Well, I think that most freemasons feared that the book would have been antimasonic like most of the literature, like "from hell" and Knight's "Jack the ripper", therefore when they book came out they were...relieved. Some complained about the "Deist freemason's guide to the Galaxy" in the last pages, but it was generally agreed that nothing in the book could hurt the Craft, therefore they weren't annoyed, but in any case, Brown is not liked in Freemasonry, if you don't believe me, have a read at the review of the Da Vinci Code published by the Quatour Coronati Lodge: http://www.quatuorcoronati.com/dvc.html Personally, I would like to read a book that used masonic simbology is a metaphorical way, and since you can't expect something so clever by Brown, I decided to write that book. ...oh I've to confess, I'm not the humblest person in the World.
If your book gains even a fraction of Dan Brown's success, you will be very pleased. May it be so for you. And for me... my book steers away from Freemasons... but does deal with America's Founding Fathers, a conspiracy and a coded message.
Well, I still have to prove that I'll be able to write a book, then I have to get it published, for the success, it's beyond the event horizon. Honestly, I think I conceived a better storyline, with more subtle esoteric elements than Dan Brown (who's not subtle at all, and probably that's the reason why he's commercially successfull), but the problem is to put that story, which is mainly visual, on paper and on a proper form.
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, and to link off-site, but I had to share this.....I was in laughing-at-sh!t-lit heaven.....Dan Brown's 20 Worst Sentences But in all seriousness, as comedic as it is, there are plenty of valuable lessons in there for writers. But mostly, its just funny. (Sorry Charlie!)
No need to apologize... I read a little bit of it and found what I read funny and valuable for writers. I'll go back and read more later. I have no problem with very specific criticisms of Dan Brown's work. It's the vague stuff I have a problem with, as well what I see as misinterpretations, as I see them, of the "fact-verses-fiction" matters. I enjoy his books, but I certainly think his writing is flawed. Charlie PS... Although I know it won't impress many people... I sent part of my in-progress book to a good friend who reads constantly. He was surprised at how good it was. He really liked it. And he said, "Charlie, I know you like Dan Brown, but I just want you to know that, right now, at the level you are at, you are a much better writer than he is." I told him I hope that I have one-tenth of his success, because if I do, I'll never have to work again.
I think I found one of those examples of funny. And a good few seemed like they were trying too hard to find a flaw. If those were the best they could come up with, Dan Brown's a better writer than I thought.
Yeah, looking the list over now that I'm awake and alert, I'm underwhelmed by the evidence of Dan Brown's poor writing--at least, the evidence provided here. #17 strikes me purely as an editing error, which can happen to anyone and should be caught by the editor. Many of them were not as bad as the mocking tone suggest. I'd be willing to bet that anyone could find any a list of 20 sentences from any author's works and make fun of the writing. In fact, about a year ago I read a very funny article by one famous author about another--I believe it may have been Mark Twain writing about Jack London--where the critic did a far better job ripping the author apart, listing hundreds of word errors in a far more concise and far more biting article. This is not to say that Dan Brown is a great author, but that that article criticizing him wasn't all that great... Charlie
I guess I disagree....those sentences are absolutely appalling, and, what's worse, fairly typical. Every one of them made me laugh/cringe.
Counting three opening sentences as three problems because they're "formulaic" is cheating. I had no problem with the three opening sentences. As I pointed out, a few of them, certainly the one I mentioned, were editing errors. I think it's obvious that he had written something, it was edited, and the errant sentence slipped by the editor. That can happen to anyone--it's almost like having a typo. If the Rio Plate is not technically Old World, that doesn't mean the sentence is poorly written--and frankly, I don't think many readers care if one of the rivers isn't in the Old World. Those were indeed the four rivers the artwork was a tribute to, and frankly, not having great and extensive knowledge of the rivers of the world, I didn't really care about that sentence. Nor do I really care what the actual mileage of a Smart Car is. And, based on a quick google, the reality is that the Smart Car gets 100 km to every 3.3 liter, so the error was a factor of 3.3., not 5, therefore, the author of your article gets equal demerits with Dan Brown on that one. Though, honestly, I don't give a darn. The Smart Car could really get 1 km to every 100 liters, and it wouldn't have changed my enjoyment of that portion of the story. You actually have to look up mileage figures to deem a sentence poorly written or well written? If you have to look for geographical inaccuracies or inaccuracies about a car's mileage, to call a sentence poorly written, you're stretching.
In all fairness, this point is stupid: In italian the prefix "da" or "de" means "from", and it was used as surrogate surname in the past, in the last centuries, it became a symbol of nobility, because usually noble families in the middle ages took their surnames from the land they owned. It is perfectly analogous with the use of "Von" in german, and "Van" in dutch, but I never heard Otto Von Bismark called "Otto from Bismark" in english text, and neither Van Halen called "From Halen", please correct me if I'm mistaken. We can argue that Dan Brown's error is to write the name Leonardo Da Vinci, while it should be Leonardo da Vinci, but "of Nazareth" is idiotic. Having said that, Brown's factual errors are extremely annoying, CV, and there's nothing to day about it. The story of the Smart is embleamtic of his bad habit to "boost" everything, fuel consuption included, in products that are not very well known in the US but that we know very well. The story of the Fontana di Trevi is another example of what in the Old Continent we call "american ignorance", I'm pretty sure that if an italian writer publishes a book stating that the Mississipi river is in Europe a lot of americans will feel outraged...buut the Worst Factual Error that Dan Brown had done, IMO, is the anedoct that he invented to justify the fact that the message into the tube in the DVC was written in english: english the "pure language" without latin influences? You have to be SERIOUSLY dumb to say that! Let's count the latin based words I used in the previous paragraph: 1)Story 2)Example 3)To publish 4)Anedoct 5)To intent 6)To justify 7)Fact 8)Message 9)Tube 9)Language 10)Influence Sorry if it's not enough!
I think you missed the point....the problem was that he included the mileage in the first place (and got it wrong to boot). The context was Langdon and Sophie making their dramatic escape....and then Sophie makes a comment about the mileage of their getaway car. As Professor Pullum says, it reeks of ineptitude. And the real problem is that that kind of thing isn't at all uncommon in his books. And how is calling him out on his formulaic opening cheating? If you begin three different books in identical ways, its a problem. At least, I would consider it a problem.
It's cheating to call it three problems. It's (allegedly) one problem. None of them by themselves are a problem. (Nor do I really consider any of them a problem.) They boosted the "problem count" by counting one supposed problem as three, to get to 20. None of them standing alone is a problem, and taken together, they amount to one problem, if I want to be generous enough to all it a problem, not three. Frankly, I think it's all a stretch... and I also think that you can do that with any book. You can pull lines out of any book and say, "This was unnecessary," "This was inaccurate," "This is formulaic," "I'm going to make fun of this." And I also think... you have to have an awful lot of time on your hands (and a lot of hate for a writer) to even want to do that to someone's books. Charlie
