posted
TL, you think we're lying about the reasons on why we dislike Dan Brown's books...that we really dislike the books because we hate -him- personally, and because we're jealous of his writing skill?
Wow.
That's a pretty big leap from accepting that someone honestly thinks it's a badly written book.
I'm curious...why do you assume we're lying?
If there's one thing I've noted in my relatively brief time on Hatrack, the posters here tend to be extremely honest on why they like or dislike something.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
IMO, Angels and Demons went a bit too far at the end. I don't like it when writers overdo the endings of books just to make them that much more sensational. The same thing happened in a Christopher Rice book that I read. Too much man.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Not so. I've read fiction by several members of Hatrack. (Some of it published, even.) He's a more famous writer than anyone here, but not by a long shot is he a better writer than everyone here.
I completely agree. I put four hatrackers I can name off the top of my head well ahead of Brown every day and twice on Sunday. There's probably more than that, I just haven't read fiction by all the writer's here.
Famous does not always equal talent. Not by a long shot, to borrow dkw's phrasing.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:TL, you think we're lying about the reasons on why we dislike Dan Brown's books...that we really dislike the books because we hate -him- personally, and because we're jealous of his writing skill?
Not even close to what I said. Nobody's lying (it's something we're probably not conscious of), nobody hates him personally (why would we), and nobody is jealous of his writing skill (we're jealous of his success).
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Not even close to what I said. Nobody's lying (it's something we're probably not conscious of), nobody hates him personally (why would we), and nobody is jealous of his writing skill (we're jealous of his success).
Gee, so instead of being an informed, fairly well educated and well read person who finds fault with a writer's work because it's flat, with no real character development, and a hugely contrived plot - I'm someone who is unconsciously jealous of Dan Brown's success.
Isn't it just possible, TL, that those of us who don't like Brown's work have no ulterior motive and just plain don't like it? If we followed your logic, seems we would have an unconscious jealousy for all successful writers and tear their work apart too, but I don't see that here. There are some very commercially successful authors that most hatrackers seem to enjoy reading. But, a large number of us think Brown isn't a very good writer. I happen to be one of them. And the people who agree with me are people I consider well read, and good judges of fiction. I don't think they are people who tear down Dan Brown because they secretly envy his success, and I certainly don't feel that way.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by TL: I don't hate Dan Brown. The book was entertaining as can be. It's like, so easy to call it a cookie-cutter book. I think there's a fair amount of jealous posing in that position.
He's a better writer than any of you.
I called it a cookie-cutter book without one iota of jealousy. I am not a writer nor do I want to be a writer.
It's actually very easy to find this book entertaining and "intellectual". But when you get beyond the poor writing, you find that there is not a whole lot of dimension to the book. Sure, a few cool fun facts and some deliberately spiteful theories, none of which bothered me in the least, but the characters were flat and the story was weak, especially the ending.
Writing is like music these days too, notorious and flashy gets promoted over good writing.
Posts: 117 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I actually am jealous - that a hack writer with serious reality problems can get published, sell millions of books, have a movie come out with a great actor in the lead, and be set for life. At least Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton knew what they were talking about when they were making good entertainment books. Dan Brown is simply them at their worst and without the facts.
By the way, in answer to the question, am I going to see the movie? No desire. Will I ever see the movie? Only if its free and happens to be available without thought.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I had very little desire to read the book, but after a while I just had to see what all the fuss was about. While maybe not memorable, it was a quick and fun read.
I liken it to the summer blockbuster movie that is typically devoid of any intellectual thought and creativity, yet millions of people flock to it anyway. Nobody expects those types of movies to be thought provoking, yet they're hugely successful because they can provide simple entertainment without requiring much emotional investment on the part of the viewer.
The fact that these types of movies and books are usually the most successful used to bother me, but I've stopped worrying about what most of the population prefers for entertainment.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I was just skimming the thread, but then I saw Choobak's post and I will second that Jean Reno is an awesome actor. Leon had the US title The Professional and was an awesome movie.
Back on topic, I haven't read The DaVinci Code and I probably won't see the movie. This has nothing to do with any protest or objection to either; they just don't look interesting to me.
posted
So TL, are you still maintaining that Dan Brown is a better writer than everyone at Hatrack (including, you know, Orson Scott Card)?
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
So if i think Jessica Simpson's songs are crap, does that mean I'm really just jealous of her success while my career is still just in the singing in the shower stage?
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:So if i think Jessica Simpson's songs are crap, does that mean I'm really just jealous of her success
Only if you complain about how unfair it is that she's making more money than you think her talent is worth while recognizing that those millions of dollars are coming from people that do value her talents. Although, that may not really be jealousy. Maybe more of a resentment over the reward system of a society that places a high monetary value upon ideals or priorities that you do not agree with.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
And I hate Carrot Top because I'm funnier than he is and I did't get to do commercials for 1800collect. Not because his comedy sucks.
This weekend they played numerous documentaries on the DaVinci code. From the very logical and historically grounded to the sensationalistic and dishonest. Interesting and pathetic.
Found this online: http://priory-of-sion.com/ The whole site is filled with evidence showing the falsity of nearly every claim in the book (and Holy Blood Holy Grail). Not very well organized (the site's layout, that is). But I found it quite interesing. Sad to see how easily people are caught up in rumor and innuendo whose validity is itself highly suspect- and then build fantastic castles based on that.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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quote:So if i think Jessica Simpson's songs are crap, does that mean I'm really just jealous of her success
Only if you complain about how unfair it is that she's making more money than you think her talent is worth while recognizing that those millions of dollars are coming from people that do value her talents. Although, that may not really be jealousy. Maybe more of a resentment over the reward system of a society that places a high monetary value upon ideals or priorities that you do not agree with.
Just kind of joking about the whole Dan Brown/can't write/jealously thing. Someone was mentioning that the real reason people didn't like Brown's writing is that they were secretly jealous of his success. I think it's just as easy to dislike a particular artist's work, no matter how successful and popular with the masses, based on your opinion of their product-not envy.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Just kind of joking about the whole Dan Brown/can't write/jealously thing.
Yeah, and I hadn't really intended to take it too seriously either, but it did get me thinking about the motivations for hating a person or something they do. (My earlier post was not really directed at you. I was just making a general statement.)
In looking over the comments here, everyone that has stated a dislike for Brown's writing listed a very valid reason for disliking it. But I've heard a lot of people talk about how much they hate something without having a legitimate reason for doing so. It's those people that I think are unable to see the difference between hating a person and hating how society views that person. They think they hate the person, but often times the truth is they hate the fact that everyone else likes the person. I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but I've seen it happen a lot elsewhere.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
His style was good enough that I could enjoy the story. Its not as conspiracy/mystery novels become "books for the ages" anyway. Can you name one? <waits with clinched teeth for a smart hatracker to prove him wrong>
I too thought A and D was a better yarn then The Da Vinci Code, but I still enjoyed reading both. I don't think anybody who enjoyed it has said Dan Brown's writing is AMAZING, so the critics don't really need to criticize it. Most people say they like the story, attack that if you must.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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There ya go! With the Rose, they took a rich book and made a flat movie. Now, are we going to go see what they do with a flat book? Since my daughter is a fan of some of the actors, I may see her copy when she buys the DVD. But, pay eight dollars? Not likely.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:"It was really disappointing. The dialogue was cheesy. The acting wasn't too bad, but the film is not as good as the book," chimed in Lina Hamchaoui, from British radio IRN. (emphasis added)
posted
I may end up going to see this for a couple reasons. First off, my wife liked the book. Second and more importantly, some of it was filmed in the Lincoln Cathedral, which is one of my favorite places ever, and it'll be cool to get some nostalgia from the climax.
I read the book. I didn't hate it as much as I should have, and I'll tell you why.
I've had a bit of experience reading other books in the same genre. I don't know if there's a specific name for this literary style, but it seems to be both lucrative and horrible. It's in the same class as such nightmares as State of Fear and The Celestine Prophecy. Another one of those books where you can tell the author really just wanted to write an essay. But he knew that essays don't sell very well, particularly when they're on the subject of a bunch of made-up pig swill (or, in this case, made-up, plagarized pig swill). So the author puts together a bunch of cardboard characters, cuts his essay into wooden dialogue, and breaks it up with half-assed globe-trotting action pieces.
So, compared to actual literature, The DaVinci Code was quite the smelly smegpot. But, wisely, the author chose to put his book in a genre that gave it very little to live up to. Compared to other works of this type, it actually wasn't all that bad.
Anyway, the reason I made this post is because I just went to Rotten Tomatoes and there haven't been any reviews yet. Since it's going to be out in around 48 hours, this usually means that it sucks it so hard that they've decided not to screen it for critics. But I've never seen that happen in a big-budget Ron Howard/ Tom Hanks-level blockbuster. I can't find any evidence on the issue one way or the other. Anybody got any dirt on this?
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:I read the book. I didn't hate it as much as I should have, and I'll tell you why.
I've had a bit of experience reading other books in the same genre.
I know I hate linguini with cream sauce. I therefore avoid linguini with cream sauce. When I must have linguini with cream sauce, and I hate it, I do not say, "Well, as much as I hated that, it was indeed linguini with cream sauce."
In other words: don't read books in that genre, because they suck.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I want to see it. I agree about the writing, but the story was a fun historical fiction that just used some mystery to say "what if?".
Fun, no more threatening than "The Body" or the old religious debate question "what if you get to heaven and Hitler answers the door?"
How many history buffs haven't speculated on who really fathered the offspring of Henry VIII? Makes no difference, but fun nonetheless.
Posts: 49 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I'll see this just to see what the fuss is about, but I think by now I've picked up the important facts about the incompleteness of the Gospels that the novel refers to. I don't see why the movie will be any better than most other crime/mystery movies.
Audrey Tatou doesn't draw me to seeing a movie. She doesn't look exceptionally cute to me, and from the clips I've seen her accent sounds annoying when she's speaking English. Maybe I'd think differently if I'd seen Amelie.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
GS, now imagine if the whole book hinged on the idea that armed Latter-Day Saints, agents of a global conspiracy, were attempting to kill anyone who figured out the real father of Henry the Eighth by reading certain sections of The Tempest backwards.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
That doesn't sound any worse than A Study in Scarlet, which, by the way, didn't offend me even when I did consider myself an active and believing Mormon.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:I read the book. I didn't hate it as much as I should have, and I'll tell you why.
I've had a bit of experience reading other books in the same genre.
I know I hate linguini with cream sauce. I therefore avoid linguini with cream sauce. When I must have linguini with cream sauce, and I hate it, I do not say, "Well, as much as I hated that, it was indeed linguini with cream sauce."
In other words: don't read books in that genre, because they suck.
Good point. But to make things more clear, I'm not saying that I liked that book. I didn't consider it enlightening, I wouldn't read it again, and I wouldn't recommend it to my friends. The only reason I read it in the first place was because I didn't have to pay for it, and my wife wanted to be able to talk about it with me.
Still, although it was a waste of my time compared with any book I'd be likely to pick at random from the childrens' section of my local library, it still could have been worse. I finished the book somewhat less raging pissed off than when I'd read The Celestine Prophecy, which was more than I'd hoped for when I began. It wasn't anything like a fillet steak in garlic sauce, but at least it was like linguini that had most of the cream sauce drained off and replaced with a warmed tin of crushed tomato. Still not appetizing, but less nauseating than expected. Perhaps I'm just being an optimist, but taken on its own terms I considered it a win.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Looks like this might tone down some of the organized opposition to the movie:
quote:The film was to officially open the 59th Film Festival at a glittering red-carpet ceremony also to be attended by French representatives of the Catholic Church.
One senior official heaved a sigh of relief after catching the preview, saying the movie was so unbelievable it posed no threat to their faith.
"There's nothing to get whipped up about, even for a member of the Opus Dei," said Marc Aellen, secretary general of a Catholic cinema association.
"I really liked the book -- as a suspenseful novel. But it was dishonest to mix fact and fiction in such a way. However, you just don't believe for one second in the film and that discredits the theory completely," he said.
quote:Ian McKellen, an openly gay actor who plays Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code, sought to make light of the controversy.
"I'm very happy to believe that Jesus was married," he said. "I know the Catholic Church has problems with gay people and I thought this would be absolute proof that Jesus was not gay."
posted
Cashew beat me to it! 0% so far on rottentomatoes. Surely it will go up, but not a very good start.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I should have blown the wistle on this a few weeks ago- in my experience any movie that doesn't have any tomatometer rating at all the week before it comes out is going to be bad. This is IMO because if a studio knows the movie sucks, but the hype is huge (just like this case), then they will withold sneak preview and rumor-mill viewings so that the movie is released "in the dark" as it were. This keeps the first weeks ratings guaranteed, but then then comes the dive in ratings.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I'm sure Ebert's check will clear in time for him to give it a good review, so it should go up then.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I saw one reviewer talking about how the studio had not released it earlier so that reviewers can see it. He said there was speculation they didn't do that because of the controversy around the movie. He then pointed out that perhaps they held the film from reviewers for the most common reason films are held - because they're terrible.
Personally, I'm surprised. Much as I didn't like the book, I figured with Ron Howard and Tom Hanks (though I wasn't crazy about the casting choices) they would at least have made a movie that was somewhat entertaining.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I'm not going to see it - but not because of any personal prejudice on the topic, considering I'm also a huge Tom Hanks fan....
..but I read the book. And I really just didn't find it that good/intriguing/interesting at all. Not a memorable piece of writing or even average compared with other things I have read and liked.
So I don't see how they could improve upon it much in a movie.
And seeing as how it didn't do too well at Cannes - well, reading those reviews even took the "curiosity" of interest out of me.
posted
I suppose I can be the first Hatracker to review The DaVinci Code...
I work at a movie theater, and I'm a projectionist, so I get to preview the movies so make sure splicing is right and everything is in focus. Tonight, I got to watch The DaVinci Code.
It was...OK. I enjoyed the book a lot more. The movie cut out many of the book's greatest scenes. I won't post any spoilers here. I will say that the movie is pretty long and at some points it became, well, not quite boring, per se, but the action got a little slow. The music was mediocre and the acting was just a bit off for me.
Still, it was worth taking the time to see it. Very rarely have I ever seen a movie that's better than the book.
Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Periodically I enjoy a mindless read and when I read Da Vinci, it must have been at this time because I enjoyed it.
I will be seeing the movie. I've always thought that Tom Hanks was a weird choice for the lead character though (was it Tom Langdon? I can't remember).
Plus I have a theory, since I know it has not been well received, I will go see it with low expectations and probably enjoy myself again. It's the ones that everyone raves about and I don't get to before I've had 25 people tell how fabulous it is that I go and meh. Total let down.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I haven't read the book, but I saw the movie today, and I have to say, it wasn't bad. Better than I expected. A little confusing near the end(presumably not so much so to someone who has read the book), but all in all seemed much shorter than two and a half hours.
Of course, since I'm in the one percent of the population who hasn't read the book, it kept me a little more on the edge of my seat than most, I think.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I haven't read the book, and don't really have any intention of doing so, but I will go see the movie. It's in a genre that I generally enjoy, and despite Brown's writing mishaps, whatever they may be, it still appears to be a good movie in that Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Clive Cussler sort of way (even though I can't stand Cussler's writing, I thought Sahara the movie was bearable).
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I was very disappointed in the movie. I didn't go in with high hopes, but it didn't even meet my low expectations. The Frenchies in the cast did a great job, but I didn't feel it from Hanks. I have read the book and I didn't appreciate some of the changes that they made-most didn't help the story progress or translate to film any better. Three hours from my life that I'll never have back.
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I just finished the book, and will probably rent the movie whenit comes to DVD, but it's not worth going to the theatre to me.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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