I can make it longer if you like the style

[cyrano]

So I've been surrounded by people telling me what an amazing author Dan Brown (Author of the world-shattering DaVinci Code novel soon to be a major motion picture with Tom Hanks Jean Reno and Audrey Tatou) is, and how good his writing is.
Well, I just finished one of his books and OMFG awful. The characters are at best two dimensional, the heros are all square jawed beautiful super geniii, the dialogue is constructed from papier mache and tastes about the same, the text itself is awkward and Everything! Is! Extremely! Important! right up to where the three million conductors on the world's biggest computer catch fire. He tells us his characters are clever, and then he shows us how clever they are by writing about the amazingly UNclever things they say or do. Continuity is frustratingly spotty, and all of his amazingly smart clever people have some very oddly placed spots of ignorance when it becomes neccessary for the plot or to raise the level of 'suspense' for them to suddenly become uneducated morons. His subtle foreshadowings are like a battery wrapped in a wet sock which he then beats the reader with.
This did not provoke the visceral revulsion that the Thomas Covenant Septology did, as there was not the emotional involvement. I just didn't care enough about the characters or the plot. This book, Digital Fortress, gets no wags at all. Not even a limp thumping wag. Just bloody awful.
And yet I still read the whole damned thing. Because I'm not very smart and I'm very stubborn.

Maybe this is just going to be another 'Matrix'-esq thing, like Sin City. But at least with Matrix and Sin City I actually kind of liked the product.

Comments

[aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Dan Brown disappoints me.

There was some other "big" author recently who I was trying to read, and just thought it was utter crap. I wish I could remember what the book was now...it was so bad I took it back to the library after 1 day of reading, because I hated it.

[tyee.livejournal.com]

Heh, I just read that recently too. I enjoyed it because I did find it kinda interesting, but not at all suspenseful and I found the characters to be *extremely* mercurial in terms of not knowing things that they should have known.

I just read Angels and Demons too because my husband got it from the library, and I swear to god it is the Exact Same Book as Da Vinci code. Gah.

Same book/

[wilson-lizard.livejournal.com]

This is good to know, because I've been resisiting reading Da Vinci Code, after reading Angels and Devils. I thought it was fluffy, but that I should probably read DVC for the sake of cultural context.

The Pope elections have been a lot more interesting this time round, tho, for having read it.

Last time, they cut into "The Hobbit" ( the 70's animated one ) which was showing for the first time on TV, to show hours of smokestack.

Re: Same book/

[tyee.livejournal.com]

I still enjoyed reading Da Vinci Code, in the same way that I can enjoy watching a bad but funny movie or something. I found it suspenseful and it held my interest -- it just required a certain level of eyerolling and suspension of disbelief.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I wonder who said that to you about Dan Brown, because, from what *I'd* heard about him, people thought The DaVinci Code was 'okay' and that the rest of his books were shit. :)

I do have at least a moderate interest in reading TDVC, but I am not expecting...well, pick a really good author here (Tolkien doesn't count, either).

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

I think the key is the people you're hearing from; people like us, who read regularly (even voraciously), aren't generally impressed (I say this from an uncaring standpoint, unlikely to read TDVC). The unwashed masses seem to be, which says volumes about their taste. At least, that's what I'm guessing after the number of people who mentioned the book to me when I was home last winter: "You read, you'd love this!"

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. You R teh SMARTZ!

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book, nor am I likely to. I think what amuses me the most is the way people are treating the whole Da Vinci Code phenomenon like it's that has only just come to light, when these stories and legends have been around for centuries. Anyone who has done even a little bit of reading about the Templars (or hell, just medieval history) has run into legends about the supposedly scared bloodline of Merovingian kings. Really, it's old hat, the sort of thing that used to get made into an episode of In Search Of...." but nobody ever took seriously.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh dear god. Is that what it's about?
After reading his ham handed attempts to write about computers, cryptography and the NSA, I cannot *WAIT* to see him tackle Catholic mythology.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

*snicker* Yep, that's what the book is about. From the publicity, you'd think he was the only person brave enough to ever write about it, but Medieval and Biblical scholars have been researching those legends for years. All Brown did was put it into the Airport Novel format.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Or that other people hadn't already written similar sensationalist novels on 'the sordid history of The Church and The Secrets They Don't Want You To Know OMiGod It's the Pope's Al Capone's Secret Vault!!!11!!!'

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Exactly! They're keeping the truth about the Holy Grail locked up next to the proof that Earth was actually seeded by aliens. ;-)

FYI

[madgray.livejournal.com]

Perusing the "friends" area of Jim's friend list to see who else is there and if I recognize their name from Macanally's, I ran accross your name and...

I LOVE CYRANO! My favorite movie of all time is Cyrano DeBergerac...the one with Jose Ferrar. Adore adore adore.

So of course, I had to add you to my friends list because anyone who uses that name MUST be worth knowing in some manner.

I hope, of course, that you do not mind.