I disdain bestsellers (and only read them in the bookstore)
That is not entirely true. I started reading a copy of the uber popular The DaVinci Code the other night--Liz gave it to me among the books she was casting off and I had a sneer on my face for the first several chapters. An albino? Really? Haven't albinos endured enough? You never ever see an albino playing a good guy unless he's like really meant to be Andy Warhol. Then you also have these stock figures--the crooked, fairly ineffectual law figure, the earnest, tough as nails sexy brilliant woman with the mysterious past, and the well-liked, rumpled and attractive central character. I wonder if the main guy (Robert?) and the cartographer will get it on? Also the chapters are really short as though the writer doesn't trust that he can sustain the readers interest without cutting back and forth between these different scenes. In addition, so far, the characters do things that scream "exposition;" behaving like these puppets the writer is manuipulating to explain something to the reader.
"What do you mean the code is a secret code?"
Liz just called, must run! More later.
"What do you mean the code is a secret code?"
Liz just called, must run! More later.
Comments
i want you to read my friend from UNH's memoir--Without a Map (Meredith Hall). I loved it.
I'll type you some actual lines from it later... it's pretty bad.