I started reading my second Dan Brown book, Angels & Demons (the first being The Da Vinci Code), a couple of days ago, and found myself liking his fiction less and less.  It’s not just his ideas and conspiracy theories(which I can’t say I agree with most of the time, but more on that in a later when I’ve completed the book).  It’s his writing style that I’m increasingly beginning to dislike - he comes across to me as somewhat crude, unsubtle, unpolished, maybe almost vulgar.  Brown has the habit of superimposing his thoughts on his characters and the text, such that you can almost hear what he thinks screaming out at you from the pages.  This leaves very little space for a reader to reach his own conclusions, independently.

Take this for example :

The Secret Vatican Archives are located at the far end of the Borgia Courtyard directly up a hill from the Gate of Santa Ana.  They contain over 20,000 volumes and are rumoured to hold such treasures as Leonardo da Vinci’s missing diaries and even unpublished books of the Holy Bible.

The italicised text seems superfluous to me; It is the author speaking - a weak attempt to use the novel as a conduit to bring across his conspiracy theory about the Vatican archives (not that his theory is necessarily wrong; I just find the style disagreeable).

Another example :

Vittoria paused, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes.  "Religion is like language or dress.  Wwe gravitate towards practices with which we were raised.  In the end, we are all proclaiming the same thing.  That life has meaning.  That we are grateful for the power that created us … Faith is universal.  Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary.  Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us to go Mecca, some of us study sub-atomic particles.  In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves."

The above philosophy is repeated throughout the novel, not only by this character Vittoria, but several others as well.  Brown might as well be saying those words himself !  His style is just too crude, and leaves too little space for readers to think for themselves …