The Works of Dan Brown

[dwanollah]

My Boyfriend Simon Le Bon has a scathing review up at duranduran.com, under Simon's Book Club. I knew I loved him for a reason.

[sagitare]

Dwanollah, do you have a more direct link to that review? I'm having trouble finding it at the site. Thanks!

[Foo]

Just hollering a big WORD to all the hate. I wrote a small essay on it in my blog.

Even though it was an awful book, I think if done well it could be an OK movie. The book is written like a screenplay to me, and seems to have been written with a movie-deal in mind. Of course, this method doesn't lend itself to a good read in the slightest.

[dwanollah]

Phew! Found it for you, Bana Fana!

Duran Duran

ETA: *BWA HA HA HA!*

Robert Langdon, internationally renowned symbolist, object of attractive women's sighing fantasies and the book's protagonist has "a thicket" of hair, beginning to grey I might add. Why not a forest, or a lawn of hair, or how about a shrubbery? That's it; "Robert Langdon had a shrubbery of hair just turning grey at the temples." You see I can do it, I can write a million dollar best seller just like Dan Brown. You could too, all you have to do is think up the absolute worst pile of crap English that you can and you're halfway there. Unfortunately it is the lowest common denominator which tends to end up top of the best seller lists - sad. I mean it's even got a french redhead beauty with big tits, conveniently on hand for R.L.(flicking the drops of water knowingly from his shrubbery of hair as he stepped attractively from the shower) to fall in love with and consequently grope I guess.

[sagitare]

Thanks, Dwanollah! That was a fun review - I had no idea Simon was up to that sort of thing. I've bookmarked the site and will have to check out his other reviews.

I've never read The Da Vinci Code just because I had heard so many blah things about it - it struck me as something....damn, can't remember his name...A Time To Kill dude...John Grisham! Yes, there we go, the brain is working. Yes, so the whole hype and explosion over The Da Vinci Code reminded me a lot of what happend with John Grisham. Suddenly his name was everywhere and his books were everywhere, and when I finally sat down to read one I was flabbergasted at how bloody badly written they were - just awful, amateurish stuff, I thought.

So I wasn't ready to rush out and read The Da Vinci Code and since hearing about its bad reviews (it sounds like it's sort of a Harlequin romance level book in terms of writing, but for the thriller genre) that I just couldn't be bothered.

[Deleted]

My first post here...whee! This is what it must have felt like when the Berlin Wall came down.

Topic? I don't recall much of The DaVinci Code other than rolling my eyes over the suckiness of the writing on every dang page...it figures it's a bestseller...but I do remember at one point a character of the French persuasion exclaiming, "Mercredi!" My HS French was many years ago but doesn't that mean Wednesday? Is "Wednesday!" a common cussword in France? Or did someone misspell "merde!"

Also, in Angels & Demons, a character of the Italian persuasion picks up the phone and says, "Prego!" When you answer the phone in Italy you say, "Pronto!"
Dumbasses. So I guess the sloppiness is not limited to the writing. Don't they have proofreaders anymore?

[polygal]

Dan Brown's Website

Some awesomely toolish things in the FAQ about Dan Brown and TDVC. Someone needs to beat him with a club and get over it.

The book is just so frustrating. And it only got worse when I read Angels and Demons (it was only like $3 at Target!) and saw it was the same thing. I'm sure the third book will be equally inane and if I read it, I'll want to claw my eyes out.

[kanding]

Oh maaaaaaan. A friend just pressed this book on me saying that it was great. Well, to be honest, she said it was great after she had read about 75 pages, but admitted later that the ending was disappointing. I kind of feel that I need to give it a shot for my friend's sake, but I've heard nothing but bad things about it, and I'm just coming off from The Known World which is very, very good.

[joeyandlucasmom]

Worst. Book. Ever.

And like I ever needed another reason to love Simon LeBon?
*swoon*

You know, the premise of the book is sort of interesting, but the actual plot, characters, writing, etc.? Horrendous.

[joydisaster]

Ok, here goes.

While on some level I "enjoyed" the book the way I enjoy Kristin Hannah romance novels, this book is a big fat tome of cliches. I knew in the first scenes when the main character looks at himself in the mirror and says "you need a vacation, [calls self by own name]" that I was in for a bruiser. That is seriously the stupidest scene in a novel, ever. I think Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta says that once per novel as well. The writing is a lot like Crichton and also Patricia Cornwell. On every page, someone "smiles". Not, "Langdon replied", or "Sophie said" but "smiled" and "grinned". People in Dan Brown's world do a shit load of smiling. The same words and phrases over and over.

Also, Langdon is a thinly disguised Mary Sue.

My husband went out immediately after reading it and bought "Angels and Demons" and it the exact same story! The same story! Less smiling, but the same underdeveloped cookie-cutter tomboyish babe who is the heir/offspring of the murdered party and who is also brilliant in some way. Well, brilliant, but just uninformed enough to give a reason for Langdon to go off for pages of expository while she smiles, frowns and nods.

<3<3<3 Simon! he is right on in his review.