Egads, this was BAD. If you want a love-note to Princeton, then read this. If you want something to actually enjoy, do not read this. I will admit that it captures undergraduate life, and especially senior year, pretty well. But it also has the world's most boring mystery and characters I didn't care two whits about and an ending I saw coming since the beginning. Just because a book uses big words, doesn't make it clever. My biggest problem was the protagonist's girlfriend (I can't be bothered to remember their names). As all too often happens in bad books, she has no real personality and serves no real purpose except to be a love interset, someone for the hero to pine for/fight for/give up the book/whatever for. Will they stay together? Won't they? Why is she so darn petty? I don't care! Plus, it was pretentious and had completely unnecessary flashbacks to the narrator's childhood that were supposed to "illustrate" the theme/point/whatever of that chapter. Worst one ever: at camp, a young narrator and his friends modify the "make new friends/but keep the old" campfire song in a stupid grade-school way, turning it into something about ditching friends and wanting gold (we totally did this with the school song in grade school, and we thought we were devestatingly clever). The point of this trip down memory-lane? His mother, in all seriousness, sits him down to talk about how this behavior makes her worried that he does in fact value gold more than friendship and to make sure he understands that people are worth more than objects because oh my god young narrator might become the scholarly obssessive that his father is oh noes! I guess young narrator got all his brains from his father, or perhaps it indicates that lack of common sense runs in the family, because I can't believe a human being is so oblivious that she thinks modifying song lyrics is a sign that a child actually BELIEVES what he is now singing. More likely, it is in fact a badly written attempt to shoe-horn the chapter's theme into a flashback. All these flashbacks, which in fact just boil down to My-Father-Was-Obssessed-With-This-Book-And-It-May-Be-Killed-Him-I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Like-Him-Do-You-Get-It-Now?-Huh?-HUH? could've been cut out and made it a better (but probably still not a good) book.
Again another novel that falls victim to media hype..It is unfair I feel to compare this novel to the Davinci Code. It is not the DaVinci Code and in so comparing the two sets up the reader for a certian expectation that falls very wide of its mark. This novel is much less concerned with "thrilling" the reader than gently bringing the reader into the world of four friends from Princeton. It is reminiscent of Donna Tartt's novel Secret History with it's focus on college students, their friendships and eccentric academics who have no morals. But the storyline is where the similarities stop because the writing pales in comparison to Tartt's. So what is this novel about? It is a story about four college friends and their relationships. In the background the reader is led into the strange world of Paul who's years at Princeton are just about over and his all consuming project of deciphering the hidden meaning of the ancient text of the Hypernotomachia is drawing to a thrilling conclusion. What ensues is somewhat engaging as we follow Paul's progress interspersed with boring recollections from Tom about why he should not fall prey to the obsession of the Hypernotomachia. The reader is treated to several really exciting chapters that involve the actual solving of the riddles and the thought processes and physical ravages their obsession with solving the riddles bring on them. In the end, this book is plagued with mediocre writing, a slow moving plot and a less than stellar ending and it is on the best seller list....I guess you never know.
What do You think about The Rule Of Four (2005)?
This book was billed as a more intellectual version of The Da Vinci Code, and while I suppose it is essentially that, I honestly did not enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Dan Brown's book. The story is about a Princeton student who inherits from his father an obsession with an ancient text called the Hypnerotomachia, purported to contain directions to a vault of treasure.Unfortunately, less than half the book was really devoted to the treasure hunt itself, with the remainder consisting of too-extensive background stories about the main characters and the ways in which they grew apart as they got older. Don't get me wrong; this is a perfectly valid thing for a story to be about. I just personally wasn't nearly as interested in these fairly generic characters going through fairly generic experiences at college as I was in the deciphering of a mysterious text. And it's definitely not just any college; it's PRINCETON. The book reminds you of this left and right, to the extent that in the end you feel like half the reason this book exists is that the authors really wanted to brag about how great Princeton is and how great they are for having gone there.All in all, the book carried my through to the end, and the Da Vinci Code-like sequences in which the characters unraveled the text's mysteries were entertaining. Those were just too few and far between for my liking.
—Keith
This is Andrea's husband writing a review on behalf of Andrea. This is the last full book Andrea read. We listened to it in the car on our drive out to Provo. While the idea was somewhat patterned behind a DaVinci Code book, the delivery was less exciting. The plot seemed repetitive at times and the mysteries that were slowly being unlocked were confusing and less exciting. As we reviewed the book together, we both acknowledged that it may have been because we listened to it rather than read it which may have contributed to the lower rating. While I did not love the book, I will have a fond memory of it as it was the last book review we ever did together.
—Andrea
Second time through; still one of my all-time favorites. The prose is elegant and witty, despite being billed in the "literary thriller" genre (think The Da Vinci Code). The characters are rich, deep, and believable, especially Tom Sullivan, the narrator, on whom I think I have a wee crush. His observations on the dangers of loving things that cannot love you back—in his case, books—have stayed with me since I first read this last summer. The Rule of Four reads like a memoir, a careful blend of wit and nostalgia and keen observations, with just the right amount of panache and hope thrown in for good measure. I can never put this book down; I am smitten, yes, again, beyond the telling of it.
—Jenny
