[lit-ideas] Re: tuesday Review
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:50:58 -0400
I have to say I liked it. It was a page turner, as you say, a fun
whodunit. For me it was thought provoking. It never occurred to me that
why couldn't Jesus have been married and had a child? Not being
particularly concerned about religion, Opus Dei was new for me. I also saw
a History Channel show on its facts. They did a good job of separating
fact from embellishment. Dan Brown also treats religion respectfully. The
ending was a disappointment, but all whodunit endings are disappointments.
It's like most of life, the anticipation is nearly always the best part.
Regarding a literary whodunit, on phil lit we were supposed to have read
Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night. A more literary work is hard to imagine, it
just dripped with allusions and veiled references to everything from Dante
to Shakespeare to Lewis Carroll to who knows what else. Clearly she wrote
it for fellow English professors (presumably to have fun with). Next to
nobody on the list read it. If they did, they sure didn't say anything.
> [Original Message]
> From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 4/19/2006 1:22:05 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] tuesday Review
>
> Dan Brown -- The Da Vinci Code
>
> I have the picture book edition. I thought it was nice as a photographic
> guide, but really, there were a lot more pics than were needed. Who cares
> what Pope whomever looked like in a drawing. The art was cool. The
> places/buildings were neat, but they must have shown that albino's pain
> belt AT LEAST 5 times in various pictures.
>
> Now... that said, the overuse of the pics, the very fact that there IS a
> picture book, a forthcoming movie, a lawsuit etc is telling of this book.
I
> found it to be a real page-turner but not for any good reason. It was
very
> well put together, but in a rather sterile sense. This book is not
riveting
> unless you've lived in a cave for your whole life. Almost EVERY
'surprise'
> was expected by the reader. I kept reading basically to SEE if there
would
> be any surprises. There weren't. After the first 4 or 5 'revelations', I
> began to deliberately guess the most obvious solution to everything and I
> was never wrong. And the ending was basically nothing. NOTHING, to speak
> of, happened in the last 50 pages.
>
> Now, in case you get the impression I hated this book, don't. I didn't
hate
> it. I rather enjoyed it, but I don't really know why. Perhaps it was in a
> guilty way, the knowledge that what seemed like common knowledge to me
> perhaps isn't. Maybe THAT's why it's so bloody popular with everyone.
It's
> got enough science to interest people who dabble in science, religion for
> Theologians, art for art buffs etc. It's got a bit of everything.
>
> But it doesn't really give me anything palpable. There were no new words.
> There were no 'oh, that's pretty cool' moments for me. It was a bunch of
> sparks of prodigiousness with no follow-through. I'm just really glad
that
> I knew NOTHING about the book before reading it. It would have been even
> LESS interesting if I had. The thing is... it's a work of fiction that is
> not presented as such and the conspiracy nuts just love that. I read
that,
> apart from the RCC, both the Opus Dei AND some albino organization (I'm
NOT
> kidding) are both upset about the popularity of this book and their
> respective depictions.
>
> In the end, it's abundantly clear why it's an extremely popular
> 'best-seller'. That's what it's designed to be -- from cover to cover.
ALL
> cliches are there. Stylistically, almost every chapter ends with a batman
> moment "tune in, next time, same da vinci time, same da vinci channel"
> where he leaves you hanging for exactly the time it takes to turn the
page.
> Once again, the short chapters of 3 or 4 pages makes it quite possible to
> read this whole book in the bathroom and not lose any congruity. Brown
sure
> covered his bases.
>
> It's extremely well researched, but is presented as such and because of
> this, a lot of silly people think that the opus dei DOES all these
> under-handed things that Brown puts on their plate. From interviews I've
> seen/read since reading it, it is very evident that a ton of people
> actually think this book is non-fiction. For those people, I suggest
> reading "the Celestine Prophecy" and the other books in the "james
> redfield" oeuvre. Now THEY are really believable (rolls eyes). If you
want
> a genuinely interesting book, written with a similar type of yarn, but in
a
> much better 'style', I recommend Philip Kerr's "Dark Matter: The Private
> Life of Sir Isaac Newton"
>
> So, in closing, I suppose I would have to rate this as an enjoyable
> experience -- unfortunately, not for the reasons that Brown tried to
write
> the book.
>
> Paul
>
> ##########
> Paul Stone
> pas@xxxxxxxx
> Kingsville, ON, Canada
>
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