Just finished Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. The Washington Post, in a rare lapse of decorum, not to mention English, calls it "Unputdownable." Please. The book, much like it's follow-up, The Davinci Code, dishes out improbabilities with shameless haste. "Unputdownable?" Maybe, but the book is a traffic accident. If you can't put it down, it's only because you are a rubbernecker.
Grade: C-
Question for future posts: Did Pope Pius IX, in 1857, really casterate every statue of a nude male within Vatican City, as Brown claims? Pius was a bad man, a bad pope and a bad Catholic, but was he also a prude?
To the books!
2 comments:
I really enjoyed the book, but it a guilty sort of way.
No, not because it's about Christianity.
I feel guilty because I let myself get drawn in by his cliched, formulaic way of writing.
I kept thinking about the last scene in "Murder by Death":
"You've withheld vital information from your readers, so that they could never figure out the answers on their own, and you've introducted characters in the last chapter..." etc.
You pretty much know that he's going to switch villains near the end, and that he's going to deliberately mislead you by doling out false information...but still, I enjoyed the ride.
Wonder how much is actually true?
Haven't even read The DaVinci Code yet (although it's on my radiator, which is where I keep the "on deck" books). My biggest problem with the Post's review is, as you mentioned, the English. Unputdownable? Is that a challenge? Let's try:
"Hey you, book! You're stupid, you'll never be as good as your older brother, and you dress funny!"
Definitely putdownable.
Post a Comment