Further on Dan Brown...

...and his astounding ability to mangle prose to the point that it loses all coherence.Currently I'm at Chapter 40, and I assure you I've been skimming liberally, so who knows what kind of gems of language abuse I've missed. But I'll write another post on that later (Dan Brown's "inspired" descriptions in particular are full of juicy spork-worthy goodness, and deserve their very own post).For now, let's chat a bit about the actual structure of this here acclaimed, blockbuster novel. Frankly, it's the most redundant and contrived piece of crap I've ever read. It makes Mary Higgins Clark look like a mystery-writing genius. The entire reason that Dan Brown "keeps up the pace" with his story is because he's constantly jerking the reader around. He writes stuff like, "And then, he saw it," and doesn't explain what IT is until 15 pages later, at which point he introduces some other crucial piece of information as a tantalising hint which he doesn't fully reveal until much later, and so on and so forth. This isn't an original device -- plenty of other writers have employed it, myself included -- but with dear old Dan, there is absolutely no subtlety at all. Everything about it screams, "LOOK! There's something here that you don't know and I'm not telling you so you have to keep reading to find out, nyah nyah nyah!"Case and point: We find out that Agent Sophie Neveu, brilliant cryptographer and fashion-challenged eventual love interest, had a falling out with her grandfather over something dark and secretive she saw him participating in. We get this passage on page 75:Their relationship had evaporated in a single instant one March night when she was twenty-two. Ten years ago. Sophie had come home a few days early from graduate university in England and mistakenly witnessed her grandfather engaged in something Sophie was obviously not supposed to see. It was an image she could barely believe to this day.Now, this "single instant" of such horror which caused Sophie to completely reject her beloved grandfather is redundantly mentioned again on page 108, and twice (in completely separate paragraphs) on 113. On 140-143 we get a description of what happened leading up to the moment, but when it seems the reader is about to discover what Sophie saw that terrified her so, Brown once AGAIN skirts around the revelation and uses phrases like, "she felt the image searing itself into her memory forever," and leaves it at that. Until, of course, it gets yet another redundant passing reference on 154, telling us nothing new about the event, but reminding us that Dan Brown has a clumsy upper hand, and will force the poor reader to slog through his mind-numbing prose to find out just what the hell Sophie witnessed.Of course, at this point the reader is supposed to have a feeling of intrigue and curiosity. Personally, I want to throttle Dan Brown and scream, "Just tell us, you MORON!" Yes, I know that I don't know what precisely Sophie saw (though I can guess reasonably accurately, I expect), so quit mentioning it repeatedly as though you're telling me something new and mind-blowing.Maybe it would be more tolerable if half of his little mysteries weren't so transparent. No... on second thought, it would still be unbearable.But the triumph of redundancy and wasted verbiage (thus far -- Dan might top himself later) is the Priory of Sion key. Sophie flashbacks to her first finding of her grandfather's secret society key on page 109, and a description on 110:Its large golden head was in the shape of a cross, but not a normal cross, this was an even-armed one, like a plus sign. Embossed in the middle of the cross was a strange symbol-- two letters intertwined with some kind of flowery design.The paragraph goes on to reveal that flower is a fleur-de-lis and the letters are P.S. Sophie mentions the object, and Langdon guesses what kind of flower it was; he reveals on 113 that the P.S. and fleur-de-lis are the symbols of the Priory of Sion.Sure, fine, whatever. But on page 132, when Sophie finds the key again, we have:...the chain was affixed to a familiar gold key. The broad, sculpted head was in the shape of a cross and bore an engraved (note: I thought it was embossed?) seal she had not seen since she was nine years old. A fleur-de-lis with the initials P.S.DUH. What a shocker.And then 139:"He left you a physical object?"Sophie gave a curt nod. "Embossed with a fleur-de-lis and the initials P.S."Langdon couldn't believe his ears.And the readers couldn't believe that Dan Brown apparently lost all short term memory whilst he was writing this section. But surely, this is the end of the same description, yes?NO! On the same page:Even as she drove, Sophie's mind remained locked on the key in her pocket, her memories of seeing it many years ago, the gold head shaped as an equal-armed cross, the triangular shaft, the indentations, the embossed flowery seal, and the letters P.S.Just in case you missed it the first three times. But we aren't finished yet, oh no. On page 144, Langdon sees the key for the first time.When Langdon turned the key, he felt his jaw drop. There, intricately embossed on the center of the cross, was a stylised fleur-de-lis with the initials P.S.!It's the exclamation point that really gets me. In the FIFTH description of the key within 30 pages, Dan Brown uses added emphasis in his syntax, as though the reader is supposed to be just as blown away by the key's symbols as Langdumb.Although I do have to admit that my jaw dropped along with Langdon's. But that was because the terrible, terrible writing had induced a seizure.