A couple of months ago, I posted here about reading The Da Vinci Code and how disappointed I was with the travelogue plot and, more significantly, the abysmal writing.
Almost everyone with whom I've talked about it since then really liked DaVinci, but I stuck by my guns, and now, I'm finding others who share my distaste for Dan Brown's TV-news-intern writing style.
"Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence."
"Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair."
5 comments:
how about those of us who hated the writing and still liked the book? I even went with the even worse movie. I don't have any Opus Dei/Templers conspiracy fantasies going, but I do think we don't get a very good picture of Jesus through organized religion and, besides, it's one of those "forbidden" topics along with sex and politics, and, as you know, I avoid those topics as well.
No sense trying out my New Criticism English Lit training on a mind candy ride like DaVinci, I just let go and suspended my disbelief. That's WHY I read such crap -- to get out of my teeming mind.
Oh, well. Point taken, mcarp, but for me it kinda misses the point.
blogblah
If Dan Brown can get published, then I have a staggeringly possible chance of success. It's just another example that the finish line is drenched in sweat not beads of genius, and therefore obtainable by mortals less than Mary M. her own true self, like me.
Also, I liked the book. I read mysteries as mind candy to fall asleep and it did that; I also have conspiracy thoughts as the men in my father's line were all high ranking masons and crazy as hell. The writing is abysmal, but so is Danielle Steele's. So it's not about the writing. B.T. Barnum quote goes here. I just want to get paid more for being a hack and write what I want. It's the oldest profession.
I can't stop without saying: Enormous albino? It's a freakin' cartoon in times new roman about a super goddess. You boys just stand over there and watch. It's the beginning of the Zeitgeist in which we wrestle Yahweh out of the power zone and back to the garden for some retooling, some brow smoothing. Blah, blah, blah. Mary M shake that money maker my way. We're all just mad that a mediocre talent is making a bunch of money doing something he likes to do, and we're not. I believe in fairires. . .
The fact that so many really intelligent people liked DaVinci Code brings to my mind a bumper sticker I see from time to time:
If you aren't appalled, you aren't paying attention.
I'm more a Morse code kind of gal myself.
Formula for Success:
Write about religion.
You can write about how "real" it is, or you can write about how "unreal" it is.
If you do what Dan didn't do and Ann Coulterize your writing, it'll be a guaranteed best-seller. No matter which side you're against, the OTHER side will think you're a genius who speaks for them in language they'd use themselves, if only they were a bit more courageous about outing themselves as morons.
I say never trust a broad with Marfan's Syndrome, and remember religion is a bunch of bullshit, even if writing about it makes you rich.
With those two guidelines, you can't go far wrong.
Actually it's Lark who said...
I never even tried Da Vinci code because I had an audio version of Digital Fortress and it was so appalling I never want to read another word that man writes. I found myself yelling at the book once, he did such a dumb thing.
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