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the lost clue
As a person who has bought or looked at or even thought about books ever, Amazon.com believes that I will be interested in the new opus by Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol, and I am, oh, I am! But not, perhaps, in the way that they were hoping.
First of all, what in the name of Jesus's sparkly Mary Sue great-great-great (SPOILERSOMG) is a lost symbol? Is it a symbol that you don't understand, in which case, how do you know that it's a symbol? Or is it a symbol that you can't find, in which case, how do you know that there is a symbol?
Second of all, Dan Brown is still writing books? Really? I had thought we were safe from him, with a whopping six years since the publication of The Da Vinci Code. It turns out that it took him all of that time to come up with The Lost Symbol?
I was totally willing to believe that that was the real jacket. In fact, I'm still not totally convinced that that isn't the real jacket, and the text "THIS IS NOT THE FINAL JACKET" running across the bottom is Dan Brown's idea of some kind of a modern-day Magritte-style exploration of symbologism. What can the hold-up possibly be on designing the jacket? Slam the lost symbol in the middle of it and you're done. Unless, of course, not even Dan Brown has figured out what the lost symbol looks like (it's lost, y'see).
Yes, I was really enjoying the new Dan Brown novel until I realized that our library is going buy a million copies of it, and I'm going to end up responsible for processing 500,000 of them, because my team handles titles that begin with the letter L.
Damn you, Dan Brown.
First of all, what in the name of Jesus's sparkly Mary Sue great-great-great (SPOILERSOMG) is a lost symbol? Is it a symbol that you don't understand, in which case, how do you know that it's a symbol? Or is it a symbol that you can't find, in which case, how do you know that there is a symbol?
Second of all, Dan Brown is still writing books? Really? I had thought we were safe from him, with a whopping six years since the publication of The Da Vinci Code. It turns out that it took him all of that time to come up with The Lost Symbol?
I was totally willing to believe that that was the real jacket. In fact, I'm still not totally convinced that that isn't the real jacket, and the text "THIS IS NOT THE FINAL JACKET" running across the bottom is Dan Brown's idea of some kind of a modern-day Magritte-style exploration of symbologism. What can the hold-up possibly be on designing the jacket? Slam the lost symbol in the middle of it and you're done. Unless, of course, not even Dan Brown has figured out what the lost symbol looks like (it's lost, y'see).
Yes, I was really enjoying the new Dan Brown novel until I realized that our library is going buy a million copies of it, and I'm going to end up responsible for processing 500,000 of them, because my team handles titles that begin with the letter L.
Damn you, Dan Brown.
no subject
And yes, if Dan Brown is good at two things, it's fear and surprise, no I mean, wrong skit, er.. it's two things.. taking himself too seriously, and getting certain kinds of people to give him free publicity by yelling loudly about the HORRIBLE LIES contained in this work of fiction. (of course, the author likes to pretend his works exist in some unique sphere of 'fiction which is nonetheless FOR REALZ, but yeah.)
no subject
I think you're right and it was the 'disclaimer' (more of a 'claimer') that elevated Da Vinci Code from a mediocre-to-lame thriller to a terrifying perfect storm of publishing. The people who enjoyed it and believe it implicitly because they don't know any better get to feel superior about themselves for knowing TEH TRUTH, and then all the people who know better and/or have better taste say how much it sucks, and then the first group of people feel persecuted and even more smug, and then more people read it because of the publicity over the 'controversy' and some of them enjoy it and believe it implicitly because they don't know any better, and so on.