Da Vinci Again
Having now seen the movie, and having not been especially disappointed, I have to repeat that the critics are nuts. I do think it was a better book than movie, but that's true of almost every book that's been made into a movie.
The particular brand of stupidity the critics exhibit here reminds me a lot of the stupidity of the David Broeders and Richard Cohens. It comes from living in an echo chamber where the loudest sounds you hear are each others voices.
Vladamir Nabakov told a story of teaching a university literature class, and asking the students why they studied literature. Most students were able to generate some nonsense in whatever critical paradigm was popular in the day, but one had the nerve to admit to just liking stories. Nabakov thought that was the only sensible answer and I can only agree.
Many critics found the dialogue in the movie utterly implausible, but since when is that a literary crime? Is the dialogue in Hamlet plausible? Many of the same critics don't like the artificially archaic language of the Lord of the Rings, which is an impossibly obtuse criticism, since that language is a crucial element in the texture of the story - and the story is, you see, the point.
The dialogue in The Da Vinci Code may be implausibly expository, but that, Oh critic, is not a flaw but a feature. The ideas propounded in DVC may be familiar or obnoxious to professional critics, but they aren't familiar to most readers. DVC combines a lot of ideas in a short, suspensefull plot.
I've noticed that these same critics often love The Soprano's, which I regard as an irritating and tedious formula the only charm of which is having human but deplorable characters who routinely get away with murder and other crimes. Cruelty and the desire for impunity may strongly stir our emotions, but they don't constitute art.
The particular brand of stupidity the critics exhibit here reminds me a lot of the stupidity of the David Broeders and Richard Cohens. It comes from living in an echo chamber where the loudest sounds you hear are each others voices.
Vladamir Nabakov told a story of teaching a university literature class, and asking the students why they studied literature. Most students were able to generate some nonsense in whatever critical paradigm was popular in the day, but one had the nerve to admit to just liking stories. Nabakov thought that was the only sensible answer and I can only agree.
Many critics found the dialogue in the movie utterly implausible, but since when is that a literary crime? Is the dialogue in Hamlet plausible? Many of the same critics don't like the artificially archaic language of the Lord of the Rings, which is an impossibly obtuse criticism, since that language is a crucial element in the texture of the story - and the story is, you see, the point.
The dialogue in The Da Vinci Code may be implausibly expository, but that, Oh critic, is not a flaw but a feature. The ideas propounded in DVC may be familiar or obnoxious to professional critics, but they aren't familiar to most readers. DVC combines a lot of ideas in a short, suspensefull plot.
I've noticed that these same critics often love The Soprano's, which I regard as an irritating and tedious formula the only charm of which is having human but deplorable characters who routinely get away with murder and other crimes. Cruelty and the desire for impunity may strongly stir our emotions, but they don't constitute art.
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