I haven’t read the Da Vinci Code and don’t plan to (for one thing, mystery writing ain’t my thing), but these read like excerpts from Hardy Boys novels.
Oooh - I enjoyed this - muchly (sic!) 
With Audrey Tautou in it, how could it not be?
I learned a couple of things from this book:
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Dan Brown has never in his life heard students reacting to an actual lecture in class. That was the only part that made me laugh out loud.
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Judging by my success with many of the “puzzles”, I’m smart enough to work for the nonexistant French dept. of Symbology.
So is it because of people like me, naive, unsophisticated, technically raw readers who enjoy reading just for the fun of it, is it because of us that writers like Brown are so successful?
I’m sorry.
Peace,
mangeorge
A slight hijack, if I may: What I could not understand was the claim of plagiarism, either in law or as a matter of intellectual honesty. The Da Vinci Code is, as stated by its author, a work of fiction. [The] Holy Blood and [the] Holy Grail is, as stated by its authors, a work of nonfiction. In my understanding the author of a work of fiction cannot plagiarize its plot from a work of nonfiction, because the latter’s content would be facts not creative invention, so its author could only accuse the fiction author of lack of attribution, not plagiarism.
Did the authors of [The] Holy Blood and [the] Holy Grail claim that their book was a work of fiction, then? That would be an admission of having lied to their readers, wouldn’t it?
I was going to suggest that someone submit some of Brown’s prose to their funny “Sticks and Stones” column, but I see someone else already has. I’ve never read Brown’s books, but there is something rather odd about the 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.”
I’m in the midst of grading 57 Italian Renaissance art final exams, and the prose of hte above sentences sounds exactly like a 3d year art history student who ditches way too many lectures trying to be sophisticated (“plethora”? Please).
I think by ‘symbology’ he means ‘iconography’ but was told by his editor to change it to something like a cognate with a word most people know. I have this book waiting for me when exams end-- perhaps I’ll post an art historical review of it?
I agree with the judges that it is not plagerism.
But the whole “murder mystery” aspect of the story hangs very very heavily on the bones of the “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” story- which is told as a first person narrative account in which the author visits the same places as he quests to find the true meaning of the Holy Grail. The murder and the puzzles were Brown’s, but all the locations and everything involving Jesus and Mary etc. came directly from “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. It’s as if I write a book about a fictional guy who goes to an island and looks at finches and comes to startling earth shaking conclusions about how animals evolve- and threw in a love story to keep things interesting. Yeah, it may be legal but it’s still cribbed.
Try reading Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander after having read a biography of Thomas Cochrane and see how much suspense there is in the plot. This sort of thing is pretty common throughout historical fiction.
I must admit all those criticisms sail right over my head. I guess I need to read more books during this term break. This is not in any way saying that that Dan Brown’s a ‘hack’ writer, just that I really need to brush up my writing skills for work and school reasons.
I don’t believe Marley23 has substantiated his allegations.
You are imagining a problem that doesn’t exist in the text. The threshold, and the world to which it might lead, are both imaginary. The protagonist is not going into another world. He knows he is not going into another world. However, the sensations and impressions he is feeling are being likened to how he might feel if he were crossing into an unfamiliar world.
So what? They also work just fine with these words. It is not the case that one can assess the merits of a sentence in a novel by seeing if it contains words that are semantically superfluous. You could delete ‘universally acknowledged’ from the opening sentence of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and it would still make sense. Are we supposed to conclude that Austen isn’t much of a writer? There are words in your own sentences that are semantically redundant. Does this mean you aren’t much of a writer either?
You are entitled to hate Dan Brown’s writing and to dismiss his prose. I am not very impressed by his prose either. But the fact that he chooses to include words that you don’t feel are essential to the sense is neither here nor there.
Dan Brown knows this, and his protagonist knows this. The sentence to which you are referring is not a comment on the modal logic of ‘p or not p’. It refers to the sense of intrigue brought about by the fact that on the one hand the character feels sure there must be some clues to be discerned, and on the other hand he cannot discern them.
Again, the fact that they do not need to be stated is neither here nor there. Semantic efficiency is not the point. Dan Brown is writing the book, not you, and he chose to state them. If you don’t like his decisions, okay. I don’t like them either. But the fact that you don’t like the author’s decisions doesn’t mean that his decisions are bad, or that his prose is not good.
You may think the sentence is ugly, but this is just your opinion. There is nothing you have offered by way of textual or literary criticism that substantiates your opinion, or that demonstrates that the sentence is, in fact, an ugly one. It is possible for someone just as smart as you to read the sentence and not conclude that it is an ugly one.
The passage to which you refer makes sense. Your criticism of it does not. The protagonist is bewildered by the contradictions he is experiencing. These contradictions arise from the fact that some hints and clues imply there is a significance waiting to be discovered or decoded, and yet no such signficance has, as yet, been ascertained. Adding to the confusion, some conflicting sources suggest there is no significance at all. The character is trying to find a way of looking at the body of evidence which can either reconcile the hints and clues into a coherent pattern, or settle the dispute as to whether the ‘secret message’ actually exists at all. This is what the author intends to convey, and he does so.
No, it isn’t. You could only write this if you do not know what a ‘non sequitur’ is.
Since Dan Brown wrote the book, and since this word appears in the book, it is safe to conclude that this is, in fact, the word he wants. It would be surprising if you happened to know, better than the author himself, which words he did or did not want to use. I would be fascinated to know by which telepathic process you felt you had achieved this knowledge?
‘Symbologic’ is a made up word, and it conveys what Dan Brown wants to convey to a non-specialist readership: studying signs and symbols and trying to unravel what they mean. You are not necessarily ‘stupid’ if you have not come across terms like ‘semiotics’, or if you are unfamiliar with Barthes’ work on signs and signification. As it happens, and more by chance than design, I do happen to be reasonably familiar with semiotics, and I have read ‘Mythologies’. But I did not feel insulted or patronised by Brown’s decision to use the term ‘symbology’, and I understood both what he meant by this term and why he elected to use it.
You are entitled to your opinion, but it is as well to recognise that your opinion is just your opinion. You have not substantiated your opinion or shown that it Dan Brown’s prose has any deficiencies or demerits.
There is no contradiction here. The word ‘seem’ conveys incomplete or uncertain knowledge. Yes, it is true as a matter of simple logic that the claims must either be or not be controversial. But the protagonist does not yet have enough knowledge to be able to make that call. Some evidence suggests the claims are controversial, but other evidence suggests they are not (which is to say, they have been either thoroughly validated or debunked, thereby terminating the controversy). The protagonist is not confident he can make this call. Hence the claims ‘seem’ controversial, but he is not sure they are controversial.
I agree with Reality Chuck. The various attempts to show, via textual analysis, that Dan Brown stinks as a writer are unsuccessful, misguided and pointless. Dan Brown intended to write a popular, page-turning adventure story involving clues and concealed messages. He succeeded in this aim, and many people have bought and enjoyed the book. I bought it, and I enjoyed it for what it was. Do I think that some other authors write with better style? Yes. But so what? I go to Emily Bronte and Joseph Heller and Truman Capote and Damon Runyon for the delight their respective talents can give me. I go to Dan Brown for a ‘ripping yarn’ based on the ‘Holy Blood’ mythology. They do what they do, and he does what he does. I don’t go to the fishmonger to buy carrots.
It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that a degree of envy inspires some of these critiques. To those who offer these lame critiques, I would say that if you really believe you know more than Dan Brown about writing well, then you are welcome to prove it by writing a better book. Somehow, I don’t expect that you will.
I get your criticism of the criticisms, ianzin, but, since you state “Do I think that some other authors write with better style? Yes.” aren’t you asserting the same thing? Are you able to substantiate this comparison yourself?
I don’t think it is the same thing, jjimm. It seems to me that some of Dan Brown’s self-appointed critics believe are ‘proving’ or demonstrating the fact that Brown is a bad writer. In fact, the charge (‘bad writer’) makes little sense, and in any event their ‘analysis’ proves no such thing. I believe that at least some of Marley23’s analysis falls into this category.
However, it is possible to argue that writer A seems to have better style than author B, without alleging that author B is incompetent, or guilty of composing ‘bad’ sentences, or unable to think his own ideas through, or in any sense ‘a bad writer’.
Of course, I cannot ‘prove’ that A’s style is better, in the same way that someone might rigorously prove a mathematical theorem, nor would I try to do so. This is why I wrote that I think some authors have better style. But I might (for example) offer passages typical of A’s work and point out aspects of his or her writing that I like, or that I feel are of merit or importance, and see if other people feel the same way. My hope would be that the majority of people would tend to agree, at least to some extent.
In literary appreciation, or in any field of aesthetic assessment, we cannot ‘measure’ good style or general merit in any totally objective way, and we do not try to. The conventional benchmark is simply that of long-term popularity and enduring appeal. In other words, we start from the notable fact that some authors produce work that seems to have enduring appeal, generation after generation, perhaps century after century. We find this intriguing, impressive and delightful, and we begin to try and appreciate why this might be so. Good ‘style’ might be one of the significant factors. I maintain that this is the case with, for example, the work of Joseph Heller, Truman Capote and Damon Runyon.
This is a far cry from ‘Look at my analysis of this sentence. It proves he’s a bad writer’.
Hey ianzin. If you dig it, you dig it. No problems.
However, the idea of textual efficiency is something that is commonly held up as important to good writing- or indeed any art. In film school, we were taught that if you show a gun sitting a night table, that gun better end up being used or at least greatly understanding to the audience’s understanding of the characters. In art, you don’t do things for no reason. Nothing happens by accident. Thats why it’s art and not something else.
In this case, rhythm, flow and sound are important aspects of writing and can add immesurably to a book, and Dan Brown just isn’t good at that. All of those examples show Dan Brown taking advantage of only one aspect of words- meaning- without paying attention to how the words flow and look and sound.
Of course we can’t prove this objectively. That is one of the amazing things about art. But hey- I personally think Showgirls is perhaps the best film ever made. I try not to let it get me down when it makes the “worst movie in the world” lists.
The plagiarism issue is a moot point. It’s not plagiarism to crib from a non-fiction book to write a work of fiction, just unoriginal. I’ve heard of books like Brown’s being rejected with the phrase “Your book is both original and interesting. Unfortunately, the parts that are original are not interesting, and the parts that are interesting are not original.”
I wish these Dan Brown threads had started before I bought The DaVinci Code , which was just recently, as I had waited for the paperback. Dan Brown does write a page turner. I couldn’t wait to finish the damned thing and get it over with. I contrast that to Jim Thompson’s book, The Grifters , which I bought at the same time. I savored that, read some pages, put it aside, thought about it, read some more. I made that book last as long as I could, like a fine single malt. The DaVinci Code ? More like a shot of moonshine, toss it back before you have a chance to taste it.
Ooh! And I forgot the part where Our Hero from ‘The DaVinci Code’ makes leaps of logic that would make Sherlock Holmes blush with embarassment. Regularly.
But he can’t figure out the magic code “APPLE”. :rolleyes:
-Joe
Did I imply it was anything except my fucking opinion?
I think that’s all the reply this post needs. I’m not going to try to prove, point by point, why I think that Brown is a lousy writer. The OP asked why people think his stuff sucks, and I explained why I think it sucks. That’s about as far as this goes.