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Dan Brown: Moonlighting tour guide?
Sep. 23rd, 2010 06:32 pmSo, at work, we have a few ebooks. Normally, reading ebooks (or fanfic) gives me a headache, probably because of the lighting, but in 1-3 minute increments, I'm fine. This is how I ended up reading both the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series. (Like the former a lot, didn't care for the latter.) I would have taken the Twilight plunge, but we have books 2-4, but not book one. So today, I attempted to read Dan Brown's The Last Symbol. Or The Lost Symbol. Err...whichever it is.
I see those eyebrows, and would like to say that it is amazing the things you will do for entertainment when your other option is finger twiddling.
So, anyway, as near as I can tell Dan Brown is the most tedious writer ever. Like, seriously, I had to literally force myself to read more? And he horrendously abuses italics. Like, you know how I abuse parentheses? Multiply it by, like, 50. And then there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. He also had this really weird comment about trans people (I can't remember it exactly, but I think it was to the effect that transgendered people and people with bulimia are only trying to prove they control their bodies, and compared it to being like getting a tattoo.) that I kept having to reread. Anyway, terribly boring, IMO, and what I saw of the plot didn't help. Like, I thought Rowling's writing was really bad and didn't care much for her characterization and thought the plot was boring, but at least there were tropes and themes I could analyze as I read (I did like Hogwarts and some-mostly supporting-characters) but this was just...meh all around.
However! I swear, every third sentence was some sort of trivia infodump, to the point where there was more of that in the first 4-5 chapters than anything else. It was almost like he took a trivia-filled tourist guidebook for the Capitol and randomly inserted bits of prose and dialogue, and then decided to add in Obscure Random Fact just to show off. Like, I feel I can no longer criticize Diana Gabaldon for this? Because I read Outlander years again and have never ever wanted to revisit or read the future books, but I remember thinking that it was like she wanted to write a non-fiction history book but was told fiction sold better, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't this bad.
Also, I'm not sure Brown thinks his readers are smart enough to remember his main character's name because "Langdon" is permanently burned into my brain after only a few chapters. Or he may just be allergic to pronouns.
I may take the plunge for 2-4 of Twilight. While I'm pretty much guaranteed to hate them, we at least get back to things I can analyze.
I see those eyebrows, and would like to say that it is amazing the things you will do for entertainment when your other option is finger twiddling.
So, anyway, as near as I can tell Dan Brown is the most tedious writer ever. Like, seriously, I had to literally force myself to read more? And he horrendously abuses italics. Like, you know how I abuse parentheses? Multiply it by, like, 50. And then there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. He also had this really weird comment about trans people (I can't remember it exactly, but I think it was to the effect that transgendered people and people with bulimia are only trying to prove they control their bodies, and compared it to being like getting a tattoo.) that I kept having to reread. Anyway, terribly boring, IMO, and what I saw of the plot didn't help. Like, I thought Rowling's writing was really bad and didn't care much for her characterization and thought the plot was boring, but at least there were tropes and themes I could analyze as I read (I did like Hogwarts and some-mostly supporting-characters) but this was just...meh all around.
However! I swear, every third sentence was some sort of trivia infodump, to the point where there was more of that in the first 4-5 chapters than anything else. It was almost like he took a trivia-filled tourist guidebook for the Capitol and randomly inserted bits of prose and dialogue, and then decided to add in Obscure Random Fact just to show off. Like, I feel I can no longer criticize Diana Gabaldon for this? Because I read Outlander years again and have never ever wanted to revisit or read the future books, but I remember thinking that it was like she wanted to write a non-fiction history book but was told fiction sold better, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't this bad.
Also, I'm not sure Brown thinks his readers are smart enough to remember his main character's name because "Langdon" is permanently burned into my brain after only a few chapters. Or he may just be allergic to pronouns.
I may take the plunge for 2-4 of Twilight. While I'm pretty much guaranteed to hate them, we at least get back to things I can analyze.
