Dan Brown's latest attempt at grammar and narrative

In case you haven't noticed, Dan Brown came out with a new book:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-review-of-the-da-vinci-code-sequel-the-lost-symbol...

On your marks. Get set. Snark!

Eight hours and nothing? You guys are slipping.

(pauses to read article)

Hey .... wait a minute .... I was in an indie bookstore at lunch today, and that was the book that two (or was it three?) people were picking up at the "pre-order window" and there I was thinking it must be something good.

I loved that review so much, that in respect to it, I will NOT buy or even read the book.

Anything after that review would be an anticlimax. Or I am I going on too much? What do you think? But then again...perhaps the "spit? held together section

Brown, like James Patterson, is ubiquitous...and revolting.

Anyone caught with their books should be sterilized. It's time to clean up the gene pool...

Another Dan Brown review, for those who care about such things (his moron fans assuredly don't):

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/blogs/popculture/2009/09/symbol_minds_12_hours_with...

That Cracked review was hilarious; thanks for that.

I actually read The DaVinci Code cover to cover; my (high-school) students kept pressing it on me when it came out, and I finally decided to see if it was as bad as I'd assumed it was. It might be the worst book I've ever read, and I mean profoundly bad, so bad I just couldn't believe it was really that bad and had to keep reading to prove to myself that it could be. Reading that book--and reflecting on how much people liked it and what that said about American readers--was probably one of the most depressing experiences I've had as a writer.

Amen to that, bro...

Oh, Jesus Christ! Sales...that's...hahahahahaha!

I'm gonna need Thorazine to get over this. The one with the "silhouette"--hehehehee!

The Lost Symbol, in summary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/sep/15/lost-symbol-live-reading-d...

8: You'd think with all his money he could afford a decent creative writing class?

I've read The Cantos, Gravity's Rainbow, In Search of Lost Time, and Ulysses -- not as a boast, there's a punchline ahead ... wait for it ...

But I could barely finish Chapter 1 of Angels and Demons

8: Thanks for that, I got quite a laugh out of it. My favorite has to be 5!

I read Dan Brown mostly due to peer pressure. I kind of figured the writing would be pretty bad when I started the book, so I suppose that's what got me through it. Besides, it was such a quick read I only wasted a few hours of my life and now know for certain I won't make the same mistake twice.

>9 CliffBurns: - That one was a beaut.

I went to another person's house today, and observed some books by Dan Brown, including a hardback Angels & Demons... That's the only depressing part. Hardback. Means they couldn't wait for paper.

I must admit to having read Angels and Demons and found the only good thing to be the pacing. It drug me along at such a breakneck speed that, as Depression_Bird said, "I only wasted a few hours...". Having read my share of TOMES, I can understand the lure of breakneck pacing, but if that's all ya got, stay home.

Geoff, did you ever think about teaching The DaVinci Code? If you thought it was terrible, and your students thought it was wonderful, it seems to me there is a teaching opportunity not to be missed. After all real shit has as much potential for instruction as does the good stuff. Maybe show them what techniques Brown uses to good effect and which ones drag him into the dung heap, and how the latter destroy the former.

If Atlas Shrugged can be required reading, so can The DaVinci Code. Both for the same reason--to teach what makes bad writing bad.

If you want conspiracies and Freemasons, why don't people read good books? Like The Illuminatus Trilogy and Foucault's Pendulum, not to mention the conspiranoia in any volume of Pynchon.

Then again, the same people waiting to read the latest Dan Brown also re-elected Bush. I rest my case.

well..i disliked the Illuminatus Trilogy too - the same friend who forced Da Vinci on me had earlier tried to get me to like that series. But certainly Eco or for something a little more obscure, a lot shorter and a LOT more fun, Jack Womack's Going, going, gone.

unfortunately i know too many people who voted against the dubster who bought and enjoyed Dan Brown's crap. Beats the shite out of me too, but there it is.

all i can think of is my wife describing how she and her sister would try to get their daddy to reveal the secrets of the masons in his sleep when they were little kids. I'm afraid Neil's snoring kept the masonic masonry safe from prying ears and eyes. Now if they'd been able to sublimninally suggest that they'd give him extra ice cream when he woke up, maybe they'd have had better luck.

even the Guardian's parody is too long to finish. I'm skimming, skimming.

Geneg: Teaching The DaVinci Code, or at least passages of it, would be a good idea if 1) I were teaching the creative writing class (which I'm not--the guy who has that sewn up doesn't write and has never published) and if 2) I weren't teaching in a Catholic high school. . . .

Watch out for the Opus Dei, Geoff, those fuckers are VICIOUS.

Here's my "no spoilers" review for Dan Brown's latest:
The Lost Symbol is a mystery, set in a major city (I guess I can give away that it's Washington, since the U.S. Capitol is even on the cover of the U.K. version). The hero is a Waspy university professor, but he dabbles in topics more exotic than Elizabethan poetry, and that makes him a target of some bad guy(s). Danger ensues. And plot twists. And italics.

And more danger. And more plot twists. And even more italics.

All in bite-sized chapters that can be read at a red light or while brushing your teeth.

Langdon spends a lot of time in historic buildings, and the reader learns many, many facts about them. He also confronts a series of codes and riddles. At times, he doesn't know whom to trust. And he faces dangerous situations that threaten his life.

Does he solve the codes? Do the bad guys win? Does the hero survive for a sequel? If you want to find out, read this book!

I.M. Braindead says:

"I don't read books, okay? Like, I just don't GET them? But Dan Brown doesn't make you work too hard for, like, understanding and meaning and all that crap. Sometimes when I read a book I think "wow, this guy's too smart for me" and I don't like that. Feeling stupid, I mean. Like, what's the point? The thing about Brown is that he doesn't act like he's a snob. He puts things so even a 12 year old kid can get them. Which is awesome. That's why I like movies so much--you see them, you go "cool" and then you can forget about them. Like, I don't have a lot of room in my brain for really deep, important shit, okay? I want explosions, chicks with great bodies and lots of special effects. To me, art belongs in a museum. It's all about entertainment. My life is shit and I don't need to be reminded of it. That's what these so-called "artists" do. And as for all you people who put down Dan Brown and James Patterson, like, get a life. If they're such shitty writers how come they're so fucking rich? Let's see you answer that."

Bravo, Cliff!

Sadly, my little "parody" isn't too far off the mark. I engaged in a brief debate with Brown fans on the CBC.ca website and that summarizes (in an exaggerated manner, obviously) some of their rebuttals. One guy didn't know the meaning of "pithy" or "cogent" and then went after me for correcting him.

When stupid people can't come up with a good argument, they use ad hominem attacks to cover their mental deficiencies. I've see it time and time again. Attack the messenger and congratulate yourself for shutting 'em down...

Cliff, have you read Shelf Monkey?

Nope, I haven't. Care to enlighten me?

Employees of a big-box bookstore strike back against a culture that says, "I don't read books, okay? Like, I just don't GET them?" by becoming book terrorists.

Your rant above is more or less precisely the credo of Monroe Purvis, a TV personality whose book club is lowering the IQ of North America, and who becomes their target.

You'd get a kick out of it.

I'll put it on my library list, mate. And I'm going in tomorrow or Monday to put in a big swack of inter-library loan requests.

Thanks for the tip, sounds like it's RIGHT up my alley.

And here's one for you: have you read Elizabeth McClung's ZED?

27: What is a book terrorist? What do they do? Throw books at people? Steal books they don't approve of?

They strap copies of THE LOST SYMBOL to themselves and hurl themselves under buses.

The resulting explosion of bad prose is lethal to anyone with a cranial capacity larger than a marsupial.

So book terrorists want to kill people with large cranial capacities? :)

Clever gal...

#29: They burn bad books ... and that's fer starters.

An intrepid journalist called Tom Chivers has, much in the same way foreign correspondents bring us the news from the world's shitholes so we don't have to visit them ourselves, plunged deep into Dan Brown's work and emerged with the master's twenty worst sentences, for example (the comment is Chivers's):

17. Deception Point, chapter 8: Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes.

It’s not clear what Brown thinks ‘precarious’ means here.

Read—if you can bear it—all of them here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-Th...

You gotta wonder who edits this guy...likely someone who has to sign the back of their checks with an "X"...

>22 CliffBurns:, 24 - The main thing I think when reading your parody is that the reality can be worse, as in spelling, grammar, and consciousness of their quality of life. ;-) The real people like that won't admit that they can go forget about movies, either. They'd just talk about how wonderful the movie is, et cetera, et cetera...

Kiddo, yer right:

"'300' was the best movie ever, dude. Uh, except for 'Transformers'..."

>22 CliffBurns:

I, too, have heard WAY too many people say similar things. Sometimes I have no faith in humanity...

Just today, I was talking to someone about movies, and she said something like, "Yeah, I don't like comedies about serious stuff. Like, if I wanna see a comedy, I wanna see a comedy. Not a black comedy, or whatever." Could that be because most black comedies many times entail satire, which requires one to have a bit of knowledge about the subject being satired?

I just don't get it: what's so bad about thinking?

...rant over. :)

Dear Cliff, #30,
I think you are too unkind to "marsupials". Our Aussi first international superstar "skippy the bush kangaroo" has just celibrated" a
major anniversary (40th?)

You should have seen some of the things skippy could do. Typing, drumming, rescueing people down mines and caught on cliffs :-).
Made Lassie and Rin Tin Tin look
like amateurs.

Point taken, O, Guido...

>8 iansales:
His last correspondence from Vittoria had been in December - a postcard saying she was headed to the Java Sea to continue her research in entanglement physics... something about using satellites to track manta ray migrations.

Wow. Just... wow.

Eighty...million...copies...sold...

Makes you sick, don't it?

I have actually taught my dog to read.

Every time I take him to the dog park he gets very excited once he knows where we are going. I started out holding up a sign that has two words on it, DOG PARK while saying "do you want to go to the dog park?" and getting together the things I need (hat, leash, poop bags). At first he only reacted to my getting the stuff together. The sign meant nothing, my words meant nothing. But I kept it up, and now when I hold up the sign he just goes bananas knowing what's coming. No verbiagem no action just holding the sign so he can see it. See, he reads the sign.

Animals quite often are much smarter than people.

> 43

I have actually taught my dog to read.

Have you tried LOST SYMBOL on him, Gene? Easy reading...

I showed him Angels and Demons while it fouled our house and he indicated that it didn't make sense. It didn't hold his attention. I could hardly get him to look at a single page. He thought it was stoopid. I think this proves that my dog is far more intelligent than millions of people.

My dog Marley, named for Bob, not the other, more famous dog named for Bob.

Y'know, they say that after awhile pets and their owners begin to resemble each other.

On those terms, you're a fine-looking man, Gene.

At least the dog with the Chums of Chance in Against the Day was reading Henry James ;)

The last few posts bring to mind an LT member and author and his book A Dog About Town. Worth at least a look at the cover photo, but it is about a lab who helps solve a murder mystery.

>44 lilithcat:
Lilithcat - I MUST have that sign. Where did it come from? How can I get one?

Os.

> 49

I saw it at the 57th Street Children's Book Fair. It was at the booth of a literacy organization called Sit Stay Read. They use dogs to work with kids on reading. I"d never heard of them before, but it's certainly an interesting idea!

They don't seem to have the fans on their site, but they have lots of other stuff.

I think the most depressing thing about the Telegraph review was the comments - "Leave 'im alone, 'ee's a good writer, 'e is. Yor just jeelus."

It was Chesterton who said the people didn't like bad books, they just liked a certain type of book, and if they could only get bad ones, they'd take them. I used to believe him - I'm not so sure now.

Taking up the Chesterton assertion, people seem to still demand the Artifact Conspiracy Genre: Da Vinci Code and its million brood of knock-offs, imitators, and Mad-Libs variations. I'm sure Hammett and Chandler had compete with hordes of lesser mystery writers, but those two -- I'd even admit sensationalist hack Mickey Spillane into the hard-boiled pantheon -- stood the test of time.

Dan Brown's books are only instrumental in exhibiting how bad writing can be and still be publishable. It's like if Ed Wood had gotten the fame of Cecil B Demille, yet refused to change his awful writing, broad acting, and terrible directing.

Like I said before, there are plenty of successful commercial writers who deserve their share of praise and might survive the test of time. Dan Brown is a fluke and he has no goddamn talent ... at all. Granted, I loves me a good conspiracy thriller, but that's covered with Pynchon's Inherent Vice or more mainstream offerings like the dark tales of Andrew Vachss

***

Some Lost Symbol quotes. Have at it, you snarky pirahnas:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Lost_Symbol

>52 kswolff: - Oh, man, those are awful. For painfully obvious reasons...

I too likes me a good conspiracy thriller and it ought to be possible to write a good artefact conspiracy theory thriller. But the last several weeks in the Charity Bookshop have revealed to me the many attempts and the 100% failure rate.

I enjoy trash, so long as it is well-written trash.

I thought the flanders panel and the club dumas were both v. enjoyable "artifact conspiracies." I don't think Perez-Reverte makes any pretense to profundity, but i've enjoyed almost all of his books that have been translated. The Alatriste swashbucklers, while a bit grimmer than their inspiration, are also pretty explicit tributes to Dumas.

Unlike D. Brown, Perez-Reverte generally gets his facts right - as far as i can tell, anyway. Since there was such patent bs in the DVC, beginning with the new academic discipline of "symbology," i was annoyed from the get go. I wasted a fair bit of time trying to see if ANY university had a "department of symbology" or a "symbologist" on staff.

(I didn't care for the nautical chart or the sun over breda, but 7/9 is a pretty decent reading average in re P-R).

Some of the comments on the article listing Brown's twenty worst sentences are priceless:

"Better to read 'poorly written' Brown than mind-numbingly tedious Shakespeare. Infinitely more enjoyable and you'll learn a lot more!"

"Maybe a poor writer, but at least his books are enjoyable.. better than being a great writer with nothing interesting to say like Dostoyevsky"

"Some of the examples here reek of pedantism . . . ."

Follow the whole exchange at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-Th...

Grotesque!

There are already over 500 comments but I had to get my dig in. Some of those remarks said so much about the quality of the intellect making them. I didn't know zookeepers let their great apes send in letters to the editor...

Yeah, I had to add my own touch of vitriol. You can't win with people like that, but it's still fun to call them dumbasses.

#57, Brown's use of "symbology" is so terrible, it convinced me that Brown must hate the English language. It's such an ugly, stupid word, as well as being unnecessary--Langdon could just as easily be a scholar of religious studies or art history. Then Brown goes on to completely misuse his own stupid term, talking about "Christian symbology" or "occult symbology" as if symbology was equivalent to symbolism or iconography. It's like he ran out of proper English to slaughter and had to make up some of his own.

Simp-ology?

Simianology?

Cymbalogy?

"My books are water;
those of the great geniuses are wine--
everybody drinks water."
-- Mark Twain

I think Twain's work is more than water, but I think perhaps he'd side with Brown and his moneymaking approach to writing.

Os.

I dunno, Old Mark was a stickler for good writing, as his evisceration of Fennimore Cooper illustrates...

65: Yeah, that was quite a burn.

If Langdon is such a world-class smarty pants, why doesn't he hold multiple degrees? Degrees in comparative religion and archaeology would be a lot more believable. Then again, this is thinking on a much higher level than Mr. Brown. Anyone who writes that terribly can't think very well either.

Here's a clip of the creative writing class he teaches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJB2Q9gh2uE

Hee hee...

But Karl, degrees from American university are worth nothing, and degrees from British universities are rapidly going the same way. If you need a piece of paper so other people know you're good at your job, then you're doing your job wrong...

Even this book sounds better written than The Lost Symbol:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/mans_facebook_status_given?utm_sourc...

The Onion strikes again...

I love this thread-- though honestly I didn't know who Dan Brown was until recently. (I do a remarkably good job of dodging all popular culture.)

But, during the next quarter nomination cycle for my book club-- what do you know-- Lost Symbol is nominated. But it gets worse.... it is currently in the running to actually be selected for reading. This is supposed to be a "Literary Fiction" reading group.

So, thank you, to whoever pointed me towards the Literature Group Reads here on LT. Long Russian novels...a group that doesn't consider a book published in 2003 "Old".... no Dan Brown in sight.

If your book club is looking for a GOOD book on early Christianity, conspiracy theories, lost texts, etc., tell them to pick up Wilton Barnhardt's GOSPEL. Now, THAT'S a cracking good read...

And if you like conspiracy theories, The Illuminatus Trilogy is a fun read. You should nominate Foucault's Pendulum by Eco. See what the response is, considering they want to be considered "literary."

Thanks-- I will try. All my nominations thus far have been uniformly shot down.

I second Foucault's Pendulum, especially since Umberto Eco totally invented Dan Brown.

I have no interest in wasting time reading Dan Brown, but I'd author prose for the illiterati if I could make his kind of money.

My husband's been freelancing as a ghostwriter. It pays good. He has mastered marketing-speak. Now I know where all that meaningless drivel comes from--the left side of the bed.

I wouldn't mind writing for the illiterati either. I'm of the opinion that writing that terribly a la Dan Brown, Meyer, Patterson et al, requires effort and concentration. Only with passion and vision can one attain the crackpot genius of someone like Ed Wood

How to write like Dan Brown:

1. Write your first draft -- keep everything, no revisions!
2. Take out all words 3 syllables or more.
3. Add some pseudoscience hooey (Freemasons, UFOs, David Icke, midgets, etc.)
4. Aim for mediocrity.
5. Add a dash of lowered expectations and mix with a nationwide PR campaign that would dwarf Pravda

***

Related: http://101reasonstostopwriting.com/2007/03/11/reason-13-you-are-not-dan-brown/

Yeah, I think unfortunately it's not easy to do. From what I hear, it's even harder to crack through in the crap-genres than it is in literary fiction. And I think you can't fake it: you've got to love that kind of reading to do that kind of writing.

There is hope - copies of The Lost Symbol have started to arrive in the charity bookshop.

So far, none of them have left.

M

>80 AuntieCatherine:
I figure buying it retail is an act of charity.

81: I don't think DB needs the money desperately. Better to donate it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army if you ask me.

Or you could go green and use them for fuel instead of coal or oil.

...toilet paper...packing material...rolling papers...something to wrap polluted fish in...

"1001 Uses of Recycled Dan Brown Byproduct"

Man, it didn't take readers long to start dumping the new book in charity shops. Talk about disposable reading...

Pirating The Lost Symbol is the literary equivalent of germ warfare. And even if they're free, they're of no use as you can't even use ebooks as toiletpaper...

78: That site seems to have quite the grudge against Nanowrimo.

Re: "The 101 Reasons to Stop Writing" site and their contempt for NaNoWriMo...

GOD BLESS 'EM. And give those amateur doodlers and wannabes a kick from me too. Preferably to a tender, delicate region.

5 million advance copies can't be wrong?

Wanna bet?

So Cliff, what are you writing for NaNo this year, anyway?

Perhaps a paranormal teen romance?

Best of all - if no one buys it for a month, it gets pulped at £0.07p a kilo. See, literary criticism and environment conscience all at once.

EVERY month is National Novel Writing Month when you're an author. That's what these dumb shits don't understand. And the amateurs and wannabes always get so outraged when someone rains on their little one-float parade and tells them that writing requires commitment, years of slaving to improve your craft, enduring rejection, anonymity, a thousand different varieties of despair and STILL (somehow) finding the guts the drag yourself over to that desk and pick up a pen one more time.

Excreting 40,000 words in a month is simple. Just a matter of typing words. But spending two or three years after that drafting and redrafting your effort with no expectation of publication, fame, money, doing it for the sheer love and reverence for the printed word, aye, there's the rub...

Ah, Cliff, you rise like a trout to the fly.

Throwing NaNoWriMo at you is like throwing an Adams at a pool of starving brook trout. It's really not sporting. ;)

Psh. NaNoWriMo is fun. =P

Ah, well, it's such an easy target.

One of the curses of the internet (and I've said this before) is that everyone becomes their own homegrown expert on whatever little field appeals to them and they each have a free platform (instead of a soapbox in the corner of a park). Every amateur dweeb in the world can claim the honor (and it is an honor, something to be EARNED) of calling themselves "writer". No dues paid, no professional vetting--plumbers and electricians have guilds, qualifying tests and certificates. The guy unclogging your toilet received some kind of training.

Ah, but writing is in the arts field and so it's elitist to speak of such things. We're ALL writers and we all have a book inside us.

What an insult to the people who pay the physical, mental and spiritual cost of sitting at that desk all day, seven days a week, "in defiance of all the world's muteness".

Well, the amateurs and wannabes can play act all they want. They don't have the guts to go at it full time, the courage to make the necessary sacrifices, the will to impose an unbreakable routine day after day, year after year.

Don't they look silly in grown-up clothes, faces smeared with lipstick. Trying to seem so adult and mature and important, tottering around in high heels, extra size hats flopping over their eyes. Ridiculous in their borrowed garb, their assumed airs...

>95 CliffBurns: Well, the amateurs and wannabes can play act all they want. They don't have the guts to go at it full time, the courage to make the necessary sacrifices, the will to impose an unbreakable routine day after day, year after year.
Don't they look silly in grown-up clothes, faces smeared with lipstick. Trying to seem so adult and mature and important, tottering around in high heels, extra size hats flopping over their eyes. Ridiculous in their borrowed garb, their assumed airs...

Thanks for getting us back on topic, Cliff. ;-

Os.

Basically, I'm not a writer. I can't write, and I know that. But for one month a year I let myself enjoy the illusion that I am. ;) I think you're taking it a little bit too seriously, Cliff.

In any case, Dan Brown sucks, blah blah blah, I hear there's a tank with a giant squid in the new book. But the villain doesn't throw people into the squid tank for the squid to eat them, no! That'd be interesting. He throws them in there to drown. The squid's dead. I'd give Dan Brown credit if he could give us a decent death-by-squid scene, but he can't even do that. Sad.

Right, I hijacked. Good for calling me on it.

But I plead "provoked".

Giant squids, mega-sharks...is there an underlying theme here? In the 1950's, giant creatures were mutants caused by atomic radiation. Are today's monsters relating to our fear of the environmental degradation our species has inflicted? Or are they just an over-used, motheaten, sickeningly familiar device employed by cynical, greedhead "talents" to keep the proles reading/watching?

Well, ya know which way this ol' curmudgeon leans...

I think you're taking it a little bit too seriously, Cliff.

Most writers who earn a living at it -- and aren't the equivalent of a literary sex tourist -- should hopefully be serious about it.

NaNoWriMo is stupid. A circle jerk for the posturing idiots who think length is equivalent to effort. So, basically, anyone whose a fan of Peter Hamilton, Terry Goodkind, and Ayn Rand The same principle occurs when frat boys imbibe enough booze to make them think they can fly. Unfortunately, gravity and irony prevail for hilarious consequences.

I'm sure Frank Kafka needed to make "The Metamorphosis" longer. That would have made it better. Right?

>98 CliffBurns: Right, I hijacked. Good for calling me on it.

Actually, Cliff, I was pointing out that the ending of your post, though literally off-topic, did a pretty good job of leading back to the topic, in that the part I quoted could be read as a reference to Dan Brown and his ilk.

Os.

Os, your mind is too convoluted and inscrutable for dunderheads like me.

Dan Brown in borrowed garb and over-large hat. Dan Brown in DRAG. Jesus, how will I get to sleep tonight?

I thought the books about the lady and her crime-solving cat were written by Dan Brown in drag?

Boy, Nanowrimo's a touchy subject.

I don't even get what your 'length' rant is about, karl. I'll wager that most people of modest intelligence doing Nanowrimo certainly aren't thinking of themselves as Serious Writers on the level of, say, Dickens or Eco*. It's just something people like to do for fun. Yes, there are the blithering idiots who love to write erotic vampire Warhammer fanfic, but those are everywhere - a quick look around Librarything could find a person of equal intelligence.

You guys are just being... dare i say it... snobby?

* - like Dan Brown might

103: Bringing up Warhammer fanfic with ksw is kinda risky isn't it? Like dissing Durrell to Ian...

I think I might do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a story idea I've been toying with, so it might be fun to light a fire under my ass about putting words on paper. Of course, I can't imagine actually finishing a novel in just a month... so I guess I'm not going to be doing NaNoWriMo all the way.

Doesn't the offensiveness of NaNoWriMo and its participants depend on how seriously they take themselves for it? So long as they aren't posturing, I don't care.

Speaking of which, I'd call myself a wannabe, hoping one day TO be a writer. Certainly couldn't call myself a writer except in the looser sense, i.e. that I write. Heck, I'm writing now. ;-)

104: I'm too busy writing novels -- as yet unpublished -- to waste my time with fanfiction.

106: I was in a creative writing group that adulated Nanowrimo. Unfortunately, this group had terrible tastes and aimed for commercial mediocrity over vision, talent, and experimentation.

>107 kswolff: - Sounds just lovely. Dan Browns of the future, perhaps?

In the words of those terrible Highlander movies: "There can be only one." Mainstream publishing usually throws its advertising dollars and promotional juggernaut at one celebrity author. Hence, dismal sales and mainstream publishing houses falling left and right. If you run the book business like General Motors, what do you expect would happen? Not everyone wants to buy the literary equivalent of a Dodge Dart.

God save us from all from you Literary snobs! There's room in this world and indeed in my life for me to accommodate challenging reads and pulp fiction! Don't you lot tell me you eat haute cuisine and never a takeaway!

Oh, you'll find the snobs here have their guilty pleasures--there's even a thread about it, if you'd like to have a look.

To my mind, it's "God preserve us from airheads"--the kind who champion Dan Brown and make the latest "Transformers" movie the Number One Film in North America in 2009.

If that's the kind of fare the average joe or josephine enjoys, count me OUT...

110: Cue the eye-roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk47saogI8o

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to readjust my monocle. It fell in my goblet of cognac while I was reading the original German version of Being and Time

Cliff - consider yourself counted out.

Wouldn't that be Sein und Zeit?

Ja!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZR9SA5pOg

I was gifted both The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol by a well-meaning but misguided aunt. I've read the first, and will likely read the second, but I'm not looking forward to it.

My understanding is that people who enjoy Dan Brown books are the kind of people who spawn offspring who dig Twilight. Amiright?

Sadly...

>116 plutopsyche: - Well, it seems everyone I know (and don't know) at school has read either/or, so... yeah. Some have read both. Makes for an awkward situation when I'm asked if I have or will read them, too. I really don't plan on it.

> 116

So why are you going to read The Lost Symbol?

>119 lilithcat: - Masochism, perhaps? Or a grudging need for completion? ;-) If it's the latter and applies to an author beyond a series, I hope she never starts James Patterson's oeuvre. That would be... horrific.

If handed it I'll read just about anything. It may go back to my days as a manager of a small independent bookstore, the sense of obligation, of needing to be on top of everything no matter how unappealing it may seem.

Thusfar I've been spared James Patterson, but I did slog through six or seven of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books for similar reasons.

There's a couple new Ayn Rand biographies. Forget waterboarding, just have Gitmo prisoners get forced to join an Objectivist book club. Reading Atlas Shrugged will give you cancer ... or maybe that was Battlefield Earth, it's so easy to get them confused. Scientology and Objectivism are both laughable money-hungry cults populated by fools. So when John Travolta becomes Fed Chairman, then plans for world domination will be complete. It's true, I heard it on Glenn Beck

Twilight is not alone.
I think publishers of YA books are in a conspiracy to create more people who will believe writers like Brown are wonderful. Just take a look at The Forest of Hands and Teeth (zombies) or Wicked Lovely (evil fairies). They didn't share the hype Twilight got, but were lauded: "enticing, well-researched fantasy" "lyrical language and sensual imagery" "marvelous debut novel" "The story is riveting".
They are teaching teens to love bad writing, shallow characterization and absurd plots.

All part of dumbing down the populace. Easier to control when they only think what they are told to think instead of what's right there in front of them.

#123 - I thought The Forest of Hands and Teeth was actually supposed to be well-written. Like the Margo Lanagan one - Tender morsels - or Patrick Ness.

I suspect D. Brown of wanting to become a new Umberto Eco for chavs. The Da Vinci Code and his Langdon series seem like a poor attempt at something like Foucault's Pendulum.

If you gave Umberto Eco a lobotomy, broke his wrists, and reduced his library to 3 books -- Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Writing for Dummies, and Left Behind -- you'd get something resembling Dan Brown.

do you really think Dan Brown has read Eco?

Can you really believe we're still talking about Dan Brown?

he's beome immortal in this group. Along w/ Aynnie get your gun Rand.

I don't think Brown could understand Eco if he had an entire lifetime to study one of his novels.

>123 MmeRose: - Has there ever, in the history of literature, been a decent zombie book (besides, perhaps, Frankenstein)? I ask this in earnest.

# 125 - I read it to see if I could recommend it to nieces & nephews. I thought the characters were poorly developed, the dialog was repetitive and boring, there were plot holes, there were grammatical errors, no one ever told the author "show, don't tell" and it obviously was a lead in to a sequel as there is no resolution. I never mentioned the book to the kids. I've read a lot of YA books since my daughter (now 20) began reading and have continued because I'm now the book aunt.

well...it's not a novel, per se, but there's a very good Italian graphic novel series, actually, Umberto Eco approved, as it happens, The Dylan Dog Case Files that have a couple of fine zombie episodes. Dylan Dog is an ex-Scotland yard detective who's gone into business as Britain main/only "paranormal private eye." The first couple of stories are so so, but the last few in the collection are quite wonderful and weird. There is a fair bit of sex, so that's something to consider if thinking of it as a gift for younger friends and relations.
"I can read the Bible, Homer or Dylan Dog for days on end without ever feeling bored." Uberto Eco
now maybe Eco blurbs all over the place Italian books, but this is the first Eco-blurb i can recall on an English language book (translated).

>134 bobmcconnaughey: - Huh. I'm intrigued. Hadn't expected something favoured by Eco. Thanks!

>132 Irieisa:
A possible candidate is Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, which retains most of Jane Austen's text, but adds the quirky zombie mayem here and there. If this meets the criteria for 'decent', it's probably because the editor/author respected Austen's work enought to leave much of it alone, and didn't take the zombie thing seriously.

Os.

I just finished PP&Zombies. It's pretty silly but certainly fun.

132: Does the New Testament count? What is your definition of zombie? Classic Romero gross dude or resurrected human?

Technically, a zombie is either a reanimated dead creature or a living creature that is mindless and they are under the control of a sorcerer, from the Haitian Voudou culture. In popular culture, a zombie is a reanimated, partially decayed dead creature with a craving for human flesh and particularly for human brains. Resurrected refers to a fully functioning creature raised from the dead. So the New Testament would not count.

Not even Lazarus?

sorry..Lazarus was peachy keen and ready to rock, or at least resume begging. Sean Stewart's rather wry take on magic in modern Houston Mockingbird begins w/ the protagonist's mom creating a ...zombie frog after the kids' favorite pet critter dies. Unfortunately the zombie frog had none of the amphibious charm of the original, leaving the children w/ the problem of an elementary lesson in zombie disposal.

Well, Lazarus from The Last Temptation of Christ might count. Even after JC brings him back, he still seems to kind of molder a bit.

Again, it all depends on literary and theological interpretation. Last Temptation was written by Nikos Kazantzakis, a believer in the Greek Orthodox tradition. Here's more:

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Resurrection

It is fascinating because in the Orthodox tradition, there is a spiritual and corporeal resurrection. As opposed to other traditions which speak of only spiritual resurrection.

If anything, the zombie trope in horror makes us reconsider the fragility of our biological existence. In the end, we're all just re-animated meat.

>143 kswolff:
In the end, we're all just re-animated meat.

In fact, our entire physical self is made of material we either ate or inhaled (except for the portion eaten or inhaled by our mother before birth). In effect, we have devoured ourselves, brains and all. ewwww!!

Os.

Let's face it, we're all somebody else, many somebody elses.