For your eyes, but only if you can find it
While I'm on the subject of writers, writing, and reading, the Guardian has interviewed Umberto Eco about his new book as well as the difference between Foucault's Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code (other than the obvious gulfs of quality, erudition, and depth) and whether he is the Italian Salman Rushdie. Thanks to the squishy lefties at bookslut.
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Johno
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Anyone who thinks The Da Vinci Code is any better than pulp ought to be forced to read some of Dan Brown's other works.
TDVC happens to be only mmarginally more refined than his other pulp, but it's still all nothing but crap. Rather like cartoons, they're books you might quickly read once then do as I did - offer them to a friend for a quick read, and if the offer is spurned, you throw them in the trash, just like you were going to do anyway.
Which, now that I think about it, is rather like walking up to someone and saying "Hey! This tastes like shit. Try it!"
But, back to your point - what is this odd brand of Italian salami to which you refer?
I couldn't even finish Da
I couldn't even finish Da Vinci. It's not Scottish, and its crap. Angels and Demons, the first Dan Brown book I read, had me for a while but when *spoiler alert* the new pope turns out to be a psychopathic killer, well I was a little disappointed.
TDVC is actually a little
TDVC is actually a little *worse* than pulp. It may as well have *SCREEN TREATMENT* written across every page in big letters. Brown could have saved time by, instead of describing what the main bad guy looked like, just written, "Cardinal LosAngels Eczema looked a lot like Tommy Lee Jones," and "Opus Dei member Brother Uther Tomatocart strongly resembled Philip Seymour Hoffman with a tonsure."
Gawd. I know it's terribly elitist of me, but on the 7:29 into Boston every day I still see scads of people reading TDVC and Angels and Demons, and it makes me a little angry to think that such a hack has sucked all the air out of the lite-reading genre.
Dan Brown: The Bill Clinton of the literary world.
(ooh, snap! Oh, no you di'int!)
While I'm at it, I might as
While I'm at it, I might as well caution any kind readers against Deception Point, the latest "airport thriller" from Brown. It's old, but now being pushed in all the usual places.
To my mild embarrassment, on a flight a couple weeks ago, I picked it up, knowing I'd be ridiculing it later, but I figured it would be enough of a piece of shit to make TDVC seem more erudite.
For the love of all that is holy, spare yourself. Take the $7 or whatever and set it on fire, give it to a street urchin to buy crack, but don't buy this histrionically overwrought piece of crap.
I couldn't care less about Brown's slams against my former religion or against Christianity in general. His repeated assaults on good writing, that's different.