Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!
I am too busy writing a substantial piece for The Times of London about Dan Brown's in-your-own-time follow-up to The Da Vinci Code - which, no, I haven't seen - to say anything profound or involved about it here. But I thought you might like the official countdown widget. I'm oddly excited. But then I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. Actually, I will give you this: I was surprised to find that in 2005, Stephen King addressed graduates at the University of Maine and called Dan Brown "the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese." Ouch!
And I hope you like my headline.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:39 PM
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28 Comments:
I too enjoyed The Da Vinci Code enormously. It was the swathes of people who took it as historical fact that amused me - the Da Vinci Code tourists on pilgrimages to locations in the novel. I was in Paris last September, and even four years after the hype had died down there were still a good few people looking all moved and reverential by the inverted pyramid in the Louvre.
sounds like intellectual snobbishness and jealousy from stephen king. Say what you will about Browns writing, I would say the same for J.K Rowling, but they write interesting stories which millions of people enjoy enough to read their books which is more important for a writer than poncy show off intellectual snobberisms
On QI, Stephen Fry referred to The Da Vinci Code as "loose stool water."
If you ever get sent to a Dan Brown press conference you should stand at the back and shout, "Dan! Dan! etc..."
Hmm, and Steven King's hardly Tolstoy, is he? Perhaps King is the Pilgrim's Choice of novelists.
wahey, I´'m the first to notice the Alan Partridge reference!
Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! (etc)
One of my fave bits from AP :)
Is the headline an Alan Partridge reference?
Jack
Surely content is more important than style, and for a fiction novelist the content is not historical accuracy nor the high class elitist language, but the entertainment thrills and pleasure it brings the reader. Plus the Davinci code is thought provoking sparking international debate on Christianity which is still needed as the church are still out of touch and full of bs in need of updating to be relevant to modern times. He should be brave like Salman Rushdie and challenge Islam though he might well be murdered this is more reason why they should be challenged.
I dunno. I recently read a few pages of Angels and Demons; truly terrible. It's a myth that all 'high-end' literature is unreadable.
Of course there are some books that place style before content, but there's plenty of well written, page-turning books out there that use language eloquently and treat the reader with intelligence and great characters with subtle character traits etc.
The Plot Against America is a good example of a book that is as engrossing as an airport thriller but doesn't patronise or dumb-down to keep your reading along.
The headline of 'Dan Dan Dan Dan etc' did catch my eye somewhat too.
Thanks Dan W, I will find and read The Plot Against America due to your recommendation, even though the title irks me im hoping its ironic. tbh I found harry potter patronising and the bible, but 1984 and LOTR were well written.
Had to read DVC for an illustration job a few years back,it took all weekend as I kept throwing the book out of the window in disgust and storming off.
I want my weekend back Dan.
Some time later I got the chance to do an illustration for a Fortean Times article on Da Vinci conspiracies and had my revenge. http://www.atoman.btinternet.co.uk/gallastsupper.htm
So, it's being released at fifteen minutes and 9 seconds past nine - but is that pm or am? And on what date? You'd think if they'd been so pernickety as to specify the exact second of release, they'd go the extra mile and fill in these other quite important details.
Anyway, I must have been the only person on the planet not to have seen any of the hype either positive or negative that surrounded the Da Vinci Code at the time of its release and read it 'cold'.
Independently of any of the informed opinion of cleverer people than me, I came to the conclusion that it was a reasonably good story that would have been better written by almost anyone else (save, perhaps, Brian Logan. Sorry - perhaps I should have let that particular ghost lie).
I can happily forgive him the fact that it's pretty lightweight and not particularly well-researched but Brown's 'lowest common denominator' explanations of even the most basic facts and his unwillingness to credit his reader with any intelligence or general knowledge really got on my nerves and spoiled what would otherwise have been an enjoyable novel.
Looking back at the preceding ramblings, I realise Stephen Fry said this all so much better in just 3 words. That's why he's successful and I'm not - but it doesn't explain why Brown is now a squillionaire. (Jealousy is such an ugly thing!)
Sorry I can't agree with you on this one, Andrew, and I won't be joining the queue just after 9 o'clock on whatever day it happens to be.
All the best
Just after midnight on Sep 15, the publishers say - but I don't know if that's American time or our time. Presumably theirs?
Sorry, Andrew, my first para was a kack-handed homage to S Lee and his references to 'the events of the 9th of November'. But then, you knew that all along.
All the best
While I'd largely go with SK's view, its a fact of life that Kraft Mac'n'Cheese persists because lots of people buy it and enjoy. I stuck with the Davinci Code and its many faults. Overall I thought it was execrable, more for its execution than the topic or ideas.
While not in a position to comment on DB's own intellect, he clearly believes that an eminent university professor and government cryptologist would be baffled for several chapters by mirror writing and the Fibonacci series. Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys would have had the whole case cracked in half the time.
And yes, I loved the headline. You truly are a Lexus amongst Nissans.
Will he better 'The famous man looked at the red cup'?
The date there is in US format, but the countdown is based on the clock on my computer. Which means it's UK time. And possibly that I am a soul man (which is a mistranslation from the old French - literally Sun Man, but perhaps meaning The Son Of Man).
There's something disconcerting about a digital clock apparently written on old parchment. It would appear the lost symbol is a colon, appropriately.
I think King once referred to his own writing as being "the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries", so perhaps his comment wasn't as insulting as one might assume?
J
John, congrats on being the first to make that link. I must admit, I will be doing the same in my Times piece. Please don't think I stole it off you! Great minds do think alike though. And mine.
The Times is just The Times Andrew. the "of London" bit is just a sop to Americans. Theres no need, theyre intelligent enough to understand & neither should we write everything up as if it were to be read as such.
"The Times of London" is just my little joke. (I read the New Yorker more than I read any British publication, where "the Times" means the New York Times. I have learned to live with that.)
No problem, Andrew - I'm rather inclined to think that in both the burger and the pasta comparisons, Mr K's suggesting that it's satisfying at the time, but perhaps not the sort of thing one should be digesting all the time. Anyway, I'll be interested to see your article.
J
As someone who will admit to reading Dan Brown "before he became famous" (it was hell trying to find a UK copy of Digital Fortress when that first came out), I like his breezy style and Tom Clancy-esque nonsense regurgitation of amusingly distorted research - which I think is partly deliberate, btw. Anyone who reads those opening "note" pages and doesn't realise they are a part of the story is an idiot.
But I will still be perfectly happy waiting for this one to arrive in paperback (with a bit of luck I'll be able to get it for £2 from Tesco. Which is about all it is really worth.)
-- David
Did anyone read the book that caused the court case?
"Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh say Mr Brown stole "the whole architecture" of research that went into their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. "
Well, I tried reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
It was the "past its sell by date Chicken, bacon and sweetcorn flavour Findus crispy pancake" of literature.
(I had to check wikipedia about findus crispy pancakes. they had their own page. i was obscurely glad)
matt
I agree with most people here. I read DVC and found it entertaining, but certainly wouldnt claim it is a well written masterpiece. But then, who ever does? I don't think I've met anyone comparing Dan Brown to Wilde or Tolstoy.
There are a lot of very dumbed down books out there (Stewart Lee's particular favourite celeb toilet books not withstanding) but then, there are a lot of very dumbed down people. Maybe Dan Brown's books provide a pathway to more challenging reading, for kids and people who haven't previously read much. That is certainly a good thing.
Snobbishness aside I thought Da Vinci Code was pretty dissapointing hokum masquerading as a fact based expose dressed up with exotic locations.
In a nutshell it was crap.
Matt - Yes, I've read the Baigent and Leigh book (some years ago), so the revelations in the Da Vinci Code were... well, not so revelatory, really. And he kind of scrambles their theories as well, though the theories weren't - to my mind - that well argued, but as it's meant to be academic-style research, I think the court said that wasn't intellectual property which could be copyright (I may have mis-recalled that).
Mind you, if the book was going for the clever end of the market, surely it should have been called 'The Leonardo Code'?
J
I've neither read the book of The DVC nor seen the film. I bought the first Harry Potter book at a time when it was being lauded as a crossover book that both adults and children should read (I read two pages - it isn't).
Surely then, with this track record I am perfectly placed to offer my opinion on all of this?
In one a train is involved and Robbie Coltrane wears a dressing gown and in the other...er...is it about magic and holy macaroni cheese?
I have managed to get a hold of the new book (my day job is being a thief) and read it over the weekend.
The story basically revolves around the notion of the Donkey Christ, that is the direct donkey descendant of the donkey Jesus rode on palm Sunday, which is said to bestow magical powers to the arse to anyone that sits on it so that when they fart they heal any one who smells it if they are sick.
Basically Osama Bin Laden tries to steal the donkey to turn it into a dirty bomb, a plan which Tom Hanks puts a serious kybosh on!
It's rip roaring, pumping power house of a book which will delight existing fans and make dozens more new ones. 5/5!
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