So why?
As you all know, I am a crusader against crappy books. And my favourite crappy book is Dan Brown's bloody Da Vinci Code. No matter which way I turn, I am bombarded by cretins assuring me that it is the best book they've ever read.
CK has written a pretty handy little review so I won't bother to bore you with repetitious account of why I despise it so.
http://thefount.blogspot.com/2005/03/book-review-da-vinci-code.html#comments
But the one thing that I've been pondering - why is it so damn popular even though it is clearly utter bollocks. I now have half a theory about why this book appeals to the general public. I think that people are used to being spoon fed information and ideas. People don't have to think about stuff anymore. Dan Brown doesn't leave any room for consideration or thought - he's written his book like a movie script. It's all fast action and excitement and the riddles are solved in one or two pages. No one has to think, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
It's a bit like he used an instant best seller generator on the internet. Religion + contention issue + intrigue and suspense (don't forget to add a dash of a conspiracy) and mix well. I think that my biggest bugbear is that it is a book chock full of pseudo-intellectual stuff. Most of all, I hate that people who have read this try to tell me that it is literature. It is depressingly one dimensional.
Ok. No more Dan Brown. I'm over it. I'm moving on.
CK has written a pretty handy little review so I won't bother to bore you with repetitious account of why I despise it so.
http://thefount.blogspot.com/2005/03/book-review-da-vinci-code.html#comments
But the one thing that I've been pondering - why is it so damn popular even though it is clearly utter bollocks. I now have half a theory about why this book appeals to the general public. I think that people are used to being spoon fed information and ideas. People don't have to think about stuff anymore. Dan Brown doesn't leave any room for consideration or thought - he's written his book like a movie script. It's all fast action and excitement and the riddles are solved in one or two pages. No one has to think, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
It's a bit like he used an instant best seller generator on the internet. Religion + contention issue + intrigue and suspense (don't forget to add a dash of a conspiracy) and mix well. I think that my biggest bugbear is that it is a book chock full of pseudo-intellectual stuff. Most of all, I hate that people who have read this try to tell me that it is literature. It is depressingly one dimensional.
Ok. No more Dan Brown. I'm over it. I'm moving on.
posted by Laziest Girl at 10:20 am
2 Comments:
First, thanks for mentioning my blog.
I feel your movie script analogy is pretty accurate. When discussing the state of modern fiction with a friend recently (that sounds much more pompous than the conversation actually was), I said that I felt than almost all new fiction falls into two categories: affected and overly-pretentious or just written specifically to be optioned into a film. I think Brown may have been trying for both, but managed to nail movie one.
YAY! I can post comments again!
I agree with you on the whole Da Vinci Code thing -- but at least it's not quite as boringly awful as The Firm... I can't believe I let people talk me into reading either one :(
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