The Da Vinci Code (Book)
Wow, what a piece of... pop-culture fiction.
I don't know if anyone's read it, but anyone who has a critical eye for fiction will notice the glaring lack of style in Dan Brown's writing. I felt myself going into editor mode when reading this and mentally suggesting ways to spice up the writing. It's pretty drab.
There's very little characterization, despite the massive overuse of characters thinking to themselves (notated by italics, no less). I hated Dune by Herbert for the same reason. Both authors seemed to like to shift from the head of one character to another in the span of about three paragraphs. There are a TON of perspectives that the author uses in this book - the 454 page novel has over one-hundred chapters. I should add that I read the Illustrated Version of this book, which is a hardcover, glossy version of the book that has pictures of some of the symbols mentioned. If you DO want to read this book (don't worry, there *IS* some merit to it), then I highly recommend the illustrated version because it gives you nice photographs of potential tourist spots you might want to see if you're ever in Europe. The illustrated version has less than 454 pages because its pages are larger, and there are pictures.
In any case... it kind of reminded me of amateur writing... except worse. It really felt kind of like taking one of my stories, removing the character thoughts and comments to themselves, removing the characterization and the plot, and then throwing in a bunch of researched conspiracy theories. Brown uses a lot of strange writing devices that just really turn me off. My friend Ellie likes to write dramatic pauses by inserting a paragraph break, for example. She does this often... I personally think it's too often, but it's maybe one per third or fourth scene or so, and Ellie's scenes are quite long, so you end up not noticing. Dramatic pauses are fine, but they really, really cease to be dramatic when you encounter one every scene. Since this is a cat and mouse type thriller, every break ends up being a dramatic pause before the change to another perspective. Dan Brown makes extensive use of dramatic pauses to the point where they're nauseating. If you want to see how absolutely bad a story can get by misusing dramatic pauses via paragraph breaks, go read The Da Vinci Code.
Oh, I should also mention that another thing that drove me nuts was how often perspectives changed. There were sections that were three paragraphs long before you'd hit the asterix. That's crazy. You would end up reading about the transponders on a truck turning on in two paragraphs just before the chapter ended, after reading about the security officeres who turned them on.
And, finally, talk about convenient use of coincidence. There's a fine line between making your characters logically conclude something, and then having something appear as if it was coincidental. Brown ends up writing a word, and then throwing you into a massively long flashback, and then tossing you BACK out into the normal world, where the character's ended up figuring out a solution to their problem. Oooooh boy.
But I'm not done yet. There are strange moments in the book where Brown just ends up talking like a text book, or a tourist guide. Actually, while I seem to list this as a fault, it's actually not too bad, because, along with the pictures, it's a decent way to learn about interesting buildings and churches and stuff like that in Europe. This is one reason why I think the illustrated version is the one you should try to get if you ever want to read this book. You'll learn a lot more and it's a much more satisfying experience.
So what IS good about this book? Well, the book is centered around a guy who studies religious symbolism, so if you like religious symbolism, you might find some interesting references. If you're rather unaware of Christianity and its roots from pagan rituals, then you might find this book rather fascinating, as there are a number of conspiracy theories it lifts from other writers (if you go here, http://www.irr.org/da-vinci-code.html, you will read about some of the sources, and some of the flaws of its book; there are others that I can think of that are not listed in the above link). It talks a lot about the Goddess of Christianity, and reports some interesting theories on what the Grail is, and talks a lot about the concept of the cup, the pentacles, and so forth. If you're familiar with paganism or alternative spirituality, then that's not very big news to you, but hey, you might either learn something obscure, or get a laugh over it. If you're not, then it's interesting to learn about these things in the context of a detective story than from a non-fiction book.
By the way, Brown claims that the book is "rooted in fact" in its preface, which is actually one reason why it's been showered in so much controversy. Because of this claim, authors have looked at it in detail and tore it apart, especially some of its analysis about Da Vinci's work. If he had not claimed so vehemently in the front that the facts in the book are real (note though, that all of the named characters in the book are fictional) then I suspect that most people would not have cared.
I have a feeling that myaru would end up being rather amused by this book, both for the reasons of its bad writing, and for its somewhat questionable use of its sources. :)
Everyone else might consider picking it up just to learn what all of the controversy surrounding the book is, because apparently it's very popular. I also hate to think that uneducated folk out there are picking this up and are considering this "good fiction" or "good writing". It's entertaining, I'll give it that; I after all finished reading it and got rather wrapped up in its little mystery. The descriptions of its various locations, the churches and cathedrals and museums and artwork are fascinating. But if you can't recognize just how contrived the story is, and how dull the characters are, and how uninterseting the writing is, then you really need to revisit English class and read some books from there. I've read better amateur fiction than this, although, truth be told, a lot of amateur fiction I've seen is simply much too simplistic in concept to hold my interest. Reading a book about unravelling a mystery about a secret brotherhood protecting a deep religious secret based in the real world is a bit more interesting to me than a book about a wizard who kills a dragon, or something like that.
You know, Ellie. With your writing style and your presentation, you might have a pretty decent chance. If crappy writing like Brown's can become a bestseller, then I'd be shocked (or, more likely, deeply saddened) if your flair and style of writing doesn't get recognized.
The modern suites on cards: spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts, are derived from the suites of the Tarot: swords, wands, pentacles, and cups. Sorry, this has been shown as untrue; playing card suites were discovered to have existed before the Tarot.
Venus does not trace a perfect pentacle in the sky every 8 years.
The Nag Hammadi Library is not "lost Christian gospels", as claimed. There is no proof that they were to be burned by the Romans to try to "cover up" paganism.
Apparently, he got the discovery date of the Dead Sea Scrolls wrong.
Here's a good one. The Priory of Sion, which is an important brotherhood in the book that has lasted a thousand years, is actually founded in 1956 by Pierre Plantard, who was a conspiracy theorist.
There are also more errors... http://www.gracestillwater.org/messages/davincicode.htm has some more.
I don't know if anyone's read it, but anyone who has a critical eye for fiction will notice the glaring lack of style in Dan Brown's writing. I felt myself going into editor mode when reading this and mentally suggesting ways to spice up the writing. It's pretty drab.
There's very little characterization, despite the massive overuse of characters thinking to themselves (notated by italics, no less). I hated Dune by Herbert for the same reason. Both authors seemed to like to shift from the head of one character to another in the span of about three paragraphs. There are a TON of perspectives that the author uses in this book - the 454 page novel has over one-hundred chapters. I should add that I read the Illustrated Version of this book, which is a hardcover, glossy version of the book that has pictures of some of the symbols mentioned. If you DO want to read this book (don't worry, there *IS* some merit to it), then I highly recommend the illustrated version because it gives you nice photographs of potential tourist spots you might want to see if you're ever in Europe. The illustrated version has less than 454 pages because its pages are larger, and there are pictures.
In any case... it kind of reminded me of amateur writing... except worse. It really felt kind of like taking one of my stories, removing the character thoughts and comments to themselves, removing the characterization and the plot, and then throwing in a bunch of researched conspiracy theories. Brown uses a lot of strange writing devices that just really turn me off. My friend Ellie likes to write dramatic pauses by inserting a paragraph break, for example. She does this often... I personally think it's too often, but it's maybe one per third or fourth scene or so, and Ellie's scenes are quite long, so you end up not noticing. Dramatic pauses are fine, but they really, really cease to be dramatic when you encounter one every scene. Since this is a cat and mouse type thriller, every break ends up being a dramatic pause before the change to another perspective. Dan Brown makes extensive use of dramatic pauses to the point where they're nauseating. If you want to see how absolutely bad a story can get by misusing dramatic pauses via paragraph breaks, go read The Da Vinci Code.
Oh, I should also mention that another thing that drove me nuts was how often perspectives changed. There were sections that were three paragraphs long before you'd hit the asterix. That's crazy. You would end up reading about the transponders on a truck turning on in two paragraphs just before the chapter ended, after reading about the security officeres who turned them on.
And, finally, talk about convenient use of coincidence. There's a fine line between making your characters logically conclude something, and then having something appear as if it was coincidental. Brown ends up writing a word, and then throwing you into a massively long flashback, and then tossing you BACK out into the normal world, where the character's ended up figuring out a solution to their problem. Oooooh boy.
But I'm not done yet. There are strange moments in the book where Brown just ends up talking like a text book, or a tourist guide. Actually, while I seem to list this as a fault, it's actually not too bad, because, along with the pictures, it's a decent way to learn about interesting buildings and churches and stuff like that in Europe. This is one reason why I think the illustrated version is the one you should try to get if you ever want to read this book. You'll learn a lot more and it's a much more satisfying experience.
So what IS good about this book? Well, the book is centered around a guy who studies religious symbolism, so if you like religious symbolism, you might find some interesting references. If you're rather unaware of Christianity and its roots from pagan rituals, then you might find this book rather fascinating, as there are a number of conspiracy theories it lifts from other writers (if you go here, http://www.irr.org/da-vinci-code.html, you will read about some of the sources, and some of the flaws of its book; there are others that I can think of that are not listed in the above link). It talks a lot about the Goddess of Christianity, and reports some interesting theories on what the Grail is, and talks a lot about the concept of the cup, the pentacles, and so forth. If you're familiar with paganism or alternative spirituality, then that's not very big news to you, but hey, you might either learn something obscure, or get a laugh over it. If you're not, then it's interesting to learn about these things in the context of a detective story than from a non-fiction book.
By the way, Brown claims that the book is "rooted in fact" in its preface, which is actually one reason why it's been showered in so much controversy. Because of this claim, authors have looked at it in detail and tore it apart, especially some of its analysis about Da Vinci's work. If he had not claimed so vehemently in the front that the facts in the book are real (note though, that all of the named characters in the book are fictional) then I suspect that most people would not have cared.
I have a feeling that myaru would end up being rather amused by this book, both for the reasons of its bad writing, and for its somewhat questionable use of its sources. :)
Everyone else might consider picking it up just to learn what all of the controversy surrounding the book is, because apparently it's very popular. I also hate to think that uneducated folk out there are picking this up and are considering this "good fiction" or "good writing". It's entertaining, I'll give it that; I after all finished reading it and got rather wrapped up in its little mystery. The descriptions of its various locations, the churches and cathedrals and museums and artwork are fascinating. But if you can't recognize just how contrived the story is, and how dull the characters are, and how uninterseting the writing is, then you really need to revisit English class and read some books from there. I've read better amateur fiction than this, although, truth be told, a lot of amateur fiction I've seen is simply much too simplistic in concept to hold my interest. Reading a book about unravelling a mystery about a secret brotherhood protecting a deep religious secret based in the real world is a bit more interesting to me than a book about a wizard who kills a dragon, or something like that.
You know, Ellie. With your writing style and your presentation, you might have a pretty decent chance. If crappy writing like Brown's can become a bestseller, then I'd be shocked (or, more likely, deeply saddened) if your flair and style of writing doesn't get recognized.
The modern suites on cards: spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts, are derived from the suites of the Tarot: swords, wands, pentacles, and cups. Sorry, this has been shown as untrue; playing card suites were discovered to have existed before the Tarot.
Venus does not trace a perfect pentacle in the sky every 8 years.
The Nag Hammadi Library is not "lost Christian gospels", as claimed. There is no proof that they were to be burned by the Romans to try to "cover up" paganism.
Apparently, he got the discovery date of the Dead Sea Scrolls wrong.
Here's a good one. The Priory of Sion, which is an important brotherhood in the book that has lasted a thousand years, is actually founded in 1956 by Pierre Plantard, who was a conspiracy theorist.
There are also more errors... http://www.gracestillwater.org/messages/davincicode.htm has some more.