In my relentless pursuit to stay three years behind everyone else on any matter related to popular culture, I am currently reading The Da Vinci Code. No, I didn’t buy it. My sister lent me her copy, and she paid only $4.99 for the paperback at CostCo. Quote It was on sale! unquote.
I’m on page 210. For those in the know, Langdon and the plucky French girl, whose name I can’t retain so I’ll call her Audrey Tatou, are escaping from the anonymous Zurich money-laundering and stolen-swag-hiding bank in the Brinks type truck being driven by the disguised bank manager with his Rolex. Meanwhile…I, the reader, am having tremendous difficulty suspending my disbelief. Which leads me to digress…
I’d like to open an account in a Swiss bank, just to have a safety deposit box with a fancy key and to have to go to the depths of some swanky fortress of a building to double-check the expiration date on my $2,000 fortune (plus interest at 1.75%) in Canada Savings Bonds.
Anyway, I will plough through this book even though I had severe doubts in the first 20 pages that I could continue because I found the writing so poor. I have no idea how to write a mystery thriller, but while reading the first chapter or two, I found myself thinking, if I, the non-thriller writer were to attempt to write a mystery thriller, it would be as bad as this. Some of the set-up stuff and a few sentences in particular struck me as, to employ an oft-used literary criticism term: howlers.
From page 4: "The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for the glint in his ghostly eyes." I could’ve written that, and in fact I may have done so in Grade 10.
Page 6: "A collection of the world’s most famous paintings seemed to smile down on him like old friends." Oh please.
And I won’t even get into this albino monk and his back story. Jeesh!
But the book picks up a bit around page 50, so I’ll keep reading ‘cause I like a good conspiracy and evil Catholics as much as anybody.
Another gripe, is there such a thing as product placement in a novel? If so, SmartCar paid big money to be in this book.
On the plus side, the travelogue aspect is quite good. It makes me really want to go back to the Louvre, and to completely avoid the Bois-de-Boulogne.
I wonder what the French translation does with the fact that one of the clues is an anagram of "The Mona Lisa" while in French the painting is known as "La Joconde". There's not much letter scrambling to be done there. Well I guess there isn't much in English either, come to think of it.
5 comments:
Now, I won't get into the silly "books are better than movie" arguement (except in the case of FIGHT CLUB where the movie is waaaaaay better for obvious reasons), but you have made me even more grateful that I have not yet seen amelie and tom hank's lanky hair-do in grand-gnostic- louvre-action, and that I will have to patiently await their appearance on the movie channel sometime in the future, allowing me to vacantly fold laundry as I watch.
And while we are counting our blessings, I am grateful once again to have avoided the book all this time.
As for Mlle. Joconde, perhaps M. Brown does not know Mona by her French name despite the fact that she lives on a wall in Paris.
Oh, and more book reviews please.
Neo-coal DJ
Joel can do
O.J. Lead Con
Ah, the joys of anagrams.
Note: If you hate this book, don't even attempt to read Angels and Demons. I could at least read Da Vinci...but Angels and Demons made me want to throttle every person on the bus I saw reading the book. Unless you want to read page after page after page after page of R.L. running around town finding murdered priests and bishops in an attempt to stop world destruction via anti-matter, then by all means, go ahead. (NB: Both books were lent to me. As you know, I save my hard-earned cash for Jackie Collins)
signed,
A Jo Anne Worley fan
note to rattansifan: gabriel byrne helps everything
Trust me, I had not made any plans to read the whole Dan Brown oeuvre.
Also, apparently, Gabriel Bryne is a cure for what ails many of us.
Ms Mushrooms, didja see that there's a new movie coming out starring your man Handsome Rob? When did he become a star?
new movie w/handsome rob???
ahhhhhhhh
Post a Comment