You ever hear the phrase,"suspension of disbelief"? That's what's supposed to happen when you read/watch/hear a fictional story; you're supposed to temporarily pretend that what's happening is real, to stop disbelieving and believe.

But this Robert Langdon has got to be the stupidest person in the world. I didn't read The Da Vinci Code, but I saw the movie. And since I hated it, I thought I'd give one of the books a try, so I picked up Angels and Demons. And Robert Langdon is still stupid.

This is what bothers me: Robert Langdon is supposed to be me, the reader. I'm supposed to understand what he understands, so I get some crash-course info on symbology and world history, etc., so I feel kinda smart. But the problem is, that Landgon doesn't seem to know anything about anything else that exists in our natural world. I'm told that he's a Harvard professor, but he doesn't seem to have even a high school knowledge of art history or physics. And that's what pisses me off: when Langdon doesn't seem to have knowledge of a subject that I'm convinced he should know something about, my suspension of disbelief evaporates. I no longer believe that Robert Langdon is real. I see Dan Brown talking down to me revealing the truth about Robert Langdon: that he's just a tool to lead me through Brown's view of the world.
And that shouldn't happen.
For example, if Indiana Jones didn't know how to drive a car, you'd say, "Bullshit!"
If Darth Vader never got laid, you'd say, "Bullshit!"

So when Robert Langdon says things like "p.s." stands for "postscript" in The Da Vinci Code, he doesn't say it because the thinks it, he says it because you think it. There's no way a dying man is going to write out "p.s. oh by the way, can you pick up my shirts from the laundry" because he'd dying!!!! Just like when he's at CERN, the world's largest particle physics lab, and he sees a t-shirt with the slogan, "no gut, no glory." Langdon doesn't understand the shirt: he's surrounded by particle accelerators, but can't guess that the shirt has something to do with his surroundings. Hell, I'm an idiot, but I've heard of the grand unified theory; I think it was mentioned in A Brief History of Time published in the 1980's and a massive bestseller. So Langdon never read that book? No! Again, Brown writes Langdon as if he is you or me. He assumes that you don't know about particle physics, so Landgon doesn't know about particle physics. But in Brown's fictional world where Langdon exists, Langdon would have some basic knowledge of physics, of medicine, of art, of most stuff. Unless Harvard hires stupid people. Which is my argument. Robert Langdon is the stupidest person, which destroys my belief and makes Brown's work suck.