Critique Dan Brown

[Rumple Foreskin]

Greetings,

There are many different opinions of author Dan Da Vinci Code Brown. Mine, for instance, run the gamut from envy at his success to boredom with his writing. Being of unsound mind, (don't even ask about the body) I decided to whip out a brief critique of a 600 word passage from his other book, Angles and Demons.

Afterward, I said to myself, “Self, this is fun. Don’t be greedy. Share it with all the other folks at the SDC.” After checking with “He who must be obeyed” our beloved moderator, Pure, I got the green light. Now here is your chance to critique 600 words of peerless prose by the mega-success Dan Brown.

Enjoy.

Rumple Foreskin

"That's totally incongruous!" a female student in the front had blurted when Langdon explained the reason for east-facing tombs. "Why would Christians want their tombs to face the rising sun? We're talking about Christianity... not sun worship!"

Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. "Mr. Hitzrot!" he shouted.

A young man dozing in back sat up with a start. "What! Me?"

Langdon pointed to a Renaissance art poster on the wall. "Who is the man kneeling before God?"

"Um... some saint?"

"Brilliant. And how do you know he's a saint?"

"He's got a halo?"

"Excellent, and does that golden halo remind you of anything?"

Hitzrot broke into a smile. "Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those... um... sun disks!"

"Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep." Langdon turned back to the class. "Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship."

"Excuse me?" the girl in the front said. "I go to church all the time, and I don't see much sun worshipping going on!"

"Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty-fifth?"

"Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ."

"And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?"

Silence.

Langdon smiled. "December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus--Unconquered Sun--coinciding with the winter solstice. It's that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer."

Langdon took another bite of apple.

"Conquering religions," he continued, "often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It's called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology... and they simply substitute a different god."

Now the girl in front looked furious. "You're implying Christianity is just some kind of ... repackaged sun worship!"

"Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient 'god-making' rite of Euhemerus. The practice of 'god-eating'--that is, Holy Communion--was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl."

The girl glared. "So, is anything in Christianity original?"

"Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage... an assimilated historical record of a man's quest to understand the divine."

"Um... hold on," Hitzrot ventured, sound awake now. "I know something Christian that's original. How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec, or as anything weird. It always shows God as an old man with a white beard. So our image of God is original, right?"

Langdon smiled. "When the early Christian converts abandoned their former deities--pagan gods, Roman gods, Greek, sun, Mithraic, whatever--they asked the church what their new Christian God looked like. Wisely, the church chose the most feared, powerful... and familiar face in all of recorded history."

Hitzrot looked skeptical. "An old man with a white, flowing beard?"

Langdon pointed to a hierarchy of ancient gods on the wall. At the top sat an old man with a white, flowing beard. "Does Zeus look familiar?"

The class ended right on cue.

(Dan Brown, 2003, pp 257)

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Greetings,

In this critique, I stick mainly to mechanics, with only a brief mention of content and dialogue. Word's grammar and style checker said it was five percent passive, which is a lot for a dialogue-heavy scene. The ease of reading was 66.1 which is low, and the grade level, based primarily on sentence length was, for fiction, a very high, 6.5.

It’s worth noting that Brown mis-used ellipses nine times. (They signify omissions in a quote, not a pause. That’s what comma, dashes, and semi-colons are for.) This might support the contention of many, including me, that while it’s good to be right, it’s even better to be consistent; because he consistently mis-used them the same way.

Brown's most grievous offense, in my opinion, was inflicting eight exclamation marks upon readers during a short (595 word) passage. In two cases the use is redundant (one tag says, “a female…blurted” another, “he shouted.”) and, IMHO, the six others weren’t needed.

Now for a little line-by-line work.

==

"That's totally incongruous!" a female student in the front had blurted when(AFTER?) Langdon explained the reason for east-facing tombs. "Why would Christians want their tombs to face the rising sun? We're talking about Christianity... (THE FIRST OF NINE MIS-USED ELLIPSES) not sun worship!" (TWO EXCLAMATION MARKS IN ONE SENTENCE.)

Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. (HE HAS NO TROUBLE SHOUTING WITH A MOUTH FULL OF APPLE?) "Mr. Hitzrot!" he shouted. (DOESN’T NEED BOTH AN EXCLAMATION MARK AND A TAG SAYING, “HE SHOUTED.”)

A young man dozing in back sat up with a start. "What! Me?" (WE’RE NOW UP TO FOUR EXCLAMATION MARKS IN A CLASSROOM SETTING.)

--

Hitzrot broke into a smile. "Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those... um... sun disks!" (TWO MORE EXCLAMATION MARKS. WE’RE NOW UP TO SIX)

"Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep." Langdon turned back to the class. "Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship."

"Excuse me?" the girl in the front said. "I go to church all the time, and I don't see much sun worshipping going on!" (SEVEN EXCLAMATION MARKS)

"Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty-fifth?"

"Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ."

"And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?"

Silence.

Langdon smiled. "December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus--Unconquered Sun--coinciding with the winter solstice. It's that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer."

Langdon took another bite of apple.

"Conquering religions," he continued, (HE DOES LIKE TO TALK WITH HIS MOUTH FULL.) "often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It's called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology... and they simply substitute a different god."

Now the girl in front looked furious. "You're implying Christianity is just some kind of ... repackaged sun worship!" (EIGHT EXCLAMATION MARKS)

--

Now a couple thoughts about content and dialogue.

"Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient 'god-making' rite of Euhemerus. The practice of 'god-eating'--that is, Holy Communion--was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl."

RF: The practice of 'god-eating'--that is, Holy Communion--was borrowed from the Aztecs. The scholarly question, and this IS supposed to be a classroom, would seem to be, "Says who?" According to Langdon/Brown, the practice of Holy Communion began only after the Christian and Aztec civilizations collided around 1500. Both are wrong.

RF: If the em dashes were removed, that paragraph would, IMHO, read like a research paper. Word said it was 40% passive.

==

So what do the rest of you think?

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Black Tulip]

This looks like total fun. I'll try to find some time this week.

 

[Penelope Street]

It's a believable enough classroom scene, but I wouldn't rate it anything special. The content is hardly original, but that only adds to the realism of a classroom setting, no?

I did have a bit of a hard time imagining that only two students would speak from an entire class on such a topic, but if the purpose of the scene is to develop those two characters then I'd say it was a good choice to sacrifice a little realism.

Now about those characters:

The teacher comes across as a smug know-it-all, typical academic pinhead. Scores extra pinhead points by addressing the male student by surname, but declining to use the female's name at all. Scores smug points for choosing an apple as a prop.

The unamed girl's use of the term totally incrongruous made me think she wants to appear to be intelligent by using big words. Her original passion is, I think, well done, but later, she gives in a bit easily given the apparent strength of her convictions, adding to the impression that she's not too bright.

Hitzrot, well, I don't know about him. He's sleeping and this little conversation stirs him? If he's not passionate enough to stay awake, why is he passionate enough to offer an opinion? He's not upset about the teacher telling him to go back to sleep? Of course, if he's a young man, he should be impossible to figure out, so maybe this is perfect.

Some nits:
Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. "Mr. Hitzrot!" he shouted.
Extraneous tag.

Now the girl in front looked furious.
What is furious about her look? I'd like to see it.

"I know something Christian that's original. How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec, or as anything weird. It always shows God as an old man with a white beard. So our image of God is original, right?
The entire utterance feels contrived. Of all the things to pick from Christianity as original, why would anyone select God's image? I mean, if Christians pictured their deity as a platypus- that would be original.

To say how effective the scene is I'd need to understand the purpose of the piece within the larger story. As a set up for Hitzrot to get a cheap blowjob from the disillusioned and still nameless female student, I think it could work- but he should have jumped to her defense a little sooner and with totally more vigor if that was his goal.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[sweetnpetite]

Greetings,

It’s worth noting that Brown mis-used ellipses nine times. (They signify omissions in a quote, not a pause. That’s what comma, dashes, and semi-colons are for.) This might support the contention of many, including me, that while it’s good to be right, it’s even better to be consistent; because he consistently mis-used them the same way.

Rumple Foreskin

I always thought it was proper to use elipses to signify a trailing off of a sentence before it's completion (differnt from a pause) and a dash to me seems sudden- like you're interupting yourself, not like a pause. To me, I have to say the elipses 'felt' exactly right. They give me the impression of someone trailing off, thinking outloud rather than someone just stopping and starting. Are you sure there isn't more than one valid use for an elipse? (also, you can't just put a semicolon or comma anywhere that you want to note a pause. I always thought elipses where more *flexible* punctuation. Was I wrong? I just don't think that the section would read the same with dashes instead.

 

[sweetnpetite]

found this from webster as well:

The ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in the flow of a sentence and is especially useful in quoted speech:

Juan thought and thought … and then thought some more.
"I'm wondering …" Juan said, bemused.

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/ellipsis.htm

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

found this from webster as well:

The ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in the flow of a sentence and is especially useful in quoted speech:

Juan thought and thought … and then thought some more.
"I'm wondering …" Juan said, bemused.

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/ellipsis.htm

Webster's is wrong. If their definition were standard, how could readers know if an ellipsis was being used to indicate a pause or that something is missing?

The Chicago Manual of Style says the little three dot devils are to indicate omissions in quotes. The second example, "I'm wondering..." Juan said, bemused." is fine. It lets readers know Juan's words are trailing off and that the quote is an incomplete sentence because he stopped in the middle.

The first example "thought and thought...and then thought" is a bad one. The reader must guess if there are omitted words or that's a pause.

HOWEVER, while being right is nice, it's even more important, IMHO, to be consistent. And Brown is consistent in his mis-use of that most mis-used of punctuation marks, a mis-use that agents, editors and publishers all let slide.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Boxlicker101]

Greetings,

There are many different opinions of author Dan Da Vinci Code Brown. Mine, for instance, run the gamut from envy at his success to boredom with his writing. Being of unsound mind, (don't even ask about the body) I decided to whip out a brief critique of a 600 word passage from his other book, Angles and Demons.

Afterward, I said to myself, “Self, this is fun. Don’t be greedy. Share it with all the other folks at the SDC.” After checking with “He who must be obeyed” our beloved moderator, Pure, I got the green light. Now here is your chance to critique 600 words of peerless prose by the mega-success Dan Brown.

Enjoy.

Rumple Foreskin

Hi, Rumps.
I will get into this when I have more time but for now, I will just point out your interesting spelling of the name of the book "Angels and Demons".

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Hi, Rumps.
I will get into this when I have more time but for now, I will just point out your interesting spelling of the name of the book "Angles and Demons".

I'd like to claim that was a clever play on words. But truth be told it was only another example of, "Oops."

Rumple "uh oh" Foreskin

 

[Penelope Street]

Webster's is wrong. If their definition were standard, how could readers know if an ellipsis was being used to indicate a pause or that something is missing?

The Chicago Manual of Style says the little three dot devils are to indicate omissions in quotes.

I am unsure what makes the Chicago Manual more credible than Webster's or any other alleged authority. Considering how often I see ellipses used in this fashion, I wonder if this is a case where our language is changing; I've heard they do that on occasion. I don't have any personal problems determining, based on context, whether the author intends an omission or a pause.

That said, I think ellipses are best avoided as devices for indicating a pause. If the pause is too long to justify the use of other punctuation, then why not show the reader what happens during the pause?

Regardless of the validity of ellipses as devices of pause within dialogue, I agree that consistency within a work is more important than adhering to any particular set of rules.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Boxlicker101]

Webster's is wrong. If their definition were standard, how could readers know if an ellipsis was being used to indicate a pause or that something is missing?

The Chicago Manual of Style says the little three dot devils are to indicate omissions in quotes. The second example, "I'm wondering..." Juan said, bemused." is fine. It lets readers know Juan's words are trailing off and that the quote is an incomplete sentence because he stopped in the middle.

The first example "thought and thought...and then thought" is a bad one. The reader must guess if there are omitted words or that's a pause.

HOWEVER, while being right is nice, it's even more important, IMHO, to be consistent. And Brown is consistent in his mis-use of that most mis-used of punctuation marks, a mis-use that agents, editors and publishers all let slide.

Rumple Foreskin

Probably through context, the same way we know what a . is. It can mean the end of a sentence, an abbreviation or a decimal point.

After looking the excerpt over, I'm not sure what to do about it. I agree with what you said about the exclamation marks and the tags and there isn't a lot more to be said. I am not going to say anything about grammar or factual content because this is dialogue and dialogue is never wrong although I think it doesn't ring completely right.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Penny,

IMHO, the only unbreaking rule in writing successful commercial fiction is: Don't bore the reader.

In this age of post-modernism, virtually anything can be found, or not found, in a novel (no commas or quotation marks, odd fonts, etc.)

The CMS is the current "bible" because that's supposed to be the favorite in the publishing industry. My preference is Strunk & White while the AP Manual is the choice of newpapers and related publications. Whatever a writer uses, IMHO, it's more important to be consistent than stylebook correct.

The problem with using ellipses to indicate pauses is what do you use to indicate an omission in a quote, for instance when a character's words trail off? Some use dashes, but they indicate sudden breaks or interuptions. It's similar to the problem folks run into if they use quotation marks to indicate thoughts. How do they then indicate the person is speaking, and not thinking?

It's all about communicating to the reader. Whatever stylebook he uses or abuses, Brown's track record proves he knows how to do that.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't care much about Dan Brown's use of ellipses, or even exclamation marks. Hell, I like comic books and all they use is exclamation marks.

But--and this is just my opinion--there's something essentially juvenile in the way he does fiction. His books remind me of the old Hardy Boys mysteries.

For one thing, his hero in A&D seems identical to his hero in DC. [EDITED TO ADD: What? Oh it is the same guy? Oh. Well, that would explain the similarity then, wouldn't it? Never mind this part then.] I forget that guy's name in DC, but he too was a virile and athletic middle-aged academic in the humanities, a popular and dashing campus figure beset by co-eds, way too perfect to be interesting, and smacking of wish-fulfillment, like the 6'2" not-an -ounce-of-fat-on-him stock Lit male lead.

Okay, so Brown isn't writing character-driven fiction. No crime. But then he has a bunch of information he wants to present to us, and so he chooses the old chestnut of the Classroom Wizard scene where the professor hold his class spellbound not only with his erudition, but with his earthy "with-it" humor as well. Plus he has him eating an apple, like a ventriloquist works his dummy while drinking a glass of water.

This is about as hackneyed as the mirror scene in porn. There are many other ways of presenting information (Vardis Fisher does a much better job of providing similar material in his "Testament of Man" series. Highly recommended if you can find them.), but they're harder to do. Brown goes for the low road, the easy way out: the cliche, the stock scene..

The other thing is that his information is just so slipshod and goofy. As Rumple pointed out, the Aztecs couldn't have influenced the Christian mass, and theophagy (the ritual eating of God, for those of you keeping score) goes back to at least the time of Dionysos and probably much further. Why isn't Prof. Langdon hip to that? And why does he look to the Aztecs again for the idea of the dying God/King who takes on his head the sins of his people? This idea goes back to Sumeria, which is about as far back as you can go, and has ben traced by Frazier up through Tammuz and Knossos and the Green King. Every farming culture has resurrection myths. They go with the cycle of nature.

The other thing is that Brown seems to have a very simple-minded and sophomoric idea of what symbolism is and how it works. He seems to think that one thing "means" another, always and invariably. Didn't he ever hear that church doors in Europe face the east because that's where the Light Of The World (i.e. Jesus) came from?

The connection between Christianity and solar worship is well known and there's nothing new here or even very interesting (I'm surprised he missed the Sun-day sabbath connection of Christians, That's usually one of the first correlations they point out in this kind of thing.)

And then to say that the Zeus is "the most feared, powerful... and familiar face in all of recorded history" is just downright silly and slef-indulgently melodramatic. I suppose the Z man was impressive if you were Greek, but, unlike God, Zeus didn't have white hair. He's reaching and missing.

It's just mediocre, sloppy, and unimaginative. Brown seems to be the champion of mediocrity in so many ways. That's why I don't like him.

P.S. I don't know why, but reading this I kept on thinking of James Joyce's story "The Dead", which has nothing whatsoever to do with Dan Brown other than to be his total opposite in the way he uses fiction and the effect he's trying to achieve. Dan Brown's not James Joyce and I doubt very much that he wants to be, but still.

If you've never read "The Dead", it would be worth your while.

 

[Penelope Street]

I confess didn't know the name Dan Brown when I awoke this morning. So what is its purpose of this scene? Having no clue regarding the rest of the story, but I assumed this was some sort of character development. I take it the scene is really meant to convey some information, information that's largely inaccurate?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I confess didn't know the name Dan Brown when I awoke this morning. So what is its purpose of this scene? Having no clue regarding the rest of the story, but I assumed this was some sort of character development. I take it the scene is really meant to convey some information, information that's largely inaccurate?

Penelope,

You are probably in a very small minority of writers who are unfamilar with Dan Brown. It might not be a bad idea to expose yourself to some of his work; if not to focus on his writing skills, but to try and figure out the real secret code, how he cranked out a bestseller.

His The Da Vinci Code is a mega-bestseller that has spawned TV specials, magazine covers, and will soon be a big movie with Tom Hanks in the lead. Many folks at Lit loved both the "Code" plus Angels and Demons, which came first. For what it's worth, I'm convinced the story, not the writing, is the key to Brown's success.

I've only read the "Code" so must guess that conveying Brown's unique and subjective interpretation of history was the primary goal. If the page number is right, it occurs toward the middle of the story.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Black Tulip]

Rumple,

This is a fun idea. I liked doing this.

First of all though, I have not yet read the Da Vinci Code. I'm saving it for summer break, when I truly have the time to indulge in reading for fun. So, I have no clue about mr. Brown's talents.
Nobody ever heard of him before that, not in the Netherlands anyway.

As usual I made notes while reading and I will post them before looking at the other comments.

Langdon smiled, pacing before the blackboard, chewing an apple. "Mr. Hitzrot!" he shouted.

How do you shout and chew an apple at the same time? Glad I was not sitting in the front row there.
Further along in this passage, he takes another bite and speaks at the same time. It has me wondering if the apple is significant in some way? Is he using it as a subtle reference to the downfall from paradise? Or am I being too clever here?
There were some references to the Catholic faith but I let them slide past. I'm not familiar with the practices there.

Langdon smiled. "December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus--Unconquered Sun--coinciding with the winter solstice.

Maybe I have a wrong understanding of the word pagan, but to me that spells older than the Roman civilization, so the use of Latin feels not right. In fact it irritates me.
What's more, I always heard it was celebrating the return of the sun, because the ancients didn't know the varying length of the days was part of a cycle that was eternal. The cycle yes, the eternal part no.

Worshipers

I found a typo!

"Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship.

I find this a very awkward sentence. It feels as if the word 'only' should be somewhere else.
... did not only borrow from ... or
... did not borrow from sun worship only ... but better yet
... dit not borrow from sun worship alone ...


On the whole it was a pleasant read. The reference to Zeus was a nice ending of the class but as a teacher I do have some serious reservations.

Eating an apple while giving a lecture??? Or is that normal behavior in the US?
Having food in a classroom is an absolute nono in my country. You can cheat with coffee or water, depending on the kind of students but not with eating. It's just not done.

Only one student in the front who reacts? And one sleepy but clever student in the back who wakes up for a reason not further explained?
No other students are present, not even by providing background noises, getting bored with the fanatic in the front, snickering at the sleepy guy.
I must say, I'm very glad there is more interaction in my classroom.

Ok, in all honesty, if I had been reading for fun I would probably not have noticed all of this, but it does make for a feeling of disappointment. Is this supposed to be THE writer at the moment? It's pleasant, but this piece at least is not very outstanding to me.



I hope it's not one of you in disguise. LOL

Edited:
I was afraid I would come across as a total arrogant ass, but at least I'm in good company. LOL
Glad to see Doc stumbled across the apple too. And the shitty information.
I have to say OUCH to Penny's assessment of classes though.

 

[Penelope Street]

I have to say OUCH to Penny's assessment of classes though.

I'm unsure what I said that warrants an OUCH. Do tell?

 

[Black Tulip]

I'm unsure what I said that warrants an OUCH. Do tell?

LOL No serious damage done.

It's a believable enough classroom scene, but I wouldn't rate it anything special. The content is hardly original, but that only adds to the realism of a classroom setting, no?

I am a teacher. ROFLMAO

 

[Penelope Street]

I am a teacher. ROFLMAO

So am I to understand you didn't take academic pinhead to be a term of enderment?

 

[sweetnpetite]

.

Okay, so Brown isn't writing character-driven fiction. No crime. But then he has a bunch of information he wants to present to us, and so he chooses the old chestnut of the Classroom Wizard scene where the professor hold his class spellbound not only with his erudition, but with his earthy "with-it" humor as well. Plus he has him eating an apple, like a ventriloquist works his dummy while drinking a glass of water.

This is about as hackneyed as the mirror scene in porn. There are many other ways of presenting information (Vardis Fisher does a much better job of providing similar material in his "Testament of Man" series. Highly recommended if you can find them.), but they're harder to do. Brown goes for the low road, the easy way out: the cliche, the stock scene..

While this is probably not the *best* scene in the book, I certainly don't understand the critisim of the "Classroom Wizard scene"- Langdon is a college professor, you would expect a scene of him teaching right? And he's supposed to be an expert in his field, so why wouldn't he be a 'wizard'?

I agree about the Aztecs, that doesn't make *any* sence. Especially when there are so many -better- examples right 'close to home' on this topic. I'd also like to defend his 'fudging on the facts' and making symbols mean only one thing- while I did also find that rather annoying, I could see the reason behind it. He is taking some creative liscence and creating an alternate universe were his chosen conspiracy *is true*- in order to do that he must make some things which are mearly 'one way of thinking' into fact. As far as the symbolism goes, it's a matter of the author choosing what details to show and which to ignore. Plus, he'd never solve the mystery if he had to consider every possible interpretation of every symbol. (Also, I think somewhere in the begining langdon makes some type of 'disclaimer remark' about symbols having different meanings.)

Yes, Langdon is something of a know it all and a bit smug. But wouldn't you expect that from a college proffesor, maybe even forgive it? Langdon is obviously modeled after Indiana Jones. A fact that I picked up on early and also enjoyed (being an IJ fan). The parallel's to the Indiana Jones character may seem to be a rip off, but I think it also serves as a bit of forshadowing.

When I read the book, I thought the writing was supurb, but maybe that was just because it carried me away. I think he is good, even if he's not Great, I still think he's great with a lowercase g. Yeah, I'm the big defender of Dan Brown around here If someone said "Sweet writes just like Dan Brown" I would take that as a great compliment.

I only add these thoughts because I believe that a critique had room for both positive and negative comments, not to tell anyone that they don't have a right to feel differently than I do

But I adore Dan Brown and his books

 

[Penelope Street]

If someone said "Sweet writes just like Dan Brown" I would take that as a great compliment.

Hi Amy,

I can't say you write like Dan, but I can say that given a choice between reading your novel and his, I'd choose yours.

So Langdon is the hero of the story? Interesting. When I labeled him a smug know-it-all, I was trying for some humor, but I was serious too. Gosh, I hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings, but I think he's quite a jerk. Originally, I thought his characterization to be a strong point of the scene; however coming in the middle of the story like it apparently does, I must now assume his character was developed long before and that wasn't at all the purpose of the scene. Correct?

Interesting take on Langdon and Indiana Jones. I didn't pick up on any parallels beyond them both being middle-aged professors. I only remember one classroom scene in an Indiana Jones movie. From my recollection, Indiana was ill at ease in front of the class, hardly my idea of smug. I can see Dr. Jones maybe joking, but picking on a student like Langdon does Hitzrot? Did he ever do something like that? What's with the name Hitzrot anyway? Should I conclude because he has a name he appears elsewhere in the story?

Even though I kidded about pinheads and blowjobs, I did mention I found the scene believable enough, but that I could not understand its purpose taken out of context. Is it really known as "The Classroom Wizard" scene? If so, why?

In spite of my partial disagreement regarding the character of Langdon, I'm happy to hear from a fan of the author. Makes the discussion so much more interesting.

Take Care,
Penny

P.S.
Rumple,
Is it within the spirit of the discussion to ask Amy for a scene from the book that better exemplifies the author's talents or shall we confine ourselves to just this segment?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

P.S.
Rumple,
Is it within the spirit of the discussion to ask Amy for a scene from the book that better exemplifies the author's talents or shall we confine ourselves to just this segment?

IMHO, not only yes, but, hell yes. Amy's in the vast majority when it comes to enjoying Brown's work. What I'd like to figure out is if there's anything about his writing that added to his success or was it just catching the public's fancy with a strong, controversial story line?

So fire away, Amy, if you feel so inclined.

Rumple Forskin

 

[Black Tulip]

So am I to understand you didn't take academic pinhead to be a term of enderment?

I feel no kinship whatsoever with academics, so go right ahead. LOL

[soapbox]
I was only reacting to your assessment that a classroom is usually devoid of interesting, new things. That just hit a nerve, because I strongly belief that you need to have fun in order to learn. Learning is all about new things, or old things in a new perspective or finally understanding or mastering something, which should give you new confidence...
[/soapbox]



Sweet,

I did not mention anything positive because I thought the millions of readers worldwide would be enough. No need for me to add to that.

I would love to look at another piece, picked by you as an example of his talent.

 

[Penelope Street]

I was only reacting to your assessment that a classroom is usually devoid of interesting, new things. That just hit a nerve, because I strongly belief that you need to have fun in order to learn. Learning is all about new things, or old things in a new perspective or finally understanding or mastering something, which should give you new confidence...

Are you sure that trailing punctuation is the proper use of an ellipse?

I share your beliefs regarding what a classroom should be and extend my kudos to the teachers who make it so.

 

[Black Tulip]

LOL