Blogcritics: Comments on The Da Vinci Phenomenon

Comment by ClubhouseCancer

Thu, 2 Dec 2004 16:28:24 EST

Yeah, Brown is an awful, awful writer. To call his dialogue "leaden" is to severely underestimate all the negative qualities associate with lead. I actually think he's strung together a silly but strangely intriguing plot, as long as you know absolutely nothing at all about art, religion, or history. But that prose. Ohhhh no.

Comment by scaramouche

Thu, 2 Dec 2004 16:16:05 EST

The Da Vinci Code was my book group's August selection and I must say I despised every minute of it. The characters were cartoonish (a masochistic albino religious zealot who also happens to be a hired killer? Puhleeze) the dialogue leaden, and the plot beyond implausible. I couldn't even enjoy it as a "guilty pleasure" becuase the prose was so execrable. I know it's supposed to be a page-turner, but I found it an absolutely excruciating read. I am baffled that others--including most of my book group--found it so enthralling. I figure it's one of those things you either do--or do not--get, like opera, country music and professional wrestling (none of which do it for me.) The only good thing that came from reading "The Code" was that I followed it up with Umberto Eco's novel, Foucault's Pendulam, a book with a similar theme. But that's all they have in common.Where Brown's book is unadulterated schlock, Eco's book is a revelation--quirky, witty, compelling, confusing, and in some parts, extremely disturbing. It is also written in Nobel Laureate-calibre prose.

Comment by Christian

Thu, 2 Dec 2004 11:33:01 EST

Biblical scholar Tim Callahan has written an excelent critique of the novel, titled "The Royal Myth of the Da Vinci Code". You may find it easily via a Google search or at skeptic.com

Comment by Music Gifts

Thu, 2 Dec 2004 11:25:45 EST

I started the book in August and havent finished it, in part because it became so predictable and mostly because it became more bland, the deeper I got....I almost feel like I don't need to finish it..What for? But I do have a problem with all the debunkers...Doesn't everyone know its all bullshit?

Comment by Aaman

Thu, 2 Dec 2004 00:28:30 EST

My only problem with Dan Brown is that all his novels and characters are cut from the same cloth, in different settings. The bestseller status of Da Vinci Code is purely because it taps into a latent strain of pre-millenarianism and covert knowledge that has circulated for a long time - for a far better read, ref Robert Anton Wilson's "Illuminatus"

Comment by Sean Hackbarth

Wed, 1 Dec 2004 23:14:57 EST

But wait until Brown's next book comes out. I believe it's next Spring. Then Brown-mania will start up again.

Comment by ssshanest

Wed, 1 Dec 2004 21:25:02 EST

I agree with everything Michele said. I can't believe that I still see TDC on the front stands of Borders and Barnes and Nobles as well as shelves of books about it. It's almost amusing, how much has been written about TDC. After the TDC faze blazed through my town, there was also an Angels and Demons as well as a Digital Fortress craze. Luckily, those seem to have died down and Dan Brown's heading to the backburner. It's about time too.