I just searched through a pdf of The Da Vinci Code, and there were 53 instances of 'enormous'. That's about once every seven pages. Not sure that 'grand' should count, since most of them are in the squillion mentions of the Grand Gallery.
Maybe since I have this pdf I should give it a read, give my high and mighty scoffing some justification.
― Akon/Family (Merdeyeux), Monday, 14 September 2009 20:29 (fourteen years ago) link
It's a decent story! Angels and Demons is better, though.
― so says i tranny ben franklin (HI DERE), Monday, 14 September 2009 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
I just searched through a pdf of The Da Vinci Code, and there were 53 instances of 'enormous'. That's about once every seven pages.Still probably less frequent than the phrase "Every so often" appeared in "2666".
― Øystein, Monday, 14 September 2009 20:46 (fourteen years ago) link
It's a brilliant story, whatever its flaws. Teachers should use it as the clearest demonstration that good plotting, good style and good writing are not the same thing, but I bet they don't.
― Ismael Klata, Monday, 14 September 2009 20:53 (fourteen years ago) link
it's really not a "good story" in any way
merdeyeux can you check if any of the uses of 'female' are as a noun?
― thomp, Monday, 14 September 2009 21:17 (fourteen years ago) link
quite a few, yeah, although there are a couple more 'female's than there are 'enormous'es, so maybe that's been taken into account.
― Akon/Family (Merdeyeux), Monday, 14 September 2009 21:47 (fourteen years ago) link
78 instances of 'dark' or 'darkness, btw, more than once every five pages. Flicking through all of that male and female harmony hokum makes me kinda want to read it now, for some reason.
― Akon/Family (Merdeyeux), Monday, 14 September 2009 21:55 (fourteen years ago) link
i haven't read these and I'm not gonna act like I'm better than them or something but some girl I worked with once was shocked that I hadn't when I told her I had written my thesis for art-school on "kinda religiously themed stuff"
― ❊❁❄❆❇❃✴❈colinda❈✴❃❇❆❄❁❊ (I know, right?), Monday, 14 September 2009 23:41 (fourteen years ago) link
she also said "have you read 'Angels and Demons' yet?"
― ❊❁❄❆❇❃✴❈colinda❈✴❃❇❆❄❁❊ (I know, right?), Monday, 14 September 2009 23:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Wordle of The Lost Symbol:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4265/lostsymbol.png
― James Mitchell, Monday, 21 September 2009 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Only 35 instances of 'enormous' in this one.
― James Mitchell, Monday, 21 September 2009 18:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Is the 'Bellamy' Craig Bellamy?
― Ismael Klata, Monday, 21 September 2009 18:51 (fourteen years ago) link
David.
― James Mitchell, Monday, 21 September 2009 22:03 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-The-Da-Vinci-Code-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html
― Number None, Tuesday, 22 September 2009 16:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Ugh. I had been pretty comfortable with the verdict that Brown is great with plots and awful with style, but that commentary has turned me into an all-round sympathiser.
― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, 22 September 2009 17:03 (fourteen years ago) link
I am halfway through The Lost Symbol and it is hard to shake the feeling that Dan Brown is a dick.
― sturdy, ultra-light, under-the-pants moneybelt (HI DERE), Wednesday, 23 September 2009 13:55 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah that article has a lot of "who cares" and the occasional bit of "now you're just being a dick" to it. See esp. 'learning the ropes' bit. It's called a figure of speech, gaiz.
"whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes" - I kinda like this image! Although I'm imagining the eyes somehow punching through the paper. And it just being a sheet of paper instead of a face. So not that much.
― Akon/Family (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 23 September 2009 14:42 (fourteen years ago) link
This book was some grade-A bullshit, like beyond even what my low expectations were. Way to brutally murder some interesting ideas, you no-talent tool.
― a misunderstanding of Hip-Hop and contracts (HI DERE), Thursday, 1 October 2009 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
kinda funny what happens after the BIG POP HIT. dude is plugging along writing books then OH NO I IZ HUUUUUGE BETTER NOT FUCK UP and it takes him longer to follow up da vinci than it took him to crank out the three before it. how long did it take that cold mountain dude? ten years? it must be scary. (stephen king being the exception to the rule)
* Digital Fortress, 1998 * Angels & Demons, 2000 * Deception Point, 2001 * The Da Vinci Code, 2003 * The Lost Symbol, 2009
― scott seward, Thursday, 1 October 2009 18:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Part of me feels like he just took Digital Fortress and replaced every reference to cryptography with references to Masons.
― a misunderstanding of Hip-Hop and contracts (HI DERE), Thursday, 1 October 2009 19:04 (fourteen years ago) link
"whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes" -- this is really not defensible; it's not the image, it's the confusion about what the second half is meant to modify
haven't read the article so don't know if it makes that point ah well
― thomp, Thursday, 1 October 2009 19:55 (fourteen years ago) link
What they choose to complain about is 'precarious', which I guess Brown means to mean "precariously positioned":
"Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes."
But that's at best the third-worst howler there.
― thomp, Thursday, 1 October 2009 20:00 (fourteen years ago) link
darklightreligiousgrandfamoussecretenormousfemaleFrenchred
repeating these words over and over again can only be effective in keeping people's attention
― to cloves fork comfurt (Curt1s Stephens), Thursday, 1 October 2009 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
that reads like a Fiona Apple album title
― a misunderstanding of Hip-Hop and contracts (HI DERE), Thursday, 1 October 2009 20:06 (fourteen years ago) link
The dark-skinned light fitter was religious, but his not-so-famous secret was that he liked enormous females and the odd glass of French red.
Someone give me a million dollar book contract.
― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 October 2009 07:31 (fourteen years ago) link
Slightly overweight medical student Buck Mulligan walked up the historical stairs of the Martello tower
― thomp, Monday, 5 October 2009 09:18 (fourteen years ago) link
ha my very-forgiving-of-bad-prose wife is just as fed up with this book as I was
― as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap (HI DERE), Monday, 12 October 2009 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
http://nymag.com/arts/books/bookclub/lost-symbol/
this was entertaining
― being being kiss-ass fake nice (gbx), Friday, 11 December 2009 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
"influential family dynasty"
― abanana, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
i like how a leading symbologist and france's leading code cracker can't recognize what language a paragraph is in when it's just english printed backwards
out of all the shitty things in this (going ahead and mentioning how you can see the word "sex" in the lion king...omg), the shitty "codes" were the worst. all of them were way too obvious and suspension of disbelief was impossible. you can't help but think "these 'academics' are dumb, and the person who wrote this is dumb." the answers to all of them were immediately clear. if this were real, everyone and their fuckin mom would be showing up to get the grail.
i read this because i was stuck volunteering in a place and there was nothing to do, but a copy of this book was there.
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 00:25 (twelve years ago) link
i've only seen the moovie, but i think when yr big shock ending (okay i already knew what it was gonna be cos i'd read the source material but) is kinda "sfw? you were killing dudes over this??" then u have a problem too
― little blue souvenir (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 00:39 (twelve years ago) link
"oh? jesus is my grandad? thanks for the info, i will get back to work now cheers"
― little blue souvenir (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 00:40 (twelve years ago) link
otm. all the shit thats supposed to be shocking regarding religion is classic type 2 challops
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 00:57 (twelve years ago) link
it made me think about this a lot: what does it say about people that we WANT to believe in stupid conspiracy theories? is it about wanting to feel superior?
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 01:07 (twelve years ago) link
simplistic explanations for frightening randomness of life? sense that even tho yr life is mundane there is an exciting world hiding within reach? liking to be in on big secrets? not being real bright?
― little blue souvenir (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 01:09 (twelve years ago) link
also maybe it's hard in a "secular age" for people to understand the complexities of how major religions became major and religious conspiracy theories provide a recognisable modern world reason, however ridiculous
― little blue souvenir (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 01:11 (twelve years ago) link
that last point is pretty tangy, imo - i think that's a good explanation.
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 01:44 (twelve years ago) link
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 03:56 (twelve years ago) link
^ always a good read. this might be the most ridiculous set of sentences in any popular work of fiction:
A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move."
On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly.
Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.
― ledge, Tuesday, 17 January 2012 10:53 (twelve years ago) link
I was surprised to open this thread and see it beginning with someone talking about how great the DVC is.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 17 January 2012 15:33 (twelve years ago) link
lol comparing it with eco
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 00:00 (twelve years ago) link
"The Templar Revelation, a MUST read"
also
I wouldn't call it 'a dumbed-down' version of Eco's work (in general). Maybe you could say it's 'not as scholastic' or 'more plot-centric' (as opposed to a novel basically being 500 pages of regurgitated research). Dan Brown put a lot of research into The Da Vinci Code but equally blends it with suspense and murder.
O_OOOOOOOO
― the most astonishing writer on ilx (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 00:19 (twelve years ago) link