[lit-ideas] Dan Brown's Babies
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:23:45 -0400
At 02:25 PM 8/23/2005, you wrote:
Interesting case. I think the problem (in finding plagiarism) may
have been that there were no passages copied verbatim.
-- as you say, this is just part of Perdue's case
(I read the book; it's dreadful. I also read Angels and Demons;
that's worse... -- the DVC is remarkably similar to AaD)
I read the DVC over the Christmas holiday last year. I couldn't put it
down, but I didn't really like it. The story was compelling but the writing
was sometimes laughably pulpy.
When I opened up A&D, it was like I was in some kind of time-warp and
someone had take the DVC and replaced places and faces but used the EXACT
SAME OPENING 100 PAGES. I read the illustrated versions of both so I think
that definitely added to my enjoyment as I could follow the chases through
and past all the art and buildings I could see on the pages. Nothing like a
good picture book for this lazy bastage! Brown has invented an unmistakably
successful formula for writing best-sellers. The trouble is, I'm not sure
what's good about them.
Perhaps it's the knowledge that, apart from the scholarship that goes into
one regarding places, art etc. the books aren't that complicated. Brown
placates the reader into thinking that he [the reader] is smart enough to
figure out the 'riddles'. Trouble is, the riddles are so obvious that you
CAN figure everything out, way before. I kept reading to see that I was
hopefully wrong, but I was never wrong. In both cases, it was the HUNT that
was the fun. Both endings left me fully disappointed. I probably won't read
another one.
p
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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