The Davinci Code Book Review
Seeing the paperback version of the novel appear at my store, and seeing how I had some time during my housesitting a few weekends ago, I decided to pick up this highly touted novel and see what the hub-bub was all about. I'd considered waiting for the film to come out first, but my indifference to the entire subject really didn't present me with any moral conflict.
My friend Rob had told me about the book last year and I tend to agree. The basic structure of the book is exposition, exposition, dialogue, history lesson/flashback, witty dialogue. It seems impossible for anyone to have exhibit qualities of both overusing a theasaurus and not using it enough. If I never hear the term "the sacred feminine" again it'd be still far too soon. The overall tone seems to exude a type of giddy feeling of writing, but not in a good way. In someways it seems that real, more serious and well versed Da Vinci Code novel was published somewhere and Dan Brown, after reading or even writing that one, decided to write a fanfic version of the very same book. Even if you haven't read fanfiction of any sort, you can picture the author being entirely impressed with how he's writing "edu-tainment." I can hear him as hey typed out each line, saying "Man...I am sooooooooooooo cool."
Another fairly problematic thing I found about the narrative was how it decided to unveil the mystery or even the past histories of the characters. The histories usually leads to the motivations of most of the characters, but it seems that rather than actually showing each part bit by bit, it slows it down even moreso by repeating certain past occurences to a certain point and stopping from giving away too much information. What's worst, an entire section dedicated to explaining a part of the past, which would also explain a bit of the mystery; doesn't shed any light on the subject except for giving us more background, but this time from a different angle. I think there would only be so many times we can explore the details Sophie's estrangement from her grandfather without actually saying what happened; before we realize how repeatitive it is. It's like one toe step forward, 3 steps back.
In the end it's a fairly neat plot. The ending is fairly typical and even almost expected even if it seems a bit dues ex machina. However I suppose we all need to be reminded of our childhood with this Encyclopedia Brown for Adults entry in the literary world.
My friend Rob had told me about the book last year and I tend to agree. The basic structure of the book is exposition, exposition, dialogue, history lesson/flashback, witty dialogue. It seems impossible for anyone to have exhibit qualities of both overusing a theasaurus and not using it enough. If I never hear the term "the sacred feminine" again it'd be still far too soon. The overall tone seems to exude a type of giddy feeling of writing, but not in a good way. In someways it seems that real, more serious and well versed Da Vinci Code novel was published somewhere and Dan Brown, after reading or even writing that one, decided to write a fanfic version of the very same book. Even if you haven't read fanfiction of any sort, you can picture the author being entirely impressed with how he's writing "edu-tainment." I can hear him as hey typed out each line, saying "Man...I am sooooooooooooo cool."
Another fairly problematic thing I found about the narrative was how it decided to unveil the mystery or even the past histories of the characters. The histories usually leads to the motivations of most of the characters, but it seems that rather than actually showing each part bit by bit, it slows it down even moreso by repeating certain past occurences to a certain point and stopping from giving away too much information. What's worst, an entire section dedicated to explaining a part of the past, which would also explain a bit of the mystery; doesn't shed any light on the subject except for giving us more background, but this time from a different angle. I think there would only be so many times we can explore the details Sophie's estrangement from her grandfather without actually saying what happened; before we realize how repeatitive it is. It's like one toe step forward, 3 steps back.
In the end it's a fairly neat plot. The ending is fairly typical and even almost expected even if it seems a bit dues ex machina. However I suppose we all need to be reminded of our childhood with this Encyclopedia Brown for Adults entry in the literary world.
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