[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Favorite books: (Was: New poll for HPFGU-OTChatter)

[Lee Kaiwen]

kempermentor On 02/05/2008 11:16:

> ... I guess I'm more pissed at me for being duped ...

I waited for the paperback. I *knew* it was going to be bad going in (as 
I hinted in a previous post, the very title screams "historical 
ignoramus!" Leonardo is no more "DaVinci" than St. Joan's father is "Mr. 
Of Arc"), so I wasn't disappointed. I read it just to see what all the 
talk was about.

"Predictable"? You're way took kind. I had most of the "mysteries" 
figured out chapters before the protagonist, and spent the bulk of the 
book waiting for the blockhead to realize the obvious. The star-shaped 
key? First time Brown described it I said (out loud, IIRC), "It's a 
key," then had to endure the good guys hauling it around through 
three-quarters of the book before they finally figured it out.

Characterization was paint-by-number -- lessee, handsome protagonist? 
Beautiful girl? Check and check. Character back-stories with sex, murder 
and mystery? Got 'em. Brown's attempts at giving Sophie (and c'mon -- 
"Sophie"? How cliched can you get?) pyschological depth were juvenile at 
best. These were some of the flattest, most uninteresting characters I'd 
ever encountered.

And the acting was horrible, like watching a high school play. NOBODY 
(except Teabing, obviously) "staggers (or was it 'reels'?) back" in 
shock, even when they do encounter a mysterious albino lurking around 
their patio doors at night.

And the premise of a single living descendant of Christ insulted the 
genealogist in me. Recent mathematical modeling on population dispersion 
demonstrates that bloodlines diffuse quite rapidly, and it is a 
mathematical near-certainty that *every* European born before the year 
800 is an ancestor of *every* European alive today. Meaning the Priory 
of Scion better have a taste for genocide if they're serious about 
eliminating Jesus' descendants. And save the last bullet for themselves.

But reading DC did have one positive benefit: it reaffirmed my life 
principle of avoiding anything on trade best seller lists. (OK, Mitch 
Albom is the exception).

CJ