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Why are poeple against Dan Brown?

orpheus said:
I picked up The Da Vinci Code once in a bookshop. Tried to read the first page. Such terrible writing! I couldn't get past that page without feeling ill.
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Yeah...and I read the whole book! :faint:

That's how I felt about The Devil Wears Prada- I finally picked it up when I became the Last Person in the English-speaking World Not To Read It and couldn't get past the first two pages. Terrible...just terrible.
 
Worm said:
The writing in the Da Vinci Code is bad - I just don't like it.

And there are many factual errors. The one that stands out to me, as an owner of a Smart car, is that the car chase scene with the Smart car is impossible...Smart cars don't work like that. I'm biased, I admit, but it's just shoddy research.

I think people wouldn't slate him so much if he hadn't been hailed as the next saviour of popular literature. His talent doesn't live up to the hype.
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Ah, you missed the part about her laying her 'Busa down before she got the smart car.;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8KdtuBBLM
 
baron said:
"Isn't the fact that he's the one of the worst published writers in the world enough?" pondered Baron, whose screen-name comes from the French word 'baron', which in turn can be traced back to the Frankish 'baro' meaning 'freeman' or 'warrior'.
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Haha, brilliant. Surely you've got your first novel coming out on the back of this, Baron.

Athon
 
The bottom line for me is that he is an incredibly poor writer.

The aim of a good author is to form a bridge between the reader and the fiction without the reader being aware of it. This means subtly weaving information into the narrative, as opposed to 'infodumping' gratuitous amounts of facts onto the reader in order to create background or the scenario. Brown doesn't have the first clue about how to do this.

In addition, a good author will understand that those who feel inclined to read his book, in general, will by those attracted by the notion of the material. Therefore you should be satisfied that the fiction you are forming isn't so outlandish that people who have some knowledge or interest in the topic will feel distanced by its inaccuracy.

Brown's popularity came on the back of a hype wave. Pure and simple. People who don't usually read novels found the action elements appealing, as well as the simplicity of the mystery. Coupled with the dubious nature of how much was 'fictious', this created a swell of new novel readers who hyped the books. The bottom line, however, is that the quality of the fiction is beyond poor.

If you want something worthwhile in the genre, go Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum'.

Athon
 
Agreed. Brown doesn't do subtle. At all.

There's also something strange about a ciphering expert who can solve mysteries that have baffled the best minds of our species for centuries, and yet is completely dumbfounded when he encounters mirror writing.
 
I haven't read any of his books, I don't enjoy much contemporary airport fodder so have avoided them up til now. However, regarding blurring the lines between fact and fiction, that's a common device. Look at Carter Beats the Devil for a shining example of how it should be done.

The quote Big Les posted from the preface of Da Vinci is a little on the vague side. But let's be honest, it's in Brown's best interests if his readers take the novel as more fact than fiction. It fans the hype, stirs the publicity pot, gets nuns protesting which makes headlines which sells more books. His preface aside, has he gone on record as saying "it's all fiction, please don't be a paranoid conspiracy theorist"? If he's actively encouraging the spread of misinformation as fact, then that's a bad thing. But if he's just being vague in order to sell more books...well, he's not the first, last and probably not the worst.
 
Maybe all the people at the places mentioned who had to put up signs pointing out that the Da Vinci Code isn't real should ask Dan Brown for compensation.
 
Wildy said:
Maybe all the people at the places mentioned who had to put up signs pointing out that the Da Vinci Code isn't real should ask Dan Brown for compensation.
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Compensation for the tens of thousands in extra tourism revenue they received as a result? :rolleyes:
 
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tkingdoll said:
His preface aside, has he gone on record as saying "it's all fiction, please don't be a paranoid conspiracy theorist"?
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I'm confident in saying "no", because in every interview I've seen, he's supported the contents of his novel as fact. In the second "Good Morning" video in this list, he says he started out a sceptic, and after researching the book, became a believer in the theory (which is "not his theory").

He's unequivocal about it.

His FAQ, though more cautious in places, contains similar endorsements of the subject as valid historically speaking. For example;

WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A CONSPIRACY THEORIST?
Hardly. In fact, I'm quite the opposite--more of a skeptic. I see no truth whatsoever in stories of extraterrestrial visitors, crop circles, the Bermuda Triangle, or many of the other "mysteries" that permeate pop culture. However, the secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss.
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You may recognise this a the classic woo ploy of "I used to be a sceptic, the evidence made me a believer" line, used to persuade others of the credibility of a claim for which the evidence is in fact lacking.

It's clear to me that he certainly is "actively encouraging the spread of misinformation as fact".
And that is indeed a bad thing.
 
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Confession time: My wife and I spent a week in Edinburgh in the summer of 2006, and we did go to the Rosslyn Chapel one morning -- something we probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for The Da Vinci Code. I'm glad we did, it is an intriguing little church.

However, a week or so later a friend visited the place, and when he was there, someone had put a wheelbarrow full of small bags of some dark brown substance near the parking lot, with a sign "Da Vinci Horse Manure -- £1 / bag".
 
ingoa said:
http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html


Well, CERN does not get tourism revenues but had to answer a lot of inquiries. This takes time of people who have better things to do.
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Any evidence that this is a problem? Looks to me like they've got themselves some free publicity, and probably a hell of a lot more traffic to their site than they'd normally get. And those reading the site will be educating themselves.

I don't see any losers here.
 
timhau said:
Confession time: My wife and I spent a week in Edinburgh in the summer of 2006, and we did go to the Rosslyn Chapel one morning -- something we probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for The Da Vinci Code. I'm glad we did, it is an intriguing little church.
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I went to the Temple Church last time I was in London, because I had read the book. I had never visited it before, since I figured it was just another of the dozens of other churches on my map.

It was fun to hang around in there and try to figure out who the DaVinci rubes were. One guy must have taken 20 pictures of the "different" grave marker (IIRC, one of the plot points was that one of the grave markers was somehow different than the others). But it was neat - only a few people were there (for those who have never been to London, it can be a bit tricky to find, and once you do, it can be easy to walk past - it is very small), and I got to talk to the curator. I didn't mention anything about the DaVinci Code, I figured he was tired of hearing about it.

I also saw Isaac Newtons tomb in Westminster Abbey, which I had missed on previous visits.
 
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I'd like to get around to visiting it, partly because, unlike Rosslyn, there is a genuine Templar connection, but mainly because of the early armour depicted on the grave effigies.

I'm glad that people who are with it are being inspired to investigate real history. I would likely never have developed my interest in Rosslyn without all the nonsense that's been talked about the place, of which he is just one of the latest salesmen. I would have no problem with the man if he didn't claim the basis for his fiction as fact.
 
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ingoa said:
Well, CERN does not get tourism revenues but had to answer a lot of inquiries. This takes time of people who have better things to do.
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I'm hearing similar noises about the Open Day that's scheduled for 6 April!

(I live in Prévessin, btw)
 
timhau said:
Confession time: My wife and I spent a week in Edinburgh in the summer of 2006, and we did go to the Rosslyn Chapel one morning -- something we probably wouldn't have done if it wasn't for The Da Vinci Code. I'm glad we did, it is an intriguing little church.

However, a week or so later a friend visited the place, and when he was there, someone had put a wheelbarrow full of small bags of some dark brown substance near the parking lot, with a sign "Da Vinci Horse Manure -- £1 / bag".
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Allright, I better fess up, too. I checked out the Opus Dei headquarters in New York City after reading The DaVinci Code and while it was still a hot topic, got a kick out of taking out of towners there.

Well, in the first place, I was disappointed. Not only is there no one visibly torturing themselves :p but their building is really plain and ugly and unassuming, too. If they really paid 250 million for that, they got robbed. The DaVinci Code conspiracy theorists should visit it just to put their fantasies about the power of Opus Dei to rest.

And in the second place, I got a big laugh out of who they share the block with- their neighbors are a nursing home and the Yeshiva University. I kid you not.
 
Brown gets knocked because
A: He is a lousy writer. He has no idea how to write a good suspense novel.
B. He plays fast and loose as to whether he is claiming that what he is peddling in his novel is fact or not. He makes a lot of statements that are very ambigious.
There is no serious debate that his theories are total BS.
 
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