Oh, for a conveniently placed mirror.

[bouteillebleu]

One of the things that puts me off in fiction is when the writer drops everything to describe what their main character looks like. Now, I understand that it's difficult to make it through an entire novel without giving any hint of what the character looks like, so I can understand mentioning what they're wearing (because they might be dressed

Comments

[reichsfreiherr]

Was the book by a male author perchance? She sounds like some bad-fic author’s wet dream. Though for some reason the name of the character sounds familiar so I suspect that it’s from something actually published.
I can only wish it was the “Atlanta Nights” thing, yet somehow I’m sure it’s not...

[bouteillebleu]

No, Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts (and I'm picking up my printed copy of it today, hooray!). This was a mediocre book (Digital Fortress) written by a writer who's got a reasonable grasp of writing twists and vaguely thriller-like things (though there were only a few scenes I thought were well-written), but hasn't figured out characterisation or decent research (Dan Brown).

I picked it up because the main character was a "brilliant, beautiful mathematician" (oh really?), and Oxfam didn't have the Da Vinci Code in so I couldn't point and laugh at that.

[reichsfreiherr]

Ah, yes the requisite that she must be beautiful as well as everything else because no female genius must be average looking or god forbid, not necessarily all that attractive at all.
Is it just me or is 170 not that high an IQ anyway? I know its Mensa level or at least there abouts but seeing as those are all standardised tests anyway I’m not sure I put much stock in it really.

I can’t remember the last fiction novel I read for fun; I suppose it might have been Nigel Williams’ “The Wimbledon Poisoner” or Zoë Heller’s “Notes on a Scandal” which for all that it’s marketed as almost ‘chick lit’ is actually rather good.

[bouteillebleu]

Is it just me or is 170 not that high an IQ anyway?

Well,
at about fifteen I did an online IQ test that put me around 165, so while it's high for the population in general it's going to be around average for a group of highly intelligent mathematicians - perhaps even below average, certainly if the person in question is supposed to be one of the best in her field.

And I didn't mind the beauty part (I ignored it, really), but the gasping at every surprise and being shocked and surprised at things such an experienced cryptographer should have taken in stride... those annoyed me. Claiming she's beautiful is fine (all it affects is how others in the story see her). Claiming she's brilliant and then portraying her as someone who can barely come up with an original thought is not fine

[reichsfreiherr]

Well,
at about fifteen I did an online IQ test that put me around 165, so while it's high for the population in general...

[hubris]Snap. Though I was a 10 year old with far too much time on their hands at the time and apparently Mensa had far too much time on their hands too.
I think it’s that which convinces me that it’s not necessarily all that high though, considering the number of people I’ve met who have IQs of above 160 anyway, it just doesn’t seem that disproportionately high.[/hubris]
Hmm… garbled sentence = no coffee. You’ll have to excuse that.

And you’re right about the mathematician assumption I’d say, after all I’d suspect that Huxley-sensei would wipe the floor with this girl just in lunch-time conversation, let alone on the business of what he does best.

I think the beauty issue is grating on me because it’s possibly one of those scenarios where the heroine must be beautiful otherwise nobody would pay any attention to her. She can’t be appreciated for her intellect alone; the world must reduce her to the secondary

[cartesiandaemon]

no female genius must be average looking or god forbid, not necessarily all that attractive at all.

The other side of the coin is "The Net" which I haven't seen, but as I understand it had a frumpy lonely female hacker (good) but cast her as Sandra Bullock in glasses (bad).

[reichsfreiherr]

… Sandra Bullock in glasses (bad).

I may have seen that. If it’s the one I’m thinking of it did have her doing some accurate stuff but all of it was nicely laid out with easy to navigate menus…
And that stupid idea that a heavily made-up woman with glasses is unlovely until she takes off said glasses, then she’s some sort of siren. As if; she’s just a heavily made up woman still, who doesn’t look like she knows what she’s doing.

If you’re ever seen the horror that is that mockery of the “Alone in the Dark” games, it suffers from exactly that.

[bouteillebleu]

all of it was nicely laid out with easy to navigate menus

Hollywood OS. Operating System To The Stars. :)

[cartesiandaemon]

brilliant, beautiful mathematician

Which pretty much means they aren't. It's something I'm sure limyaael's ranted on a lot; being that vague almost certainly means they're just CALLED beautiful and brilliant, but actually act like a dumb love interest apart from a few scenes where they decrypt the code in a sweep of intuition acting entirely like a lucky amateur, when the symbologist has given up after 0.5 seconds without even drawing up a frequency chart[1].

[1] Spoiler for Da Vinci code, insofar as one can spoil it. I'm not bitter.

[bouteillebleu]

I wouldn't be surprised at limyaael ranting on it - it strikes me as one of the most annoying examples of author laziness in the "show, don't tell" department. Listen, authors - if you can't write someone as being brilliant, or even vaguely intelligent, find different characters to write about who don't challenge you as much. Or try doing some actual characterisation for a change.

(I bought Digital Fortress because I couldn't find a copy of the Da Vinci Code in Oxfam and I'm certainly not going to provide Mr Brown with more royalties. Do you have a copy of DVC you could lend me? This one was his first, so I'd hope he's improved since then...)

[cartesiandaemon]

In a book, *saying* someone is handsome is particularly pointless :)

Do you have a copy of DVC you could lend me?

I would, but I borrowed it under protest from a friend who enjoys them[1]. Funnily enough, I was thinking the reverse: perhaps his first book would be better :)

[1] Which is why I feel guilty when I can't stop myself trying to condemn them; I may object to many things, but they obviously *are* enjoyable.

[bouteillebleu]

Funnily enough, I was thinking the reverse: perhaps his first book would be better

And here I was hoping that The Da Vinci Code was reasonable, and because of its success his publishers said, "Wonderful! Do you have anything else you've written?" and he shrugged and said, "Well, I've already written several other books, though they're not quite as good as this one..." and they took it even though the subject matter wasn't as much his forte as that of The Da Vinci Code.

(I can dream, can't I?)

It's true that they're written to be full of action - a review I read (on a Dan Brown fan site, no less) said they seemed to be written with movie rights in mind. Digital Fortress would make a reasonable Hollywood movie, and the characterisation in it is about par for Hollywood (since although they'd be able to manage the 'beautiful' part of Susan Fletcher, the 'brilliant' would be equally improbable, and the mathematics is positively well-researched by Hollywood standards). So I can understand what makes them enjoyable, and also why I didn't

[cartesiandaemon]

Well, one of us might be right: having read one book each many DVC *is* much better than DF but I just can't believe it... :)

That's true, actually, and something I've heard said of other books as well. In fact, I'd probably forgive a lot of my objections in a decent movie, showing that my *true* objection must be somewhat subtler...

[cartesiandaemon]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/visgoth/536090.html

"And I sure as hell don't believe he did anything resembling real research for The DaVinci Code. I am hereby convinced that anybody who claims that book contains genuine hidden secrets made public in the guise of fiction is delusional, because Brown apparently couldn't fact-check himself out of a Nigerian Royalty e-mail."