My knowledge of Wal-Mart has been almost entirely gained through SDMB. I am therefore startled at the implication that at least some of their customers can read
Bolding mine.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php?searchid=782161
A search on “vinci code” reveals only three threads in the last two months that seem to be relevant (leaving off, for example, the “What are you reading?” thread). One is this one. One is a GD asking why DVC is being taken so seriously as an attack on the Church. One is a Pitting entitled “Dan Brown - Crap,” of which the most recent post was in February. I don’t know why you feel there is an “overabundance of threads,” seeing as how this one is the only one which specifically addresses people who talk about the book too much.
I got the book out of the library to see what all the fuss was about. I didn’t like it, and it disappoints me that it’s such a best seller. But if others enjoy it, good luck to them.
I have since read one of the follow-ups ‘Angel and Demons’. Here is an example of what I don’t like about Brown’s work:
In the book, a top scientist at CERN (the European research institute) is horribly murdered and mutilated. An anti-matter device capable of blowing up an entire city block is stolen. The device needs a failsafe, otherwise it will automatically explode within a short time.
The police are not notified. The bomb squad are not called.
The reasons given are that the police, if brought in, might steal some technology from CERN. :rolleyes:
And if that wasn’t bad enough…
[spoiler] A threat is received, saying that the bomb is concealed in the Vatican. Apparently the murderer wants to destroy the spiritual home of the Catholic Church. So do you now notify the police and anti-terrorist squads?
Of course not!
Instead you send to save the lives of thousand of people…
wait for it…
a woman dressed in skimpy clothing (so she can have arguments with the outraged Vatican authorities) and …
wait for it…
an art historian.
What a mind! 
[/spoiler]
That would be his work with the bo staff, right? Because for the nunchaku, you really need to go to Michaelangelo.
You really think so? I did not find that in the OP, at all. While lamenting that other people enjoyed the book, the rant excoriated the “fucking industry that is revolving around this piece.”
Perhaps you’re just a bit too sensitive?
What’s the difference between “complaining about people who like The DaVinci Code”, and “lamenting that other people enjoyed the book”? Seriously.
Thanks for the suggestion, but no, I don’t think that’s it.
Now that is funny. Thanks for the chuckle.
Oh, my God, they had to have it explained to them that the FICTIONAL book which is a NOVEL of FICTION was… FICTION? boggles
Excuse me while I lose hope.
Okay, you need to hurry up and write that so that I could read it. I’d get off my ass and finally open that replacement gay bookstore I’ve been dreaming about just to sell that.
Seriously? Read the exchange again. Your claim was that THE WHOLE POINT of the thread (caps yours) was to complain that people liked it. I noted that that was a small part of the OP and that the principal thrust was against the large number of organizations (loosely described as an “industry”) who were making bucks off giving credence to the fiction as if it were fact.
No. Absolutely not. Da Vinci Code was awful. We need a thread, not every 5 minutes, but every 2 minutes, at least, to explain why it was such a waste of time. Hell, we need a whole damned forum for it. It’ll go:
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Dan Brown is a Giant Dishonest Choad Whose Books Would be Best Used as Cage Liner for a Family of Incontinent Rhesus Monkeys**
I do. As Tracy Lord pointed out, there has been only one other thread dedicated specifically to Brown’s craptastic writing, and it hasn’t had any responses since February. So why are you so up in arms about the alleged preponderance of Da Vinci Code threads?
Anyway, I never understand the argument that creative works shouldn’t be criticized because somebody likes them - by that criteria, everything is off-limits to criticism, which, I guess, means we live in a happy rainbow gumdrop world where nobody ever gets cancer and every child eats chocolate cake for breakfast.
And I will say it: if you thought this was a good book, you’re a fucking simpleton - at least as far as your appreciation of literature is concerned.
Though I get the impression that while I loved Quicksilver and Foucault’s Pendulum both, some people who enjoy the latter dismiss the former as much as I, who liked both, dismiss Da Vinci Code.
Also, I notice that Quicksilver was probably at least as ridiculous in it’s departures from history, but I didn’t mind because (1) it didn’t claim to be acurate and (2) for most of the book I just loved reading it, and loved the characters, whereas in DVC I just felt ‘meh’ all the time.
OTOH, if someone does enjoy DVC, then I should supress the urge to strangle them, if perhaps encouraging them gently to things I prefer.
Nitpick: Angels and Demons came first I thing. The hero in DVC refers to an earlier ‘incident’ which is A&D.
I like the ending to A&D, but only because of it’s utter ridiculousness.
And, meh, we have two things going on here.
Dan Brown wrote a badly researched, formulaic, cliched book with wafer thin characters and propped the whole thing up using the a thinly veiled “It’s really true, you can check the details” ploy. Having said that I enjoyed reading it, it filled a boring train journey nicely and I don’t feel the time was wasted – I’d have just read some other tacky fiction instead. It’s not a good book, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.
I’ve read some of Dan Browns other stuff (not Deception Point which I’ve heard is the best one). More of the same, particularly Digital Fortress which is supposed to be all ‘High Tech’ but just reveals how little research he bothered to put in to get his facts right, it wouldn’t have taken much to make it vaguely plausible rather than just littering a bunch of buzzwords throughout the book and hoping your reader doesn’t know the subject area.
I don’t think anyone is really arguing that Brown should win major literary prizes or be made the next pope. His books are tacky fiction, but that doesn’t mean people can’t find some enjoyment or distraction in them without being simpletons.
The other thing going on is the massive hype machine that the books created. This is just a product of a the snowball effect where every shop, TV station and whatnot notices this huge bandwagon rolling past spilling out money and jumps on because it saves them having to think for themselves. If it gains enough momentum it becomes practically unstoppable. Fortunately they always flame out sooner or later and something else comes along.
It’s also possible the book might encourage people to dig behind the scenes into the art and the history and perhaps learn or experience something new.
SD
OK, I’ll admit I haven’t read the book, but… dishonest? Isn’t it a work of fiction? Historical fiction, yes, but the stuff in Hamlet, which is also historical fiction, also never happened. Has he claimed that the stuff did happen? Please elucidate.
He doesn’t claim the story happened, but he claims what he wrote is based on facts. The inside of the book says all the architectural details and rituals are real, for example. From this board I’m fairly sure he says his claims about a coverup and Da Vinci are true. Even if I’m wrong and there’s just the book jacket, a lot of otherwise intelligent people who read the thing are stupid enough to take it at face value - and of course, not look into it. They’re the ones who deserve to be pitted for that and not Brown, but I’m not giving him any credit for it.
Okay, I read the book. It was a gift to me, so I figured I might as well, plus I could sit somewhere on campus while avoiding my awful roommate and her boyfriend. That was this summer and I really don’t remember much of the book. I’d neither recommend it nor condem it, I’m simply indifferent to it. Or was, until I got a job at a bookstore. Then, my opinions changed, mainly do to the idiots that want it.
Customer: “Where’s the “Da Vinci Code” in paperback?”
Me: “I’m sorry, it isn’t out yet.”
Customer: “They said it was on the radio!” or “But my girlfriend has it in paperback” or “Well, then I’m not paying 30 bucks for a freaking book” or “Amazon has it”
Not my fault, it isn’t out yet. If someone else has it, borrow it. If you don’t want to spend the money, don’t. If you saw it online, then buy it there and leave me alone, I have shelving to do. Argh. Then I try to explain to them “Angels and Demons” which is usually a lost cause.
And who is still buying it? It’s been out for 2 years and on the best sellers’ list for most if not all of that. What’s the deal, folks?
Oh, I also don’t like all of the books around it, both praising and condeming it. Really, not needed. Or all the wantabes, like Dale Brown or that guy that wrote “The Messiah Code.” If I have to make one more stupid display about the books, I’ll sream.
Was it “The Daily Show” that had Dan Brown on saying how, regardless of how you feel about it, the book has caused a resurgence in questions about spirituality and religion?
It was almost as bad as “At least ‘Harry Potter’ is getting kids interested in reading again.”
There aren’t enough rolling-eye smilies in the world.
Yup. Linky link
Jon Stewart rocks.
Unfortunately what’s been happening, at least through my bookstore-worker-perspective, is that sales of incredibly flaky “It’s all true, man!” books have increased radically, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail is probably back on the bestseller list or something.
Fortean Times had a lovely interview with a guy who claimed to be a modern Templar. The Templar claimed that whatever the English town he lived in was filled with complicated underground rooms and tunnels, mostly booby-trapped, which were also used by the Illuminati, and that hidden in them was some momentous secret which the world isn’t ready for yet.
The problem I have with that book (besides poor writing) is how many people are convinced that it’s not fiction, because of Dan Brown’s introduction. And so I encounter legions of poor souls who tell me earnestly that it’s wonderful how brave Dan Brown is, to bring these forbidden secrets into the light. They then buy Dolphins and the Illuminati: How Da Vinci Learned the Secrets of Mermaid Civilizations.
I guess that is a harsh and nasty and probably over-generalized slam at the people who read it and liked it. I’m sure there are lots of normal ones. i just don’t tend to encounter them at work.
What’s wrong with that?