American Digest links an interview at CNN with Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, in which it is revealed that Brown could have included even more speculative material regarding the life of Jesus than he did.
Here's what I'm waiting for: I'm waiting for someone to reveal that Dan Brown writes like ass and couldn't get even a "has potential" rating from The Fiction Bitch.
Can we just admit that much? What, you haven't read it? Or you've read it and you don't believe me? Look: This book actually contains the phrase, "He waved quietly." Now I want you to try something. I want you to try to wave loudly.
It's writing my fifth-grade teacher would have called a parent-teacher conference to lament. Never mind Jesus and Mary Magdalene; Brown's clumsy, half-assed approach to sentence construction is the heresy I can get righteously indignant about.
UPDATE 05/23/2004: Via a comment by Phil Dennison, the ultimate Dan Brown takedown.
Posted by Ilyka at May 22, 2004 08:11 PM in triviaMy greatest peave with his writing style was the way every.chapter.ended.with.a.cliffhanger. Now that alone is irritating but what really topped it is that it is only a cliffhanger for the reader. The characters see what happened, he doesn't describe what they saw, he ends the chapter. He's a literary hack.
Posted by: Jim at May 22, 2004 08:45 PMThanks for the link.
And you are soooooooooo right.
If anyone has doubts about just how bad a writer this fellow is point them to the book before this one.
Posted by: Vanderleun at May 22, 2004 10:48 PMHaven't read it, but the scathing criticism I see around the 'net tells me I don't need to.
Posted by: Lachlan at May 23, 2004 05:53 AMI certainly did enjoy that, Phil. I think I'll update this with a link to that one.
Posted by: ilyka at May 23, 2004 07:42 PMSo very, very true. This post actually led to a topic on Polite Dissent covering "guilty pleasure" books...although Dan Brown books are just guilty with no pleasure.
Posted by: Scott at May 25, 2004 04:33 AMWaving loudly involves two hands and makes a clapping sound.
I hope you have the book in paperback. You should see the household copy of Stupid White Men. That thing looks 100 years old. Paperback throwing is less hazardous to the health of the walls and any assorted animals (and people) living therein. And the paperback shows your efforts, of course.
hln
Posted by: hln at May 26, 2004 07:39 PM