragraph.

"There’s been much fulminating in the books world lately that The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, is bad for publishing. This week, former Publisher’s Weekly editor Sara Nelson even dubbed Brown a “Book Killer.” The theory is that Brown’s readers will only troop into stores (or go online) starting Sept. 15 to buy Symbol, probably at a deep discount, and they won’t buy anything else. Worse, the critics argue, the hubbub surrounding Symbol will drown out media coverage of other books — and eat into sales of those books too. So publishers have supposedly been shuffling the release dates of various titles so they don’t have to go head-to-head with the Dan Brown juggernaut."

I agree with Thom Geier, the author of the article, when he went on to say. “It doesn’t take a Harvard symbologist to see that this is mostly sour grapes and a whole lot of hooey.”

I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and I plan to read The Lost Symbol, but I didn’t feel the need to stand in line at midnight to purchase it. Actually, I can’t think of anything I’d stand in line for at midnight. I take that back, I can’t think of anything that could get me out of the house at that hour line or no line. Besides, I have a feeling the book will be around for quite some time.

Did you venture out to be one of the first to own a copy? If you bought it, did you buy or look at any other books? What do you think of dubbing Dan Brown as a “Book Killer?”

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Bronte, Dan Brown, Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Helen Ginger,