Has storytelling ever been more palatable?

These Dan Brown debunking books offer interesting concepts which vaporize, somehow, at the end. I read Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code, and I found, on our common hall radiator, a copy of his Deception point which I'm currently reading.

Here's what I remember of the first two: The lead character was able to successfully parachute from an ascending helecopter into the Tiber river. That description is too delightful for words. Also, the story imploded into its plot -- I'm thinking of the Angels and Demons illuminati conspiracy. By revealing it as a hoax, enacted virtually solo, the author is one step from admitting that it is the product of his own imagination. And does he, perhaps, pander to my desire to say, "Leaders protect us from their own attacks."

The DaVinci Code leaves behind no memory except the feeling that I couldn't put it down until I had finished it. I kept thinking he was going to say something interesting. He must have. Oh, the grail's underneath I.M. Pei's glass pyramid. The buried apocraphal writings tell the true history of the outrageous behaviouralist, Christ. Oh, that's right, Christ's progeny are uniting still, they are the real sangreal, that most precious sacred blood.... Oh yes, Matthew's Gospel, first paragraph, establishes Jesus descending through Joseph from the house of David, and in the second paragraph describes Mary's immaculate conception.

Both books are written to occur within 24 hour segments, which enhances their urgency. I suppose part of my disbelief and awe arises from that achievement. Also, the wind is described blowing an increasingly familiar crew over a glacier in the page I've reached in Deception Point and I enjoy that too.

The theme of books left on the common lobby radiator seems to be the arctic. The last one I found there was Smilla's Sense of Snow. That one revealed a tendency toward leaving us in the snow near a living meteor, comparable to the realization of a dead end in the foreign film (pre Todd Graff reworked) version of "Vanishing."

I remember an Aristotelian requirement for tragedy being that it occurs within 24 hours.

In other news of pop culture:

The movie, 2010, was on TV. HAL the computer, by cooperating with orders, is redeemed. 2010 was released in 1984.

Winged Migration was on the Starz channel. Those geese are stars! One species travelling earth's 12,500 miles, reveals the true meaning of the term, "Bi-Polar."

Coming soon, the new TV show, "Soul Search" tm...