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raybearI know this is stating the obvious, but it is hot.
I have sequestered myself into the bedroom with the air conditioner and cancelled all plans, which was possibly going downtown for a short visit, but was also things like laundry, washing dishes, cleaning out record collection. And instead I'm doing a really dirty thing all day. I finished my other book and now I'm reading The Da Vinci Code. And praise the secret societies, it is so bad.....and so satisfying. It's like you're at a party and this academic guy who is smart in having lots of information in his brain is telling this compelling anecdote but he also thinks he's WAY smarter than you so he's condescending and repetitive and explaining things like the Fibonacci sequence to you, twice, and you are annoyed but you've had a few rounds of drinks and you want him to get to the next part of the story which is pretty entertaining, so you just roll your eyes and feel grateful he talks fast. It's also an interesting lesson in skimming. If there's a paragraph describing walking down a hallway in the Louvre at night, I sort of just picture it on my own as my eyes move over Dan Brown's cliched phrases and adjectives. It's interesting as a writer to read and think about why the story has appealed to so many people in a way, why it has infected pop culture and the publishing industry. I suspect it has something to do with the overly accessible language mixed with historical information and puzzles, so it makes the reader feel really smart but also on edge trying to get to the next reveal. The forward momentum of the book in structure is sort of amazing in potency, but not new -- just an effective use of the devices of mystery/suspense genre.
But occasionally I am haunted by the voice of Amy Bloom saying "if you aren't reading good writing, you're wasting your time." I think it's the other reason I sort of skim -- I don't want the words to stick in my brain too much. But occasionally I stop on something SO bad, I think it would be an interesting exercise to rewrite a chapter and make it good. Or to even read the entire book with a pencil in my hand, editing as I go, then mailing it back to Dan Brown. Except this copy is on loan from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vfc so I won't do that. The loan came with a post-it note inside that says "Thanks for letting me read this great book! Betty" and I'm using it as my bookmark.
And this reminds me of how last week I was thinking that if I went back to grad school, I maybe would write my dissertation on the meaning of Celine Dion's popularity and how it is related to concepts of melodrama and camp in American pop culture and how even high culture disdain for it reinforces the very structure that creates her appeal and popularity with hundreds of thousands of people.
I think the heat is getting to me.
I have sequestered myself into the bedroom with the air conditioner and cancelled all plans, which was possibly going downtown for a short visit, but was also things like laundry, washing dishes, cleaning out record collection. And instead I'm doing a really dirty thing all day. I finished my other book and now I'm reading The Da Vinci Code. And praise the secret societies, it is so bad.....and so satisfying. It's like you're at a party and this academic guy who is smart in having lots of information in his brain is telling this compelling anecdote but he also thinks he's WAY smarter than you so he's condescending and repetitive and explaining things like the Fibonacci sequence to you, twice, and you are annoyed but you've had a few rounds of drinks and you want him to get to the next part of the story which is pretty entertaining, so you just roll your eyes and feel grateful he talks fast. It's also an interesting lesson in skimming. If there's a paragraph describing walking down a hallway in the Louvre at night, I sort of just picture it on my own as my eyes move over Dan Brown's cliched phrases and adjectives. It's interesting as a writer to read and think about why the story has appealed to so many people in a way, why it has infected pop culture and the publishing industry. I suspect it has something to do with the overly accessible language mixed with historical information and puzzles, so it makes the reader feel really smart but also on edge trying to get to the next reveal. The forward momentum of the book in structure is sort of amazing in potency, but not new -- just an effective use of the devices of mystery/suspense genre.
But occasionally I am haunted by the voice of Amy Bloom saying "if you aren't reading good writing, you're wasting your time." I think it's the other reason I sort of skim -- I don't want the words to stick in my brain too much. But occasionally I stop on something SO bad, I think it would be an interesting exercise to rewrite a chapter and make it good. Or to even read the entire book with a pencil in my hand, editing as I go, then mailing it back to Dan Brown. Except this copy is on loan from
vfc so I won't do that. The loan came with a post-it note inside that says "Thanks for letting me read this great book! Betty" and I'm using it as my bookmark.And this reminds me of how last week I was thinking that if I went back to grad school, I maybe would write my dissertation on the meaning of Celine Dion's popularity and how it is related to concepts of melodrama and camp in American pop culture and how even high culture disdain for it reinforces the very structure that creates her appeal and popularity with hundreds of thousands of people.
I think the heat is getting to me.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 07:40 pm (UTC)The DaVinci Code
Date: 2006-07-16 08:41 pm (UTC)Yeah, whenever I talk about this book, I can't quite articulate what it is about it. It isn't well-written, but that's sort of beside the point somehow.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 02:23 pm (UTC)i think my new one-sentence blurb of The Da Vinci code (which I finished yesterday) is: "the novelistic equivalent of the TV Guide crossword puzzle!"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 02:46 pm (UTC)Franzen thinks he's smarter than everyone in the same way you describe. Heh heh heh, wink wink, you're an overeducated white guy just like me. Let's make a little joke about Nietzsche and Pavement. There's no practical difference between that and the Fibonacci sequence and the map written on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
Wait, that's something else.
Point being, Attention: suck it.
I think this is a pomo fiction problem, so it's not all that much of a surprise that it crosses over into popular literature. That's an interesting dissertation topic.
The Complete Idiot's Pocket Guide to One Historical Conspiracy Theory with Occasional Car Chases
Date: 2006-07-17 09:02 pm (UTC)But that is not the problem Davinci Code faces -- it's the opposite, where everything is overexplained. The Fibonacci sequence is treated as something foreign and exotic and complicated and then explained three times and used twice as a plot device. So it creates an analogous effect. Supereducated (in the traditional sense) folks read David Foster Wallace and nod while reading and feel really clever because they are in on a secret. Median-educated person reads Da Vinci Code and nods while reading and feels really clever because they are in on a secret. But it's not terribly secretive when a) millions of people have read this book (and seen the movie); b) everything "secretive" in the book has been previously published in other forms; c) by the end of the book, I solved the last puzzle before the character did, before it was unveiled in the text.
Actually, this last point intrigued me a little, because I wondered if this was common among readers, if it the whole book was set up to overexplain but teach us how the specific game works, so that by the end of the book, the reader has had a chance to win too. Which is ultimately why the book feels satisfying, even while insulting your intelligence.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 09:40 pm (UTC)Want to have a writer's date soon?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 11:09 pm (UTC)