Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2006-09-07 12:09 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2006-09-07 12:09 pm
Entry tags:
In Which Riona Has A Minor Fit.
In this entry, I whinge about Dan Brown. I have done this a couple of times before, but his writing is something about which I never tire of complaining. Just in case anyone genuinely wants to read Digital Fortress, there are no spoilers.
Generally I either like books or am fairly indifferent to them. Dan Brown is the only author I can think of whose writing I genuinely despise. At one point in Spain I was stuck in a hotel room for a few hours with nothing to read but a copy of Digital Fortress, and it made me so angry.
I mean, the main character is the beautiful Susan Whatsherface. She is the only female cryptologist in this sooper-sekrit elite cryptology thing (you will have to forgive me if I’m a little vague; we don’t actually own a copy of the book (thank God) and so I have to rant from memory), and I think she may also be the youngest. She is beautiful. This is constantly emphasised. She is beautiful and brilliant and oh-so-perfect and God she drives me insane. Everyone who dislikes her is obviously despicable. She hates the fact that all her colleagues find her attractive. Awww, Susan Whatsherface, you poor thing.
There is one paragraph that I laughed at for about ten minutes, in which a guard admires her as she walks away (oh, for God’s sake). He looks at her auburn hair, her white shirt (‘with the bra barely visible beneath’), her knee-length khaki skirt - and then he looks down at her legs.
Hard to believe those legs support a 170 IQ, he thinks.
I am not kidding.
Her boyfriend is fluent in nine languages - nine! - which is obviously just an excuse for Dan Brown to say ‘LOOK AT ME I CAN WRITE IN FRENCH AND GERMAN AND SPANISH LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME NOW’. Seriously, he has him say things in French and then repeat himself in English, so the language use is obviously completely gratuitous. He is hugely handsome and good at sports. He is very witty, according to Mr. Brown, but I don’t really see it. He is also apparently intelligent, which Mr. Brown attempts to convey by making everyone around him a blithering idiot, resulting in scenes like the following:
Nameless Characters Who Are Supposed To Be Genius Cryptographers: OMG THIS CHINESE WRITING MAKES NO SENSE
Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend: Perhaps it is actually written in the Japanese system derived from Chinese characters.
NCWASTBGC: You mean there are differences between Japanese and Chinese? Wow, Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend, you’re so smart.
Nameless Character: OMG I AM DYING
Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend: Perhaps you are forgetting to breathe. Try drawing air into your lungs.
Nameless Character: Wow, Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend, you’re so smart.
Also, he is a professor - yes, the youngest professor at his particular university - and his students gasp in awe and gaze in starry-eyed admiration. SOUND FAMILIAR? WHY, YES, THAT IS EXACTLY LIKE ROBERT-LANGDON-THE-BRILLIANT-PROFESSOR. AND, IN FACT, WASN’T DAN BROWN HIMSELF A PROFESSOR? GOOD LORD, WHAT AN ASTONISHING COINCIDENCE.
Did I mention that his one flaw - and the book actually says that it is his only flaw - is that he always insists on paying for meals? DEAR GOD, HE’S GENEROUS. WHAT A FLAW. OBVIOUSLY HE IS A FULLY-ROUNDED CHARACTER AND I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG TO EVER CRITICISE DAN BROWN’S WONDERFUL WORK.
Ah, that feels much better. Please note that I couldn't make it through the whole book because I feared I would catch fire if I got any angrier, so if Mr. Brown redeemed himself by having it turn out that Susan was actually a twit (and I mean genuinely intentionally a twit, not clearly-a-twit-but-flawless-in-the-author's-eyes) or Susan's Amazing Boyfriend was secretly Hitler, I missed it.
Generally I either like books or am fairly indifferent to them. Dan Brown is the only author I can think of whose writing I genuinely despise. At one point in Spain I was stuck in a hotel room for a few hours with nothing to read but a copy of Digital Fortress, and it made me so angry.
I mean, the main character is the beautiful Susan Whatsherface. She is the only female cryptologist in this sooper-sekrit elite cryptology thing (you will have to forgive me if I’m a little vague; we don’t actually own a copy of the book (thank God) and so I have to rant from memory), and I think she may also be the youngest. She is beautiful. This is constantly emphasised. She is beautiful and brilliant and oh-so-perfect and God she drives me insane. Everyone who dislikes her is obviously despicable. She hates the fact that all her colleagues find her attractive. Awww, Susan Whatsherface, you poor thing.
There is one paragraph that I laughed at for about ten minutes, in which a guard admires her as she walks away (oh, for God’s sake). He looks at her auburn hair, her white shirt (‘with the bra barely visible beneath’), her knee-length khaki skirt - and then he looks down at her legs.
Hard to believe those legs support a 170 IQ, he thinks.
I am not kidding.
Her boyfriend is fluent in nine languages - nine! - which is obviously just an excuse for Dan Brown to say ‘LOOK AT ME I CAN WRITE IN FRENCH AND GERMAN AND SPANISH LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME NOW’. Seriously, he has him say things in French and then repeat himself in English, so the language use is obviously completely gratuitous. He is hugely handsome and good at sports. He is very witty, according to Mr. Brown, but I don’t really see it. He is also apparently intelligent, which Mr. Brown attempts to convey by making everyone around him a blithering idiot, resulting in scenes like the following:
Nameless Characters Who Are Supposed To Be Genius Cryptographers: OMG THIS CHINESE WRITING MAKES NO SENSE
Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend: Perhaps it is actually written in the Japanese system derived from Chinese characters.
NCWASTBGC: You mean there are differences between Japanese and Chinese? Wow, Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend, you’re so smart.
Nameless Character: OMG I AM DYING
Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend: Perhaps you are forgetting to breathe. Try drawing air into your lungs.
Nameless Character: Wow, Susan’s Amazing Boyfriend, you’re so smart.
Also, he is a professor - yes, the youngest professor at his particular university - and his students gasp in awe and gaze in starry-eyed admiration. SOUND FAMILIAR? WHY, YES, THAT IS EXACTLY LIKE ROBERT-LANGDON-THE-BRILLIANT-PROFESSOR. AND, IN FACT, WASN’T DAN BROWN HIMSELF A PROFESSOR? GOOD LORD, WHAT AN ASTONISHING COINCIDENCE.
Did I mention that his one flaw - and the book actually says that it is his only flaw - is that he always insists on paying for meals? DEAR GOD, HE’S GENEROUS. WHAT A FLAW. OBVIOUSLY HE IS A FULLY-ROUNDED CHARACTER AND I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG TO EVER CRITICISE DAN BROWN’S WONDERFUL WORK.
Ah, that feels much better. Please note that I couldn't make it through the whole book because I feared I would catch fire if I got any angrier, so if Mr. Brown redeemed himself by having it turn out that Susan was actually a twit (and I mean genuinely intentionally a twit, not clearly-a-twit-but-flawless-in-the-author's-eyes) or Susan's Amazing Boyfriend was secretly Hitler, I missed it.