Clevenger's Dan Brown Thing...

[christof]

Sorry, this is not the place to post this, I'm sure, but I wasn't sure how to find Clevenger's forum, if he has one.


Does anyone remember his DaVinci roulette article? I wanted to read it again, and I was wondering if anyone saved it? Or copy and pasted it on their computer or something? If you do have it, could you post it up here or e-mail it to me, please?


Thankee.
Christof.

[Brokenface]

Craig's site is currently out of commission, except for a home page with some dated info and a "be back soon" message.

That Dan Brown article was hysterical! Sadly I didn't save it anywhere, but it will probably reappear on Craig's new site.

Take care,
G

[willcarpenter]

i think its posted in the newspaper he writes for...? the santa barbara something or other? i think baer writes for it too.

[OnlyLivingWitness]

It's the Santa Barbara Independent. They don't have the article posted on their website, which is a shame.

[naked_dan]

Yeah, that was an interesting article. My favorite part was when he had the seedy porn excerpts and one from the Da Vinci Code that you couldn't tell apart. Fantastic.

[Elmysterioso]

I found it:


Da Vinci Roulette

Below is one of the early book reviews I wrote for the Santa Barbara Independent. I've had a few people ask me about it and, as it's not on the Independent's web site, I've reposted it below for the curious, and likely to my own detriment. Originally titled Da Vinci Roulette, it appeared in print on April 22, 2004.


I've been cornered one time too many by someone earnestly trying to convince me that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a great novel, when it's not. It's a fun read, I suppose; a reasonably interesting premise for a thriller with plenty of interesting factoids (though most of them seemed forcibly shoe-horned into the book) and an overall solid structure. It's the stuff that Hollywood blockbusters are made from, and Code will likely join their ranks in a few short years.

But it's not a great novel for one reason, and one reason only: Dan Brown can't write. There, I said it, the emperor has no clothes, there is no Santa Claus and Cousin Marty isn't resting, he's in a mental asylum. Living in a large, glass house, I'm loathe to trash another writer and I told my editors as much, but I've had too many quiet nights with a pint ruined by some moron derailing my silence with, So, have you read The Da Vinci Code? It's awesome…

Yes, I've tried… I'm about three quarters of the way through it. It's slow going, what with the blood leaking from my eyeballs every few pages, or having re-read a paragraph or a line of dialogue two or three times to ask myself, did he actually write that? People think this is good? Below are five passages I've quoted, minus the character names; two from the Code and three are not. See if you can tell which were written Dan Brown, and which weren't (answers below):

1) They walked past the huge multicolored and vaguely anthropomorphic metal sculpture that stood guard outside the station area. The sculpture always reminded [her] of how she felt after a heavy weekend: split into pieces, one eye by her toes, the other perched on her ear.

2) She was moving down the corridor toward them with a long, fluid strides… a haunting certainty to her gait. Dressed casually in a knee-length, cream-colored Irish sweater over black leggings, she was attractive and looked to be about thirty. Her thick burgundy hair fell unstyled to her shoulders, framing the warmth of her face. Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence.

3) He relished the unaccustomed silence of the country and the privacy which the garden afforded. It was large, partly walled, and the remainder enclosed by a tangled hedge bordering fields that undulated from down to the village somewhere below. Wild and overgrown though it was, the garden had transmuted neglect into beauty: clematis and honeysuckle toppling over the crumbling brick walls and a confusion of rampant ivy threatening to smother the orchard.

4) Two minutes later she was creeping out of the open front door and heading for the path toward the stables. To the left of the gazebo, a heavy iron gate guarded the entrance to the grotto. She'd never been there- it had always been too overgrown- but she'd heard the gardeners clipping it back on her first morning… A quick examination confirmed that the padlock was missing. [She] brushed the orange flakes of rust from her fingers and gave the gate a shove. It swung open with an eerie creak.

5) Perfect. Now all that remained was to close and lock the door. Leaving the box on the ground for a moment, he grabbed the metal door and began to heave it closed. As the door swung past him, [he] reached up to grab the single bolt that needed to be slid into place. The door closed with a thud, and [he] quickly grabbed the bolt, pulling it to the left. The bolt slid a few inches and crunched to an unexpected halt, not lining up with its sleeve.


Paragraphs two and five, above, were both taken from The Da Vinci Code. The first, third and fourth paragraphs are taken from the following: Cheap Trick, by Astrid Fox (Black Lace, 2001); The Reckoning, by Anonymous (Blue Moon, 1998); A Gentleman's Wager, by Madelynne Ellis (Black Lace 2003). As you might have gathered, those last three are soft-core porn paperbacks; Astrid Fox' and Madelynne Ellis are most likely pseudonymns for writers who realized that Anonymous was already taken (is it me, or does Astrid Fox sound like some female superhero's alter ego?).

I'm not trying to be cruel, but prove a point. My first measure of a writer is how he or she handles language, and the level of writing in Code is clearly no better than pulp novel pornography. To be fair, there's likely some undiscovered and formidable talent wasting away in some of those little black paperbacks. But as near as I can tell, Code isn't much better than the bulk of those… having skimmed a number of them to find appropriate passages, I noticed that the writing in some of them was noticeably better than Brown's, though the dialogue was terrible in all of them; Brown also shares with his pornographic brethren a penchant for detailed descriptions of churches, museums and gardens, along with many parochial authority figures. The only things keeping Dan Brown from being just another Astrid Fox are a lot of dumbed down history lessons and a lack of spanking.

[john doe]

a lot of people will be pleased by this (including me). i thought it was lost forever-- good to read it again.

thanks elmysterioso.

where did you find it?

[crisp]

oh my.

now the real question is: do i go waste my money on the da vinci code or some soft-core porn novelle?

if only i had more money...or a clue.

[Pooka]

Jeez, and here's me thinking Dan Brown was a character in soft porn novella!

[Elmysterioso]

a lot of people will be pleased by this (including me). i thought it was lost forever-- good to read it again.

thanks elmysterioso.

where did you find it?

I just remembered I had posted it in another forum a while ago, trying to get people to read Craig Clevenger. It didn't work. It only started up an argument about if Dan Brown has any literary validity, which he obviously doesn't. :p So yesterday I ran a search in the forum for the thread and found it.

[john doe]

glad you remembered.

[Elmysterioso]

Yeah, I also sent it to my lit professor who's a "narratologist," one who studies narrative elements, and who has been ranting and raving about how poorly written Dan Brown novels are. She got a kick out of this essay. It's a load of fun.

[crisp]

Jeez, and here's me thinking Dan Brown was a character in soft porn novella!

dan brown, the anal avenger

[rsarao]

I printed the review and tucked it inside my copy of The Da Vinci Code, just so others will see it when they borrow the book from me -- haha. I admit I found the book entertaining, but there's absolutely nothing unique in the way he writes. I think some authors, like Brown, write novels as if the movie rights have already been sold, and they wind up writing something more akin to a screenplay than a novel unto itself. Comparing Brown and company to Baer and the cult is like comparing Brittney Spears to the Velvet Underground.

[Flamehead 3]

I think some authors, like Brown, write novels as if the movie rights have already been sold, and they wind up writing something more akin to a screenplay than a novel unto itself.

Don't the "Left Behind" books do this too? It's been a while since I read the first.

[Proton]

craig hit the nail on the head. I refer to authors like Dan Brown, Michael Criechton, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancly, and Josh Grisham as "mad-lib authors" I picture these guys sitting at home with a blank template that reads like those madlib games we played as kids, where there is a set template, and all that needs to be filled in are the Names, Settings, Dates. other than a few differences all their books are exactly the same.
Dan Brown = historic thriller mystery
Michael Criechton = amazing technology turned bad
Tom Clancy & Robert Ludlum = nazi,terrorist,communist threat to america
John Grisham = courtroom drama, rape/murder/ insert crime

To be fair i have not read any clancy, ludlum or grisham so maybe the hollywood interpretation of their novels is distroting something but they all are the same. I work in a bookstore and loathe customers asking about DaVinci Code. The worst is how the majority of the buyers ACTUALLY BELIEVE the history dan brown presents

Im a history major, so that im 2x bitter

[angryox]

I agree with what's being said here, but in all honesty I've never read Brown or Clancy or Grisham. I've read Ludlum, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't love the Bourne Identity. I was given Angels and Demons as a gift, which pissed me off because (and tell me if this happens to anyone else) almost every person that sees me reading or finds out that I read immediately asks "have you read Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code?" And then they proceed to tell me how awesome he/it is, and I can tell it's the only damn book they've read since high school. I'm pretty much the only person I know that reads, though.

I am going to give Angels and Demons a shot, though. Only because I can't really run around claiming how awful of a writer Brown is if I haven't read any of his work.

[rsarao]

I've read Angels & Demons too. Those are the only two books I've read by Brown. Again, I was entertained. They are quick reads. I think I enjoyed A&D more, though they are so similar in style that they're almost interchangable. I've gotten so many good recommendations from this site that I don't think I'll be reading any fluff literature for a while, which is good, very good.

[crisp]

Im a history major, so that im 2x bitter

yeah, i'd be bitter too if i were a history major...

oh, and i did read some of those left behind books. i enjoyed them, even if i found the premise laughable. except for the part that supposes that i'll be left behind to suffer apocolypse. thank you born agains, scare the crap out of me.

[Proton]

another think that bothered me, much like a train wreck it was hard to stop reading davinci code, jurassic park, angels and demons and the like. They are entertaining. they are the fast food of literature. bad for you but cheap and enjoyable at the time.

[Pooka]

I’ve actually not read any of Dan Brown’s work. But my girlfriend’s brother read The Da Vinci Code and was on the phone to me for an hour talking about the Mona Lisa, and the Holy Grail. He’s really into conspiracy theories, and I guess it just got his blood pumping. Ever since that conversation, I've never really wanted to read it. For me it’s mass-market toilet fodder, just the same as all those Hack writers mentioned above.
The other day, I went into Waterstones and they had a deluxe edition with maps! The fucking book was the size of a VCR and just as thick. If that's not bad enough, they’re making it into a film next year! Jeez.

[john doe]

One good thing about all these formulaic writers: It's just as important to know what NOT to do. Then you can read Chuck, WCB etc. and learn about structure, pacing, character and how to do it properly.

[JKabol]

cant wait til the next dan brown reading

exciting stuff

j/p

to be honest i enjoyed the lost world. or at least more than i enjoyed jpark. as for grisham, i have never enjoyed his work, it is bantha fodder, except that one last-year one about the football kids. it has like a green cover. that was an enjoyable read. not great but enjoyable. the emotions presented in the book didnt feel too forced or oppressive; just a solid story; just a story.

never liked clancy. read two or three.

hated crichton's timeline, and whatever other forgetable ones ive read since and before then. my biggest problem i had with these reads is that it was missing the focus, the central theme, the humanism or something. for instance, baer showed more about his central character in the first chapter of judas than the entire timeline novel showed about that blond kid whose dad was a scientist

do intend to read the borne trilogy; not that i dont trust yaw, its just that i havent read that author and have to feel his work for myself

it amazes me how much these people get praised.

but. big but here. they bring a lot of readers to the table.


kabol


.

[Elmysterioso]

I like Crichton... I've been reading him since second grade though, so I think it's kinda inbred in my mind to enjoy reading Crichton. I can't sit through any of those other authors though. I end up not caring about anything they're saying.

[Proton]

I posted it on the cult, might as well post it here in case anyone missed it

Dumbing Down America
Harold Blooms take on all that we have mentioned in the above posts.