He was sitting all alone in the enormous cabin of a Falcon 2000EX corporate jet as it bounced its way through turbulence. In the background, the dual Pratt & Whitney engines hummed evenly.Just to be clear, there was "turbulence" on some ridiculously named plan, yet the engines "hummed evenly." OK...
I am not the only one to be bothered by his less than stable writing. Salman Rushdie laid down the best burn when saying that his books are
so bad that they give bad novels a bad name.BOOYAH!
Stephen King said in a commencement address at University of Maine that Dan Brown's novels are
the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
I like that analogy. Dan Brown novels are like Mac and Cheese. Most people LOVE Mac and Cheese, despite its questionable nutritious content. [What the hell is tripolyphosphate?] We scarf it down within MINUTES when it's presented to us (most likely in the blue bowl made famous from the commercials). Perhaps we even go for 
seconds. But, we know that Mac and Cheese isn't good for us as much as we want it to be. It is a nice little treat when you are drunk, you have nothing else edible, or you are just plan lazy, but we all know it should not be the dietary standard. The Lost Symbol is full of empty calories. But, sadly for the world, it seems we prefer to gorge ourselves on this kind of book rather than the more 'nutritious' books that remain untouched on bookshelves. [Note: It's been IMPOSSIBLE for me to find a book by Cicero in any Barnes and Noble bookstore in my surrounding area, yet Dan Brown gets to have a fricken' book display. How the times have changed...]
seconds. But, we know that Mac and Cheese isn't good for us as much as we want it to be. It is a nice little treat when you are drunk, you have nothing else edible, or you are just plan lazy, but we all know it should not be the dietary standard. The Lost Symbol is full of empty calories. But, sadly for the world, it seems we prefer to gorge ourselves on this kind of book rather than the more 'nutritious' books that remain untouched on bookshelves. [Note: It's been IMPOSSIBLE for me to find a book by Cicero in any Barnes and Noble bookstore in my surrounding area, yet Dan Brown gets to have a fricken' book display. How the times have changed...]
Well, is anyone saying Dan Brown is writing literature. I think you are sort of setting up a straw man and knocking him over. Are there new novels that you think should be taken seriously, even if they aren't 'great literature?'
ReplyDeleteThere is a wide spectrum of newly published books. some of them no doubt of less literary merit than the latest Dan Brown book, but others of significantly more merit. Or at least worth of serious discussion.
Reading this entry and your earlier one that references Harry Potter I thought of Harold Bloom's opinion of the Potter books. I never could get past the first few pages of them and so was glad to find that Bloom was not a fan either, although I guess that should be no surprise. Here is an excerpt from a July11, 2000 Wall Street Journal review he wrote:
ReplyDeleteCan 35 million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.
How to read"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, very quickly, to begin with, perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. is there any redeeming education use to Rowling? Is there any to Stephen King? Why read, if what you read will not enrich mind or spirit or personality? For all I know, the actual wizards and witches of Britain, or America, may provide an alternative culture for more people than is commonly realized.
Perhaps Rowling appeals to millions of reader non-readers because they sense her wistful sincerity, and want to join her world, imaginary or not. She feeds a vast hunger for unreality; can that be bad? At least her fans are momentarily emancipated from their screens, and so may not forget wholly the sensation of turning the pages of a book, any book.
Intelligent Children
And yet I feel a discomfort with the Harry Potter mania, and I hope that my discontent is not merely a highbrow snobbery, or a nostalgia for a more literate fantasy to beguile (shall we say) intelligent children of all ages. Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be wrong? yes, they have been, and will continue to be for as long as they persevere with Potter.
A vast concourse of inadequate works, for adults and for children, crams the dustbins of the ages. At a time when public judgment is no better and no worse than what is proclaimed by the ideological cheerleaders who have so destroyed humanistic study, anything goes. The cultural critics will, soon enough, introduce Harry Potter into their college curriculum, and The New York Times will go on celebrating another confirmation of the dumbing-down it leads and exemplifies.
Whatever you want to say about Harry Potter, and I speak never having even tried to read the novels, it does seem they operate in literary high ground compared to these twilight books and the spin off vampire rage.
ReplyDeleteYou go Salman!
ReplyDeleteAlso, one of the CalArts people works at Barnes and Noble, and she said they have to push Dan Brown books on EVERYONE. She hates it.
Well how about that. I would have thought they wouldn't need to push it! I guess it must be published by b and n.
ReplyDelete