quasigeostrophy: (hypnotoad)
[personal profile] quasigeostrophy
I liked the book. Not a literary breakthrough and a bit telegraphed, but an entertaining and quick read. Even though I've heard the movie (understandably, considering the book is a lot of exposition) drags, I may go see it for the heck of it.

Currently, I've been half paying attention to a documentary on The History Channel called Beyond the Da Vinci Code which is uncovering the truth behind many of the so-called claims in the novel. I like the approach of this documentary. The facts are being presented neutrally. I've read so many similar debunkings that annoy me with a tone, explicit or implicit, of "Dan Brown got it wrong!"

Give me a break. He wrote a work of fiction!!

Many years ago, I fell in love with a novel called The Eight, the first book by Katherine Neville. It's still one of my favorite books. It's a creative placing of historical characters from around and after the time of the French Revolution linked to another story thread set in the 1970s. They're all where they were, doing for the most part what they did that is recorded historically, when they did it. But Neville changed their motivations, often extremely. To me, whatever his actual intent, Brown's The Da Vinci code is the same sort of thing, except only with present day protagonists.

People having cow puppies about things Brown claims in the novel about the Catholic church and so forth, IMHO, just need to get over it.

Date: 2006-05-26 09:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] klwalton.livejournal.com
Reginald Hill is contemporary rather than historical, but his writing is terrific, and as he got deeper into the series, he wasn't afraid to experiment.

Wikipedia lists the novels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalziel_&_Pascoe) in order. I believe they're all available in paperback, except Death of Dalziel, which hasn't yet been released.

The TV series is not available in the U.S. (or in the UK, from what I can tell), damn it. Although it took, in its second season, a major departure from the books, A&E ran the very first one, A Clubbable Woman, which I saw and liked, but another has never crossed the pond, nor does it look to be happening any time soon. Ah, well.

Date: 2006-05-26 09:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com
Thanks. I'll file the info for when I feel like I have much time to read fiction again. :-)

Date: 2006-05-26 09:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] klwalton.livejournal.com
Yeah, that may be awhile :).

Profile

quasigeostrophy: (Default)
quasigeostrophy

October 2019

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 5th, 2025 03:47 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios