The Da Vinci Code: A Guilty Pleasure?

[nikolai]

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

It's a terribly written bit of pulp fiction; but I'm finding it absolutely enthralling. The short chapters with cliff hangers, and the gradually revealed nature of the puzzles and back story have hooked me in and dragged me along in spite of myself. I know Umberto Eco and Perez-Reverte are much better, but there's just something very compelling about this book once you've started reading it.

 

[Fast Learner]

I'm with you: terrible writing but an interesting plot, some quite enjoyable conveniences, and written just well enough to keep me from chucking it.

It's one of those books that I enjoyed enough to not feel like I wasted my time, yet would never recommend to anyone.

 

[Krug]

Well a lot of the elements weren't too new to me. Still, it was a good, fast read.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

It was a lot of fun in a Michael Crichton kind of way. All of the lapsed Catholics in my social/family group picked it up and enjoyed talking about it with me. As long as you keep in mind that it's all Grade-A Horsepuckey and not, y'know, a serious study in Gnosticism than it's cool.

 

[cyferwolf]

I like all kinds of badly written books. I figure if its entertaining, then there's no harm reading a truly terrible book once in a while.

 

[takyris]

I read it as an "Okay, it's been on the bestseller list for more than a year, and I want to be on that list someday, so take notes" experiment. I was sorta bummed, actually. Lame characters, hamfisted plot. Lots of ideas -- I can see people getting all into that -- but man, the way he introduces them. "Suddenly, the protagonist flashed back to a class he'd taught years ago, complete with exposition and dialogue, and then ended the flashback by saying, 'Not now, man, there's no time to get sidetracked!'" Uh-huh. When I'm being chased through the Louvre for a crime I didn't commit, I ALWAYS flash back to old courses I've taught, and then go through them for several pages' length with full narration.

The things that really bugged me, though, were when he cried "surprise!!!" after lying to us or when he built suspense by not telling us things that we should in fairness know. There were chapter endings like:

Hero stepped into the room and looked at the object sitting there.

"My God," he said. "This changes everything."

Love Interest followed him and looked at the object as well. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it is exactly what you think it is." He picked it up, cradling it in his hands. "I can't believe I've found it after all these years. The world will never be the same. This changes everything."

END CHAPTER!!!! SUSPENSE!!!!

'Cause, um, see, if we're IN his viewpoint, then we get to know what he knows, and see what he sees. I'm usually cool with a light bend of this rule -- the TV-show version, where the hero opens the door, and then you stay on the hero's face as he says "Oh my God..." and then we cut to commercial. But Brown does this "Haha, I'm not telling the reader" garbage for several paragraphs, and THEN cuts to another scene. It's clumsy.

And lying to the reader is just lame. When a big plot twist happens, I as the reader should either be saying, "Dude, wow, neat change" or "Oh, why didn't I see that coming?" I should NOT be saying, "Well, that felt like the author trying to yank me around," or "That violates every single bit of what passes for this person's character development thus far."

I suspect that many of these issues are strictly writer-issues, though. Just like I can't watch most movie fight scenes without grimacing, or my wife can't watch people in movies try to play musical instruments ("Oh, for crying out loud, Rolf the Dog had better finger position than that!")...

 

[KenM]

I want to wait for the paperback. I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and asked if they knew when it would be in paperback, they said October 2005. They are going to milk the hardcover for all its worth.

 

[KChagga]

I found this book to be somewhat amusing. It definitely wasn't written well, but it still is a fun read. Not too bad for a weekend read.

 

[Mark Chance]

And lying to the reader is just lame.

Given that very nearly the entire book is a lie, it's just par for the course.

 

[nikolai]

I want to wait for the paperback. I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and asked if they knew when it would be in paperback, they said October 2005. They are going to milk the hardcover for all its worth.

I'm really shocked by this. The paperback is out in the UK, in spite of the book being released in the US first. They are obviously milking it for everything it is worth (which is probably quite a lot).

I was sorta bummed, actually. Lame characters, hamfisted plot. Lots of ideas -- I can see people getting all into that -- but man, the way he introduces them.

You're absolutely right. The writing and the dialogue is terrible. The characters are cardboard cut outs, and some of the plot twists just don't make sense. But... he has really found something in terms of the puzzles, the connections with real world architecture and artifacts, and how he plugs the history, science and myth into the story. The whole gnosticism "controversy" just adds to this. I wouldn't be seen dead in the "Spirituality" or "Conspiracy Theory" sections of a library, but in the context of fiction, it works.

It's all this that has made a bestseller out of a book, which has the enormous handicaps of being really, really, badly written and at times just daft. The really intriguing thing is just how fantastic a book with the same themes, but written by someone with some skill, could have been.