In which I bitch
WARNING - This post is a review of the book The Da Vinci Code and it's got spoilers galore, so if you intend to read it you might want to skip this post.
I don't usually do book reports, but I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and I have to rant a little. It is really unbelievable that a book as badly written as this could be so popular. This guy Dan Brown is a really crappy writer. His prose style is clunky and cliche, and his characters are inconsistent. The appeal of this story is its plot -- which is fairly engrossing (although, apparently, completely historically and factually inaccurate). It's a pretty typical cheesy thriller, so I can forgive the bad writing, the inaccuracies (well, up to a point), and even the characters whose personalities and intelligence levels continually change. But he does something which, in my view, is just unforgivable. He lies to his readers.
There is a long history of mystery and thriller writers deceiving their readers, and admittedly there can be somewhat of a fine line between deception and downright falsehood (can you say "Roger Ackroyd?"). But, cross that line Brown does. When an author reveals that a supposed good guy is really bad, or vice versa, you're supposed to be able to go back and read the earlier bits about that character and see how you've been taken in. Brown's narrative constantly changes POV, which is fine, but at one point he is telling the story from the POV of a character named Teabing, who is supposedly a good guy: "Sir Leigh Tealing's heart practically stalled to see Remy aiming a gun at him....Teabing felt his muscles seize with terror....Teabing felt panicked." Later on, it turns out that Teabing is a nogoodnik, and Remy's attack on him and subsequent kidnapping were all planned. So, Teabing's heart didn't actually practically stall, and his muscles didn't actually seize with terror and Teabing didn't actually feel panicked and Brown lied, lied, lied, when he just as easily could have told the story from the main character's POV. ("Teabing looked as if his heart had stalled to see Remy aiming a gun at him...")
There are many other inconsistencies, weak plot points, and some truly nutty claims. The whole story about the Catholic Church vs. Pagan Fertility Worship is completely made up, but it makes for a good read so that doesn't bother me so much, but claiming that Walt Disney was a believer in the divine feminine? WTF? Nevertheless, I've read worse, although none quite so popular. Anyway, a good book when you need some mind candy, but nothing more than that.
I don't usually do book reports, but I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and I have to rant a little. It is really unbelievable that a book as badly written as this could be so popular. This guy Dan Brown is a really crappy writer. His prose style is clunky and cliche, and his characters are inconsistent. The appeal of this story is its plot -- which is fairly engrossing (although, apparently, completely historically and factually inaccurate). It's a pretty typical cheesy thriller, so I can forgive the bad writing, the inaccuracies (well, up to a point), and even the characters whose personalities and intelligence levels continually change. But he does something which, in my view, is just unforgivable. He lies to his readers.
There is a long history of mystery and thriller writers deceiving their readers, and admittedly there can be somewhat of a fine line between deception and downright falsehood (can you say "Roger Ackroyd?"). But, cross that line Brown does. When an author reveals that a supposed good guy is really bad, or vice versa, you're supposed to be able to go back and read the earlier bits about that character and see how you've been taken in. Brown's narrative constantly changes POV, which is fine, but at one point he is telling the story from the POV of a character named Teabing, who is supposedly a good guy: "Sir Leigh Tealing's heart practically stalled to see Remy aiming a gun at him....Teabing felt his muscles seize with terror....Teabing felt panicked." Later on, it turns out that Teabing is a nogoodnik, and Remy's attack on him and subsequent kidnapping were all planned. So, Teabing's heart didn't actually practically stall, and his muscles didn't actually seize with terror and Teabing didn't actually feel panicked and Brown lied, lied, lied, when he just as easily could have told the story from the main character's POV. ("Teabing looked as if his heart had stalled to see Remy aiming a gun at him...")
There are many other inconsistencies, weak plot points, and some truly nutty claims. The whole story about the Catholic Church vs. Pagan Fertility Worship is completely made up, but it makes for a good read so that doesn't bother me so much, but claiming that Walt Disney was a believer in the divine feminine? WTF? Nevertheless, I've read worse, although none quite so popular. Anyway, a good book when you need some mind candy, but nothing more than that.