Coding elevators
Sep. 9th, 2007 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdChapter four begins with
Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters.
Chapter three, three paragraphs above this statement reads:
...The man was stocky and dark, almost Neanderthal, dressed in a dark double-breasted suit that strained to cover his wide shoulders. He advanced with unmistakable authority on squat, powerful legs.
So, within less than a page we have two descriptions of the same man. The second description being horribly purple and doesn't really match the rest of the prose in the book. It's as if Brown decided to show how descriptive he is in describing people and giving a feel for their personality. He does, however, mix his metaphors, going from describing Fache from an ox to a ship to some sort of demon like critter. Which now makes me think he looks like a giant fiery ship with an ox figure head. Whee!
Also, the way this chapter beginning is structured it could have been the beginning of chapter three, without any need for that pointless ride in the car with Bobo. We're right at the action now, going down to the crime scene. They pass under the glass pyramid, which Langdon says has 666 panes of glass requested at President Mitterand's explicit request. The actual number of glass panes are 672. Brown is being a conspiracy nut here. The Devil is at Work Here. WHooOOooOO... Mystery!!
As Langdon and Fache head down, Fache asks Langdon questions, like who asked to see who and what about. Langdon said that the Curator wanted to see him, but didn't know why. The Curator was also apparently the foremost expert on goddess worship iconography. Langdon was hoping to pick his brain for a book that he's writing that has some potentially controversial discussions of modern day religions.
Langdon has a minor problem getting in the elevator, apparently having a phobia of them. But it's really just getting in the way of the story and I don't really care enough about him to sympathize. In a wonderful bout of feeding us information twice, Langdon sees Fache's tie clip and recognizes it as a Crux Gemmata. Fache then says, "It's a Crux Gemmata". Calling the department of redundancy department. Now, what Brown could be doing is trying to capture real life situations where a person recognizes an object and then told what it is. However there are better ways to go about it, than naming it and then naming it again. Blah, blah. Nothing happens. None of the security cameras are real, museums instead work on containment instead of seeing. Blah. More words. No, really. Nothing happens. They just walk and talk a little bit.
Then we switch to New York where learn the address of the new Opus Dei National Headquarters. And how much it cost. I think that Brown is confusing useless detail for description. We meet Bishop Manuel Aringarosa who is going somewhere. He's going to Rome. He's the president-general of Opus Dei. There's some talk about how Opus Dei is like a cult and the Bishop denying it. There's even a website address, www.odan.org (it's a real site) for watching the Opus Dei.
Somehow, Mr. Bishop has a cell phone that's on during the flight and receives a call on it. Cell phones are not allowed on during flights because bad things will happen. This is of course isn't as important as the plot, because, he needs to take the phone call while on his way to Rome, since it's about the Keystone. He couldn't have gotten the phone call before he left. No, he had to get it on the plane. It would have made more sense for him to have gotten it before he left (as well as safer) but this is ignored for... some bizzare reason. The caller wants the Bishop to influence... something. Again we're not told what. So perhaps the mafia needs a little influence.
And then we get our first innuendo! "Silas was feeling an aroused anticipation that he had not felt since his previous life".
Silas apparently had a very violent path until he found The Way. He thinks about Jesus' message of peace and non-violence and then the need to protect their faith.
He dons a robe, admires his reflection and the chapter ends.
So, once again. Nothing happened in this chapter. I'm beginning to think we've got a short story here smashed out into a novel There's a lot of info-dumping for description and not enough happening.
Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters.
Chapter three, three paragraphs above this statement reads:
...The man was stocky and dark, almost Neanderthal, dressed in a dark double-breasted suit that strained to cover his wide shoulders. He advanced with unmistakable authority on squat, powerful legs.
So, within less than a page we have two descriptions of the same man. The second description being horribly purple and doesn't really match the rest of the prose in the book. It's as if Brown decided to show how descriptive he is in describing people and giving a feel for their personality. He does, however, mix his metaphors, going from describing Fache from an ox to a ship to some sort of demon like critter. Which now makes me think he looks like a giant fiery ship with an ox figure head. Whee!
Also, the way this chapter beginning is structured it could have been the beginning of chapter three, without any need for that pointless ride in the car with Bobo. We're right at the action now, going down to the crime scene. They pass under the glass pyramid, which Langdon says has 666 panes of glass requested at President Mitterand's explicit request. The actual number of glass panes are 672. Brown is being a conspiracy nut here. The Devil is at Work Here. WHooOOooOO... Mystery!!
As Langdon and Fache head down, Fache asks Langdon questions, like who asked to see who and what about. Langdon said that the Curator wanted to see him, but didn't know why. The Curator was also apparently the foremost expert on goddess worship iconography. Langdon was hoping to pick his brain for a book that he's writing that has some potentially controversial discussions of modern day religions.
Langdon has a minor problem getting in the elevator, apparently having a phobia of them. But it's really just getting in the way of the story and I don't really care enough about him to sympathize. In a wonderful bout of feeding us information twice, Langdon sees Fache's tie clip and recognizes it as a Crux Gemmata. Fache then says, "It's a Crux Gemmata". Calling the department of redundancy department. Now, what Brown could be doing is trying to capture real life situations where a person recognizes an object and then told what it is. However there are better ways to go about it, than naming it and then naming it again. Blah, blah. Nothing happens. None of the security cameras are real, museums instead work on containment instead of seeing. Blah. More words. No, really. Nothing happens. They just walk and talk a little bit.
Then we switch to New York where learn the address of the new Opus Dei National Headquarters. And how much it cost. I think that Brown is confusing useless detail for description. We meet Bishop Manuel Aringarosa who is going somewhere. He's going to Rome. He's the president-general of Opus Dei. There's some talk about how Opus Dei is like a cult and the Bishop denying it. There's even a website address, www.odan.org (it's a real site) for watching the Opus Dei.
Somehow, Mr. Bishop has a cell phone that's on during the flight and receives a call on it. Cell phones are not allowed on during flights because bad things will happen. This is of course isn't as important as the plot, because, he needs to take the phone call while on his way to Rome, since it's about the Keystone. He couldn't have gotten the phone call before he left. No, he had to get it on the plane. It would have made more sense for him to have gotten it before he left (as well as safer) but this is ignored for... some bizzare reason. The caller wants the Bishop to influence... something. Again we're not told what. So perhaps the mafia needs a little influence.
And then we get our first innuendo! "Silas was feeling an aroused anticipation that he had not felt since his previous life".
Silas apparently had a very violent path until he found The Way. He thinks about Jesus' message of peace and non-violence and then the need to protect their faith.
He dons a robe, admires his reflection and the chapter ends.
So, once again. Nothing happened in this chapter. I'm beginning to think we've got a short story here smashed out into a novel There's a lot of info-dumping for description and not enough happening.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 04:24 pm (UTC)I couldn't finish a single one of his novels - I detest his writing style which I found to be plodding, dull, condescending and dare I say, almost child-like.
In addition, "Digital Fortress" was rife more with technical errors than "The Da Vinci Code" was filled with historical errors - all of which would've been corrected if the author had performed an hour or so of research.
I realize it's fiction, but the fact that he is so obviously lackadaisical when it comes to making his stories at least SEEM plausible indicates to me that he doesn't care about his readers or his work and only desires to crank out another moneymaker for the sheeple.
Thats my 2ยข for what it's worth...
Cheers,
Ted
no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-11 03:22 am (UTC)[silence] [cricket]
Sorry - Canadian humour. We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ commentary...
no subject
Date: 2007-09-11 02:32 am (UTC)Anyone else picturing Broud from Clan of the Cave Bear?
Still rooting for the Albino...