No need to annotate Dan Brown. While many – and I am not among them – like his storytelling, it must be widely recognized that from a craft standpoint it’s bad writing. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum writes, “Brown’s writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad.”
(if you’re not offended by profanity, check this out on the f-bomb – see, linguists can be funny)
The Telegraph has the 20 clumsiest phrases in Brown’s books (H/T The Anchoress). Chapter 4 of the Da Vinci Code has six of the spots on the list. The comments about the article are great. Amazing how so many attribute criticism to envy. Not always, people. Some of us care about the craft of writing.
Just to prove you can have both, Pullum suggests that if you like thrillers, read Henning Mankell.
dianesherlock.com 