Renowned Author Dan Brown

[Bramblethorn]

I have no problem with criticism but it was the way he was trying to mock the writing style seemed a bit juvenile to me a little "look, look I can do it too". And don't forget one man's rubbish is another man's art that's the great world we live in, let's not forget 50 shades somehow took the world by storm not too long ago, if people are reading books surely its a good thing no matter what our opinions are on the material.

Not automatically, no. I'm a great fan of literacy but that doesn't mean all reading is good, and 50SoG is a case in point.

To be blunt, EL James knows bugger-all about BDSM and the misconceptions she propagates are actively harmful to those of us who practice BDSM in real life. I'm sure it's worked out well for her, but we have to share our world with people who've come away from 50Sog believing that BDSMers are reckless, abusive, damaged goods who can be 'cured' by the love of a good woman. And when I saw "harmful", I don't just mean hurt-feelings harmful, I mean lose-your-kids harmful.

I'm not completely supportive of the backlash against 50SoG, because I think some of the hostility is coming for the wrong reasons - a conservative horror at the idea of women reading and writing porn, but I don't see its success as a good thing.

Dan Brown is... maybe not as bad, in that regard. But to the extent that publishers choose to put their resources into promoting a cash-cow bestseller rather than looking for new talent, and bookshops with limited display space choose to reserve an entire stand for his latest, his success is not automatically a blessing for other authors.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Nah. Sorry, but that's too much like a cartoon dragon
(He gets quite upset about old Uncle Rheese being done to death by an 'artist').

I'm rather taken by this one.

although the whiskers are a touch excessive.

It seems to be a recent fad amongst dragons, to wear lots of horns along your jawline?

 

[Tyro999]

I've only ever read one page of renowned author Dan Brown's work, ...

Which puts you one page ahead of me, since I've never read anything he's written. Word of mouth from people I respect who have read something of his totally turned me off.

but I thought this piece might entertain Litsters.

However, reactions to your link to date {~7:00 PM EDT-US 5/12/13} [aside from the subthread straying into Panama] seem to suggest I might want to reconsider.

I do not and I will not. Sorry renowned author Dan Brown.

 

[jomar]

Funny article.

But the proof is in the pudding and the Renowned Author Dan Brown's books sell like hotcakes. So what if he's a beach book writer, his book are entertaining while also eye rolling at times. He's getting away with it.

I haven't read 50Sog so can't comment other than hearing complaints about bad writing...and the misrepresentation of BDSM as Bramblethorn notes.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

That's a very funny parody, but I don't remember those particular foibles in Brown's works. What I remember is formulaic plotting, badly researched history, and shocking reveals that I saw coming two hundred pages previously.

I suspect any author could be mocked in this way. Not necessarily with these issues, but their own. Mocking Hemingway is almost a cottage industry.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's a very funny parody, but I don't remember those particular foibles in Brown's works. What I remember is formulaic plotting, badly researched history, and shocking reveals that I saw coming two hundred pages previously.

FWIW, this deconstruction gives what is apparently a verbatim quote from the first few sentences of DVC:

"Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas."

So the parody seems accurate enough... but like you, I had bigger issues with DB's writing than the individual sentences. One of my pet peeves in fiction is the device whereby an author goes out of their way to establish a character as wise, with his wisdom recognised by others (renowned, even...) and then uses that character as a sockpuppet to deliver the author's own political/social/etc beliefs.

Basically, "argument by authority", except with a confected authority. The short excerpt of DB's that I read had somebody - probably Langdon - doing this with a lecture about how sex was fun and free and safe until the Catholic Church came along, which... ha ha, no. That stuff is a major turn-off for me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Which puts you one page ahead of me, since I've never read anything he's written. Word of mouth from people I respect who have read something of his totally turned me off.

However, reactions to your link to date {~7:00 PM EDT-US 5/12/13} [aside from the subthread straying into Panama] seem to suggest I might want to reconsider.

I do not and I will not. Sorry renowned author Dan Brown.

The piece I linked is not by Dan Brown, if that's any help.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

FWIW, gives what is apparently a verbatim quote from the first few sentences of DVC:

"Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas."

Oh that is what is being mocked. Yeah, I remember Brown relying on clumsy descriptions (Langdon pensively stroked the ruggedly handsome stubble on his face -- paraphrasing), but I read the parody as mocking the Homeric linking of an adjective to the name, not the clumsy description itself.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

A bit more on this, just because.

I frequently roll my eyes when critics and authors lay into a financially successful author, not because the criticisms are necessarily wrong, but because it shows too narrow an approach to the craft of writing. Brown violates everything that is taught in writing schools, yet he makes a mint while more technically talented writers languish. It's luck. It's unfair. Readers don't know what is good for them.

The success of people like Brown instead causes me to conclude that readers place a much higher value on the things Brown provides over the things most writers and critics value. What does Brown do well? I am not a big fan, but his books are page turners. While they may have lots of extraneous words they have few extraneous scenes. Everything moves the (formulaic) plot forward. Pacing is very tight. Conflict is clear, and there is a sense of urgency to resolving it. A ticking clock, or an assassin on the way. Readers learn (or think they learn) about something new and interesting, and it's all tied into the plot. Unless you have actually studied the noncanonical gospels, it's easy to read DVC and think you are smarter at the end. His heroes are likeable problem solvers who don't give up and come to rely on each other.

Readers seem to like all that. It makes them want to keep reading, and gets them emotionally invested in the climax of the book.

There is something useful to learn there about writing and what readers want. My biggest problem with a lot of modern literary fiction is that it focuses too much on voice, sentence structure, and originality (all of which are great, don't get me wrong) and not enough on the mechanics of story and pacing, resulting in too many expertly crafted books that are a chore to read. When readers stay away, or glom onto writers who are worse wordsmiths, but better storytellers, they blame the readers.

Again, I don't think Brown is all that good, but you can still learn a lot about writing from authors like him. It's one thing to deliberately choose not to make your book a page turner and be satisfied when readers don't bother to turn the pages, but it's another to not even know how to do it.

 

[PayDay]

He wasn't merely trying, he was very successfully mocking the man's writing style. Brown's style is juvenile. it's not art-- although some pages made me wonder if he wasn't actually doing it on purpose...

(I read about half the Da Vinci Code and then gave up and skimmed through the rest of it.)

From what I've read of Salinger it's juvenile as well, as am I ( ), but does that make any less relevant?

 

[NaokoSmith]

Again, I don't think Brown is all that good, but you can still learn a lot about writing from authors like him. It's one thing to deliberately choose not to make your book a page turner and be satisfied when readers don't bother to turn the pages, but it's another to not even know how to do it.

I think this is true, I also think there is another issue. Sometimes readers turn to airport novels because they're undemanding. I'm guilty myself of reading schmaltz fiction when I'm tired and going through a lot in my actual life - too much to want to go through fictional characters' amazing cathartic experiences. I don't pick up Hemingway or Harper Lee or Tolstoy because I'm emotionally fed up and don't want to make the effort demanded, even though their writing will be inspirational and lead me to great changes in my thinking and perhaps have helpful insight into the very problems making me so tired.

I wish it wasn't so, but there it is.

(And I will do my best with that dragon, but I think the horns might be hard to reproduce in a jewelled format on a hat that will not suffer if a cricket ball happens to whizz in close proximity to it.
)

 

[sr71plt]

Dan Brown (or, more likely his publisher) knows how to please a paying fan base. He--or someone else for him--has latched onto the type of "what really happened?" storyline that appeals to curious minds. Others have and are writing on the same topics with less success even if with better research and writing. He's combined the curiosity with a limited-attention-invested audience. There's infinite space in both of those areas, so those who resent him his success are just suffering from sour grapes. There's very little likelihood that if his publisher didn't take him up that they would have chosen any of us to fill that niche.

 

[Tyro999]

The piece I linked is not by Dan Brown, if that's any help.

I saw that. My reference "reactions to your link to date" was to those Dan Brown afficianados who rallied valiantly to their hero's cause.

[OTOH, I loved that Panama break in the middle. ]

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I've only ever read one page of renowned author Dan Brown's work, but I thought this piece might entertain Litsters.

(I read about half the Da Vinci Code and then gave up and skimmed through the rest of it.)

I don't know how you could possibly get that far through something so poorly written. I can't say that from and real experience, so maybe I should be more cautious in my statements, but even Bramblethorn has me beaten with his/her one page. I literally struggled and gave up, standing in the library, before reaching the end of the first page of DVC, and we're talking about the page with the giant 1 at the top and only a third of a page of actual written prose.

If he's always like that page indicated, anyone who wants to write but sucks still has hope.

Q_C

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't know how you could possibly get that far through something so poorly written. ...
Q_C

I was looking for sex scenes, obviously.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I was looking for sex scenes, obviously.

Former alterboy?

Q_C

 

[Stella_Omega]

Former alterboy?

Q_C

I don't even remember if there were any-- that's just my most common reason to keep reading.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I don't even remember if there were any-- that's just my most common reason to keep reading.

You do have to be careful looking for the naughty spots, Stella. In my field we used to write them in Latin so the hoi polloi wouldn't get aroused:

"She brought the younger brother to her lodge and laid him down between her daughters. He turned to the younger et sub vestum manum introduxit. Sed aliquid prehendare conatus est, and he pulled it back."

(R. H. Lowie, "The Tale of Two Chipewyan Boys")

 

[Stella_Omega]

You do have to be careful looking for the naughty spots, Stella. In my field we used to write them in Latin so the hoi polloi wouldn't get aroused:

"She brought the younger brother to her lodge and laid him down between her daughters. He turned to the younger et sub vestum manum introduxit. Sed aliquid prehendare conatus est, and he pulled it back."

(R. H. Lowie, "The Tale of Two Chipewyan Boys")

Oh believe me, my Latin Grammar book (found at a Good Will shop) was much dogeared back in the day...

ETA, seems to me Thomas Berger cribbed that scene. Or maybe, Dustin Hoffman did.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Oh believe me, my Latin Grammar book (found at a Good Will shop) was much dogeared back in the day...

ETA, seems to me Thomas Berger cribbed that scene. Or maybe, Dustin Hoffman did.

Yes, I recognized it too, but they didn't take it all the way. Neither sister had pussy: one had mice and the other weasels.

 

[PennLady]

I'm sure there are others, but here is the Washington Post's review of "Inferno."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Yes, I recognized it too, but they didn't take it all the way. Neither sister had pussy: one had mice and the other weasels.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Made my day, in fact.

As to the debate occurring over the value of commercial fiction as opposed to literary fiction, there are few stickier issues. I have long believed that formal education and professional experience in the field of writing may actually HURT someone in terms of being a successful author of monetarily viable work. Does that mean they are wrong to do so? Not necessarily.

Much like those who has studied the intricacies of the culinary arts, become chefs, a writer, under tutelage--whether it be institutionalize or at the foot of a personal master, living or enshrined in novel form-- will often become something of an artiste, if you will. Unfortunately, in the same manner that a culinary wizard begins to exist in a world of elitists, so too do schooled writers begin to live in a selective world. In a very real sense, many chefs cook for other chefs, and writers write for other writers. And for the same reason, because others lack the palate for such rich fare. The vast majority of the populace isn't looking for a chef, however. They want a cook. They want burgers and fries, not foie gras and caviar. Similarly, most readers don't want an author--someone who is pushing his art, playing with the language, searching for meaning or the absolute lack of it--they want a storyteller. This is simply the way of things. There will always be more McDonald's than there are five star restaurants, and not just because of the price.

Still, there is hope. Hemingway was the most popular and most widely respected author in the world when he decided to play hide the shotgun shell out in Idaho. J.R.R. Tolkien (along with a few less famous contemporaries) spawned an entire genre of remarkably less highbrow material than his own. It can be done. I just think it requires a lot of beards.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Much like those who has studied the intricacies of the culinary arts, become chefs, a writer, under tutelage--whether it be institutionalize or at the foot of a personal master, living or enshrined in novel form-- will often become something of an artiste, if you will. Unfortunately, in the same manner that a culinary wizard begins to exist in a world of elitists, so too do schooled writers begin to live in a selective world. In a very real sense, many chefs cook for other chefs, and writers write for other writers. And for the same reason, because others lack the palate for such rich fare. The vast majority of the populace isn't looking for a chef, however. They want a cook. They want burgers and fries, not foie gras and caviar. Similarly, most readers don't want an author--someone who is pushing his art, playing with the language, searching for meaning or the absolute lack of it--they want a storyteller. This is simply the way of things. There will always be more McDonald's than there are five star restaurants, and not just because of the price.

Still, there is hope. Hemingway was the most popular and most widely respected author in the world when he decided to play hide the shotgun shell out in Idaho. J.R.R. Tolkien (along with a few less famous contemporaries) spawned an entire genre of remarkably less highbrow material than his own. It can be done. I just think it requires a lot of beards.

You made me burn the toast for my wild garlic pestou I was reading so intently.

There is important meaning in popular work as well as in classical literature, as Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams (Welsh! lived up the road to me, btw) have demonstrated.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

You made me burn the toast for my wild garlic pestou I was reading so intently.

There is important meaning in popular work as well as in classical literature, as Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams (Welsh! lived up the road to me, btw) have demonstrated.

Oh, I agree completely. Relevance isn't an exclusive mistress. Nor do I think that popular fiction is any less valid. It just often has a different aim than literary fiction. And, honestly, neither side--for as much as literary authors bitch and moan about the hackishness of pulp writers--can successfully ape the other.