In a previous essay, I interviewed four self-published authors I admire, and I examined some of the benefits of that career path. Midway through writing the piece, I realized I’d have to continue the discussion in a second essay in order to fully explore my feelings (complicated) on the topic (multifaceted). You see, Reader, I still don’t plan on self-publishing my first novel, though I don’t deny the positive aspects of that choice.
Below I’ve outlined a few reasons behind my decision, informed by our contemporary moment. I can’t predict the future, though I’m sure I’ll remain comfortable with my opinions for at least another thirteen months. It’s in a list format, the pet genre of the blogosphere. How else was I to keep my head from imploding?
1. I Guess I’m Not a Hater
People love to talk about how traditional publishing is dying, but is that actually true? According to The New York Times, the industry has seen a 5.8% increase in net revenue since 2008. E-books are “another bright spot” in the industry, and the revenue of adult fiction grew by 8.8% in three years. (Take that, Twilight!)
Of course, the industry has troubles. The slim profit margins of books; the problems of bookstore returns; the quandary of Borders closing and Amazon forever selling books as a loss-leader; how to make people actually pay for content, and so on. Furthermore, the gamble of the large advance strikes me as ridiculous — and reckless, considering that editors and marketing teams have no real clue which books will be hits and which ones won’t. (Still, what writer is going to kick half-a-million out of bed?) And there’s the always-chilling question: With mounting pressure to turn a profit, how do editors justify publishing an amazing book that might not speak to a large audience? Talented authors — new and mid-list — are bound to get lost in this system.
And yet. And yet. I read good books by large publishing houses all the time, books that take my breath away, make me laugh and cry and wonder at the brilliance of humanity. I trust publishers. They don’t always get it right, but more often than not, they do. As I said in the piece that started me off on this whole investigation: “I want a reputable publishing house standing behind my book; I want them to tell you it’s good so that I don’t have to.”
2. I Write Literary Fiction
Before you get your talons out, let me clarify: I don’t consider literary fiction superior to other kinds of fiction, just different; to me, it’s simply another genre, subject-wise and/or marketing-wise. Many of the writers who have found success in self-publishing are writers of straightforward genre fiction. Amanda Hocking writes young adult fantasy, dwarfs and all. Valerie Forster, who published traditionally before setting out on her own, writes legal thrillers. Romance, too, often does just fine without a publisher. Aside from Anthropology of An American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann, I can’t think of another literary novel that enjoyed critical praise and healthy sales when self-published. That’s not to say that it can’t — and shouldn’t — happen, it’s only to point out that it’s a tougher road for writers of certain sorts of stories. Readers like me aren’t seeking out self-published books. Why not? That’s for another essay. (Please, can someone else write that one?) Until the likes of Jeffrey Eugenides and Alice Munro begin publishing their work via CreateSpace, I don’t see the landscape for literary fiction changing anytime soon.
3. I’d Prefer a Small Press to a Vanity Press
The conversation about self-publishing too often ignores the role of independent publishing houses in this shifting reading landscape. Whether it be larger independents like Algonquin and Graywolf, or small gems like Featherproof and Two Dollar Radio, or university presses like Lookout Books, the imprint at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, which recently published Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision (nominated for this year’s National Book Award), independent presses offer diversity to readers, and provide yet another professional option for authors. These presses are run and curated by well-read, talented people, and they provide readers with the same services that a large press provides: namely, a vote of confidence in a writer the public might have never heard of. Smaller presses, too, enjoy a specificity of brand and identity that too often eludes a larger house.
In this terrific interview, publisher Fred Ramey of Unbridled Books puts it this way:
I believe that the iron grip that large publishers and their marketing partners have had on readers’ attention since the 1990s has slipped quite a bit with the arrival of online retailers and opinion-makers. Obviously patrons of online booksellers can see the breadth of reading options – “Others who bought this item also bought….” Patrons of independent bookstores know of those options, too, and depend on the recommendations of their booksellers. The few “designated” titles from the big house are still dominant, of course, even in independent stores. But if you are an author in one of those corporations whose book has not been “designated” your reality can become pretty stark.
Independent presses can offer a real chance to a talented writer who might not fit the formulas of the big house. Yes, I know that each conglomerate has a few imprints and a good many editors dedicated to the best of books — to maintaining the course of American letters. Those are the prestigious imprints that aren’t always required to pretend the sales of a prior book predict the performance of the next book. (I’m often astounded at how willing the industry is to act as though it believes that. We all know it isn’t true.) But independent presses are all dedicated to finding and presenting the best of books, dedicated to the books in and of themselves and to the promise of the authors.
A year ago, I published my novella If You’re Not Yet Like Me with a tiny press called Flatmancrooked, and I consider it the highlight of my career so far. Not only did I get to work with a sharp and talented editor, Deena Drewis, and have my book designed by the press’s risk-taking founder Elijah Jenkins, I also had so much fun participating in the press’s LAUNCH program, where the limited first-edition went on pre-order for just a week. My book sold out in three days, and getting that first paycheck was exhilarating. My tiny book got me on a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a few awesome readings, and it even found its way to two different editors at larger houses. It became my literary calling card. When readers received my book in the mail, it was signed and numbered by me. It also came with a condom.
Flatmancrooked, sadly, closed its doors earlier this year, but Drewis has continued the LAUNCH program with her new press, Nouvella. The success of Flatmancrooked showed me that small can mean flexible and daring in its editorial and marketing choices. Small presses try things that large, established houses are too huge, and possibly too chickenshit, to even consider. The fact that Flatmancrooked is now defunct showed me that a labor of love is still a labor (especially when its laborers have other full-time jobs to go to), and that instability is unavoidable in the small press (or the small, small, small press) game.
Some writers are forever wed to the small press landscape. Others, like Blake Butler, Amelia Gray, Benjamin Percy, and Emma Straub first published with smaller outfits and have since moved onto larger houses. Perhaps the small press world is becoming the real proving ground for literary writers.
4. Self-Publishing is Better for the Already-Published
Perhaps the smarter, and far more seductive, path is the one where the writer begins his career with a traditional publisher, and then, once he’s built a base of loyal readers, sets off on his own. The man who loves to talk smack about the publishing industry, J.A. Konrath, already had an audience from his traditionally-published books by the time he decided to take matters into his own hands. It’s much harder to create a readership out of nothing.
I’m interested to see how Neal Pollack’s latest novel, Jewball, does as a self-published book. Short story writer Tod Goldberg is also trying this approach with his new mini-collection, Where You Lived, self-published as an e-book. I don’t need an intermediary to tell me about these writers because their previously published books speak for them.
5. I Value the Publishing Community
I decided to ask the most famous writer I know, Peter Straub, if he’s ever considered leaving the world of big publishing and putting out a book all by his lonesome. After all, he’s a bestselling author and editor of more than 25 books (18 novels alone!), and he’s a horror writer beloved by genre geeks and snobby literary types alike. A few of his fans probably sport tattoos of his bespectacled face on their pecs. (Or: Peter Straub tramp stamps! Yes!) In an email response, Straub acknowledged how quickly the publishing world and our reading habits are changing, and he said he just might experiment with self-publishing short fiction in the coming years. He told me:
True self-publication means writers upload content themselves, and plenty already do it. I’m not quite sure how you then publicize the work in question, or get it reviewed, but that I am unsure about these elements is part of the reason I seek always, at least for the present, to have my work published in book form by an old-style trade publisher. The trade publisher, which has contracted for the right to do so, then brings the book out in e-form and as an audiobook, so I am not ignoring that audience.
What he went on to say gave me a special kind of hope:
Most of the editors I have worked with over the past thirty-five years have made crucial contributions to the books entrusted to them, and the copy-editors have always, in every case, done exactly the same. They have enriched the books that came into their hands. Can you have good, thoughtful, creative editing and precise, accurate, immaculate copy-editing if you self-publish? And if you can’t, what is being said about the status or role of selflessness before the final form of the fiction as accepted by the audience, I mean the willingness of the author to submerge his ego to produce the novel that is truest to itself?
This — this! — I get. Even though my first novel was rejected by traditional publishers, one assistant editor’s notes on it — notes that were thorough, thoughtful, challenging, and compassionate — were enough to show me that these professionals are valuable to the process of book-making. I know you can hire experienced editors and copy-editors, but how is that role affected when the person paying is the writer himself? What if the hired editor told you not to publish? Would that even happen?
6. The E-Reading Conundrum; or, I don’t want to be Amazon’s Bitch
Many self-published authors have gone totally electronic, eschewing print versions of their work altogether. I can’t see myself taking that route, however, because I don’t own an e-reader, and I don’t have plans to buy one (not yet, anyway… I read a lot in the bath, etc., etc.). It seems odd that I wouldn’t be able to buy my own book — I mean, shouldn’t I be my own ideal reader? I also prefer to shop at independent bookstores, and in fact, I pay full price for my books all the time. The thought of Amazon being the only place to purchase my novel shivers my timbers. I don’t mind if someone else chooses to read my work electronically, just as I don’t mind if Amazon is one of the places to purchase my work; I’m simply wary of Amazon monopolizing the reading landscape. Self-publishing has certainly offered an alternative path for writers, but it’s naive to believe that a self-published author is “fighting the system” if that self-published book is produced and made available by a single monolithic corporation. In effect, they’ve rejected “The Big 6” for “The Big 1.”
7. Is it Best for Readers?
In September, when my brother-in-law learned that my book still hadn’t sold, he said, “Please don’t self-publish!” He was actually wincing. If I did self-publish, he said, he’d buy it because we were family, but otherwise, he’d happily ignore my novel in search of something he’d read about on The Millions, or heard about on NPR, or had a friend recommend. There are simply too many books out there as it is.
Our conversation reminded me of Laura Miller’s humorous and perspicacious essay, “When Anyone Can be a Published Author,” in which she reminds us that the people who celebrate self-publishing often overlook what it means for book buyers and readers. She writes:
Readers themselves rarely complain that there isn’t enough of a selection on Amazon or in their local superstore; they’re more likely to ask for help in narrowing down their choices. So for anyone who has, however briefly, played that reviled gatekeeper role, a darker question arises: What happens once the self-publishing revolution really gets going, when all of those previously rejected manuscripts hit the marketplace, en masse, in print and e-book form, swelling the ranks of 99-cent Kindle and iBook offerings by the millions? Is the public prepared to meet the slush pile?
As a member of the reading public, I am not prepared, or willing, to wade through all that unfiltered literature. As a writer, I must put my head back to the grindstone and write a book that more than a handful of readers can fall in love with.
8. I’m Busy. Writing.
Today I wrote two pages of my new novel while my mother took my five-month-old son to the mall. I get twelve hours of childcare a week, and six of those are dedicated to preparing for my classes and running a private writing school. The other six hours I devote to my new novel. The old one, the one that traditional editors didn’t go nuts for, is in the drawer. Some might say I’ve given up; I say, I’m just getting warmed up. I’m still writing, aren’t I? My career isn’t one book, but many. And like every other writer out there, I decide what road I want to travel.
Image credit: purplesmog/Flickr
I am on record, both in this magazine and in my local newspaper, as an enthusiastic defacer of books. Recently I had a new kind of marginal experience that I would like to share: the pleasure of joint, or (as they say in grad seminars) “dialogic” marginalia.
For the last few years, I’ve been telling people that “Angels and Demons” is the trashiest book I’ve ever read (no small achievement). It’s nice to know that Brown has persisted with his style of banality, incredulity and ponderous literary/historical scavenging – without actually having to read his books!
Lousy writing is so much fun!
So instead of spending your time, money, and energy on, say, a terrific yet under-the-radar writer, you purchased Dan Brown’s latest book, read it, made “amusing” comments in the margins, and then wrote an article with the revolutionary premise that Dan Brown is a shitty writer. (If I had been able to write a snarky comment in this essay’s margins, it would have been: Thanks for this invaluable and thought-provoking cultural contribution!)
There is something terribly depressing in this image of the literary intelligentsia sitting on their thrones and ironically reading bad books. Come on, Sam and Dave, don’t give up on literature just yet!
I could likely do something very similar with DFW’s works as well.
While we’re on the subject of poor writing, please let me edit out the word “basically” from this margin note: “I basically haven’t been able to picture anything he’s described.” Thank you.
My friends and I did this in high school with some kind of series aimed at teen girls that revolved around cheerleaders. If you were fourth or fifth in line to read you would cry with laughter all the way through.
Every time I read the banal comments about my own writing, I look at reviews for Dan Brown. And I rage, “How did this man get published and all I get are rejections and criticism about my cliches and grammar errors. Of course, having a sane and dependable proof reader and an editor would help those things… but they also stop my books from being professionally published. How does Brown do It? And how can I convince his readers my stories are at least moderately better?
This article, while not revolutionary, serves a similar purpose as Brown’s novels. I was much more entertained by this than I was ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘The DaVinci Code,’ particularly David’s “EAT SHIT” annotation.
For 20 years I worked at a publishing house that makes recorded books, and I learned more from about good writing from hearing books read out loud than I did getting a BA in English. And O! Does this piece remind me of those days! We had no choice but to read these things and margin-comments were our way of relieving the agony. What we figured out is that anybody could get anything published if they are persistent enough (and this was in the days before self-publishing on a massive scale.)
I think most people just scan and miss the silliness of so much writing and therefore don’t understand what we’re making a big deal about. I often feel like I’m speaking a different language when I discuss actual quality of writing, even with people who love reading, so I get comfort from stories like these!
And Shannon, it also comforts me to know that there are high school kids care too.
Our favorite person to pick on, btw, was Piers Anthony. There are some people in my city that very seriously wish he’d die so he won’t write more books.
@Zach. No you can’t. Just go and pick up Infinite Jest next time you’re in a book store and think about what you wrote.
First off, great read, I love this kind of MST3K approach to glossing works, hope to see more of it in the future.
Secondly, I thought I’d repost my comment from a reddit discussion going on about this very article. It took me much longer than I planned on investing in it, and I would hate to see all that effort potentially buried under what I can only expect to be a torrent of downvotes.
My response:
People have problems with Dan Brown’s writing because he so consistently and persistently ‘gets it wrong’. And people who do care about things like characterization, plausibility, and intelligent prose are going to have problems with his writing. Most just shrug and look the other way, but others are genuinely concerned that something with so many issues can achieve such unparalleled success.
I don’t personally think it’s a problem to read Dan Brown, and I take issue to people who say “Don’t read this book because it’s bad”, but the problem is when people start throwing all these nonsensical adjectives praising Dan Brown. I have a BA and an MA in English Lit, so I guess it’s fair to say I can easily be chucked in with the book snobs of this world, and though I will admit I’ve read all of Brown’s works for fun, I cannot concede that either his writing style or his books have any value beyond being an in-flight read. At very least his prose is terribly sloppy, to say nothing of his blatant disregard for coherent characterization. A sentence like “Atop a control tower in the distance, the Turkish flag fluttered proudly–a field of red emblazoned with the ancient symbols of the crescent and star–vestiges of the Ottoman Empire, still flying proudly in the modern world” shouldn’t have made it past the first draft stage, much less made it past the editor. As the article above points out, it’s a repetition for starters (we get that the flag is fluttering), but the big problem for a grammarian like me is this:
The antecedents of “vestiges” are “the ancient symbols of the crescent and star”, but since these two terms appear in the parenthetical phrase “a field of red…”, this means they don’t function as part of the grammar of the sentence. So what we really have written here is “Atop a control tower in the distance, the Turkish flag fluttered proudly, vestiges of the Ottoman Empire…” HUH? The ‘flag is vestiges’? Grammatically that’s nonsense. Ok, so the control tower with the flag are vestiges of the Ottoman Empire? That doesn’t make any logical sense, a control tower is not a vestige of the Ottoman Empire. So clearly he meant the ancient symbols are vestiges, but his awkward and broken syntax has rendered the statement illogical and grammatically incorrect.
Doing this once would be fine, but Dan Brown does this a lot, and then makes a lot of money for this kind of writing. But this is his profession. It’s his job (if not to get this right, then at least to try. It’s not like it’s his shtick to flaunt the flaunt the rules of grammar and syntax, if it was I would shut up). If a factory worker messed up like this, and did so consistently, we might not fire them, sure, but we certainly wouldn’t be giving them a massive raise and calling them one of the best workers in the field. Or, if we did, a lot of his fellow workers (and perhaps even a few laymen) might start to wonder just what the hell some people were thinking, and they might take to a forum (like the internet) to express those valid concerns. But again, that doesn’t mean Dan Brown shouldn’t be read, or even enjoyed; people can do whatever they want. But the problems with his prose are alone the reasons why his works will never be compared favorably to Moby Dick.
TL;DR English major tries to explain a potential reason why people take issue with Dan Brown’s writings.
Frankly, the writer sounds like a little bitch, but maybe that’s just me. Like Brown’s writing or not, there has to be better things to do with one’s time.
@T: there has to be better things to do with one’s time
Like calling a stranger a “little bitch”?
@Sly
Infinite Jest is unimpeachable in its totality (and one of the few books I love with no reservation), but Broom of the System has room in the margins for no little snark. It’s the kind of freshman work that should have stayed in a drawer–not because it’s so bad, but because it’s the clearly underdeveloped work of someone whose later talent renders it disappointing in retrospect. Plus there is some real boring shit in it.
Anyway. Writing about Dan Brown on the Millions is like showing a latter-day Adam Sandler vacation home movie at Cannes. Yes, he is a writer of books, and this is a website about books, and there ends the common ground.
What if I wanted to read Dan Brown’s book to learn about history in a fun setting? All the facts in his books are verifiable (especially in the day and age of all mighty Google) so what’s wrong with that?
Please do a similar one on Paul Auster!
DB’s writing is dumb and boring and he doesn’t develop any interesting ideas that are clearly his own. The only thing that makes him of interest to me is that he raises the question of what publishers are looking for and why. Once in a while no-talent hacks rise to fame and fortune for no good reason, they just happened to know somebody and show up on the right day.
@Rastaman426
Reading Dan Brown to learn about history is like those people who read sparknotes on classics so they appear to be well-read. Besides, that’s what Dan Brown does. He skims the surface of history looking for little anecdotes he can adapt into a story or simply boring filler to boost his word count. There are some entertaining history and autobiographical texts by real historians or influential people. You’re better off learning and being entertained by first-handers and people who actually know what they’re talking about. Perfect example: Guns, Germs, and Steel.
And yet, Dan Brown has made way more $ than the author of this article. Oh, and people have heard of Dan Brown’s name whereas nobody knows who ‘Sam Anderson’ is. Lol.
We have three dogs named (from left to right) Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, and The Hardy Boys. Thanks for giving them a shout out on the DEATH MASK page. They’re great dogs and they are not fans of Dan Brown either.
some seriously dickish comments here. i liked brown as a child, but recently listened to Inferno on a long road trip. rolled my eyes so much it was a driving hazard.
Deliciously funny. It reminded me of Twain’s “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html
Danikova sounds an awful lot like Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
Thank you for so humorously capturing the ridiculousness of this book! Will you please do The Lost Symbol, too? There are so many great moments in that one, from the breathless students in his Harvard lectures to the female character that he uses every synonym for “fat” to describe any time she appears.
I feel so validated. For my community college Creative Writing final, I used to make my freshmen and sophomores read the first chapter of the DaVinci Code and tell me why it was crap. Now I do it with Stefani Meyer’s Twilight. Thank you for writing this.
“And yet, Dan Brown has made way more $ than the author of this article. Oh, and people have heard of Dan Brown’s name whereas nobody knows who ‘Sam Anderson’ is. Lol.”
Well, that settles it then. Brown’s books have made him very rich. He must be right and Anderson must be wrong, because we all know that money is the final determination of literary quality.
Move along people.
Nothing else to see here.
For being an artisanal pencil sharpener, David’s red pencil doesn’t seep all that sharp…
Both hilarious and sad. The latter, because there are so many writers out there who can write much better than this but do not get to make even a small percent of Brown’s millions. It makes you sad for what this means for our culture, our humanity….. (ellipsis intended).
Anyone read the 50 Shades of Grey books? They are *worse* than Dan Brown
@weasel soup:
I haven’t read 50 Shades, but, in 2012, I did come across this hilarious blog where the blogger did a close reading of them, chapter by chapter, and blogged her thoughts. I found her posts very entertaining and wonder if they might sell more if made into a book. But, that’s not likely to happen, sadly.
http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2012/05/announcing-bad-idea.html
You’ll have to browse through using her labels / categories as it’s not easy to find the posts chronologically.
Apparently, there have been similar deconstructions of the Twilight books online too, though I haven’ read those.
@Ryan Ries
So instead of spending your time, money, and energy on, say, a terrific yet under-the-radar writer, you purchased Dan Brown’s latest book, read it, made “amusing” comments in the margins, and then wrote an article with the revolutionary premise that Dan Brown is a shitty writer. (If I had been able to write a snarky comment in this essay’s margins, it would have been: Thanks for this invaluable and thought-provoking cultural contribution!)
There is something terribly depressing in this image of the literary intelligentsia sitting on their thrones and ironically reading bad books. Come on, Sam and Dave, don’t give up on literature just yet!
LITERATURE!!! ;__;
Yeah, you guys! Why do you have to be so negative? Can’t you be more positive? Okay, so you don’t enjoy Mr. Brown’s writing. Well, lots and lots of people DO enjoy it! They can’t all be wrong, can they? So why don’t you guys write about a book that you DO love instead of one that you DON’T love. Then SHARE that love with all of US, so that we can all enjoy that love, TOGETHER!
If you did that, it would be a really beautiful thing.
Chemondelay
Yes, don’t give up on literature, as in, don’t waste your time on lazy, lowest-hanging-fruit essays like this and instead challenge yourself to find and celebrate a real piece of art.
@ Jenny Bhatt
Thanks for the link! I can in turn recommend the recaps at http://jennytrout.wordpress.com/jenny-reads-50-shades-of-grey/ and http://www.snarksquad.com/category/books-2/fifty-shades too (that’s a lot of recaps, but they’re both great takedowns as well.
I guess I like the schadenfreude of reading about why bad writing is bad…
Seriously, this hit Broadway musical idea of yours sounds amazingly spectacular and I highly encourage you to do it.
LOL Good work The Millions! Spoiler Alert: Dan Brown’s next book is a “Choose Your Own Ending” (remember those) published by Scholastic and sold to unsuspecting middle schoolers….
Sam and Dave.
Love it.
Now I want “Sam and Dave Go To The Opera”
Having gotten over my initial mirth, I am now wondering, rather glumly, about the publishers and editors who allowed so many glaring issues to see the light of day. I mean, really, didn’t someone at Doubleday say, sure, it’s bestselling Dan Brown, but, you know, let’s have someone read the thing before it goes to print. Or, did they just decide that there would be plenty of readers who wouldn’t care for decent writing, so, why bother? Either way, shouldn’t these careless publishers and editors be held just as responsible as the writer for inflicting this stuff on the reading public?
Someone should get a Doubleday rep on the phone/email/Twitter, present them with this marginalia and at least pose the question.
@haints
“They can’t all be wrong, can they?”
YES. They can. They are. They will be. Just because one knows how to read, doesn’t mean one need be thoughtful or even smart. Reading well, however, reading with even a smidgen of critical input, reading with the responsibility to complete the circle of the story that the writer has started—doing this takes more than scanning words with the same attention one gives to a Sharper Image catalog or a copy of Varmint Hunter.
This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long while. And reading humorous takedowns of prose we know is bad often does more good for me as a writer than reading a good story. I know, it shouldn’t be this way, but by the end of the piece I was thinking that a great craft book could be entitled ‘Just Don’t(…)” – then it could be filled with DB excerpts (and zillions of other authors) and the red and black marginalia from this wonderful duo. Over many years of reading accepted good writing, arguably passable writing, and certain bad writing, I often revisit my own work most effectively and with more confidence (less vitriolic self-criticism?) after reading first-draft-unedited-but-shockingly-published stinky garbage like Dan Brown.
To know you might have a chance of penning a better than average story, a story that might have some legs, a story that proves you have more talent than Dan Brown or your other favorite ham-handed typer, you only have to read his line, ‘Apparently a background in drama could be a versatile weapon.’ If you read that with your mouth full and you don’t choke on your food with a gut laugh and think ‘Holy shitballs, my cat writes better than that when she runs across the keyboard,’ then you haven’t a chance on earth.
Thanks, guys. This was a gas.
PS – @Ryan Ries – I’m pretty darn sure Sam and David didn’t make “amusing” comments. They made amusing comments.
But, there is such a thing as paroxysmal positional vertigo. I have no idea what the book is about…..is it still dumb even though this is a real condition? Not defending the book in any way.
Keep it up. This is funny and righteous. I also recommend: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10049454/Dont-make-fun-of-renowned-Dan-Brown.html
Would have enjoyed The Da Vinci Code SO much more if I’d taken this approach. Instead I just cursed all the way through.
What an indulgent prat Dan Brown has proved to be – I just finished reading – no sorry, skimming, this ridiculous book and I wanted to post a reflection of my anger and sheer frustration that this nonsense could actually be published – shame on the publishers, shame on the editors – you have sold your souls for a few unworthy shekels. Shame on you.
DB sounds like the literary equivalent to Thomas Kincade.
Ah, Mark, my comment was intended as a satire. I liked this piece and was making fun of the “why can’t you just say something positive?” people.
However we have been able to create a fantastic tour of Florence based on the Dan Brown’s novel :-)
I don’t find it ironic that the majority of those who trash Dan Browns novels online are the same people who spend most of their time facebooking, blogging and twittering strangers online also.
They spend so much time twittering about themselves, they cringe at the prospect of celebrating someone else.
Celebrating someone who’s genuinely successful.
To enjoy Dan Brown, you need to have a reasonable attention span and at least an above average grip of the English written word.
In medical school we had a saying “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach”. I guess in this case it should be “those who can, write books that sell, those who can’t, make fun of those who can”
“In medical school we had a saying “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach”. I guess in this case it should be “those who can, write books that sell, those who can’t, make fun of those who can””
Right, because the only way to truly judge the quality of a work is by how much it sells. That’s is why Van Gogh sucked while he was alive, and then suddenly got really great after he died …
Yet another example that a medical degree is no guarantee of intelligence …
Sir!
Per my recent Tweetage, https://twitter.com/MamurphyMaureen/status/498867059980525569 I am Outraged and full of Umbrage that the great name of Mr. Dan Brown has been so sorely maligned by you and that Malignant Sharpener of Pencils.
What next, an attack on the Modern Prophetess of Human Improvement, Amy Chua? My Faithful Biographer Moe Murph will be regularly reporting back to me on the Outrageous Stream of Verbiage and the Attendant Most Impertinent Comments.
Sir, were I but yet Corporeal and not a being afloat on the Etheric Twitter Cloud, I would thrash you both soundly.
Harrrrumphhh!
Senator Kefuaver F. Tutwiller, IV (1823-1913)
Etheric Twitter Cloud
Book? Inferno isn’t a book, it’s an infomercial cobbled together by the makers of tweed jackets and gin.
I just finished reading the book and I found the story enjoyable. I guess I read for an enjoyable story rather than a literary orgasm. I also don’t have a B.A. in English so I don’t pick apart his writing. After seeing your margin notes though I can completely understand where you are coming from. Especially the bit about how you had trouble imagining whatever he was trying to explain. At times I’d just Google the damn thing. Other than that, the flaws went right over my head.
I figure it is a lot like painting. When I see a painting it is either ugly or beautiful, but to an artist they see every brush stroke, colour, technique, etc. and then make their judgement.
A lot of his success did come from how “controversial” his second book was. Since then everyone will pick up whatever he writes now and he doesn’t even have to try.
Since Dan Brown is forever ruined for me and I am amongst literary scholars, enlighten me to a well written thriller with a good story. :) I’d appreciate it!
I just love the pompous BS you hear form the “intellectual” elite. If you were so perfect and incredible a writer, I would assume it would be you and your friend who were making millions of dollars “entertaining” the masses.
You are entitled to your opinions of course, as such perfect writers you both are in your own minds. However, I don’t think many people really care what your opinion is at all. I know I certainly do not (chuckle, chuckle “…”).
Well, well. look at my typo in my previous response. Guess I’ll get ton of crap about that. Oh well.
How did I miss this? O joy! LOVE
TO WES – RE: “Since Dan Brown is forever ruined for me and I am amongst literary scholars, enlighten me to a well written thriller with a good story. :) I’d appreciate it!”
Hi Wes, just noticed this. Sir, you have a wry and funny natural writing voice and I would vouchsafe that many of the “literary scholars” are not as sly and witty as you, so please do not undersell yourself! Given the damage that has been done by our silly comments, may I offer some suggestions below:
a.) The Manchurian Candidate – Richard Condon
b.) The Spy Who Came In From The Cold – John le Carre (accent missing)
c.) The World At Night – Alan Furst (Note: Mid-90’s — I am not that familiar with author but many good words from other readers)
d.) The Third Man and other Stories – Graham Green (The Master — God, what a writer)
e.) Gorky Park – Martin Cruz Smith (Wonderful, best of the “Renko” series)
f.) Lee Child – “The Killing Floor” (Lee Child, Lee Child, unstoppable force, who has addicted every member of the Murphy family. I am ashamed to say I haven’t read him yet and at Thanksgiving, the entire family shook their heads and sighed)
Hope you enjoy!
Moe Murph
Only really, really stupid people–and by that I mean people like you Thomas–equate popularity with quality.
This article made me chuckle. I have never tried to read Brown’s more famous works – I’ve only read ~1/3 the way through Deception Point, at which time my incredulity at the “science” he proposed (I am a professional researcher in the geosciences and get to work a lot with aerospace engineers) in his book, and prefaced it with something to the effect of “all of the technology in this book is possible and real”, caused me to put the damn thing down and never pick it up again. Zero desire. It was just so goddamn bogus. It remains one of three fiction books I have never finished reading, nor do I plan to.
It just wasn’t enjoyable, because it wasn’t believable. This coming from a guy who loves fantasy and sci-fi; for whom suspension of disbelief comes easily. I think maybe you can have a shitty plot, but good writing, or a good plot, and shitty writing, but not both. Maybe the success of bad literature lies in the combination of mediocre plot + shitty writing (+/- controversy?). Perhaps that’s the sweet spot.
I have read all but the latest of Dan Brown’s books and must admit that I enjoyed most of them. Like it or not, he writes books that people read. Recently, I stopped reading a “well-written” book less than half-way through because it bored the hell out of me. I just finished Brown’s first book, Digital Fortress–a complete mess. The mystery here is how this one got published at all. Bad books by established authors are nothing new, but this was his first novel. Who did he have to blow to get it on the market? I want his name and number, because I have a book that’s nearly as bad and going nowhere.
Clark – now there’s a positive approach to discovering bad popular literature. :-)
and DB sells a lot of books !
the obvious seems to have escaped everyone including the publisher of the book and the producer of the movie, maybe even Dan Brown himself, that in the end there really is no book or movie here at all other than the usual travelogue of historical places in Italy. Because if the villain wanted to release this on the world he simply would have done it and THEN announced it if he needed his hubris satisfied. It’s not like he’s Blofeld holding the world for ransom. The book is maybe a bit less pitiful, because it turns out the villain released it a week before he said it would, and it was “only” to sterilize a third of the world’s population. Either way it strains credulity to anyone who even thinks once (much less twice) about the plot.