Book Review : The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

OK, so I must be about the last person on the planet to read this book. Chances are you already know if you love it or hate it. It's been fantastically successful, of course, and that alone is enough to put some people off it. Which is a shame because this is an enjoyable and very readable thriller.

It's formulaic, to be sure, but the formula is effective. The entire book basically goes like this : Intriguing Mystery! Terrible Danger!! Miraculous Escape!!! And Repeat!!! But you can't help being drawn in. The narratorial style is what you might call American if that makes sense : confident, omniscient, always ready to explain how the world works to the reader. There is never any doubt or ambiguity. It's just a shame the details are not necessarily accurate. Not just the big stuff either. I was intrigued to learn, for example, that the UK is surrounded by an ocean. Things have obviously changed since I studied geography.

And, yes, the writing style is often naive and amateurish. I nearly didn't get past the first sentence with its "Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere ..." myself. There's a lot of writing here that I hope I would have edited out of anything of mine in a very early draft. The book's literariness - or lack of it - has come in for a lot of criticism. But I can't help thinking this is just sour grapes. Brown isn't claiming he's the new James Joyce.

The mysteries and conspiracies surrounding the Christian church in the book are a lot of fun. Brown draws on a variety of heresies and secret histories to provide an intriguing set-up for his story, although he adds nothing particularly new to the genre. The book succeeds because it pulls these together into an entertaining narrative. The ending falls flat, to be sure : the terrible secrets remain as secrets and nothing really changes. Still, the puzzles and riddles along the way are both clever and fascinating.

The book's attitude to religion - specifically the Catholic church - is interesting. I was surprised at just how critical the book is at times. At one point, Langdon, the central character, says "Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors." I couldn't have put it better myself. At the same time, Brown is careful to reassure us that the Catholic church is very nice really and wouldn't actually go around killing people. Hmmm, and how many people have died from AIDS because of that church's ban on condoms?

Still, perhaps it's best not to look too deeply into books like this. It's an entertaining, unchallenging, engrossing read - and anyone who sniffy about that is just a literary snob.

Clonepod and Pantechnicon

I've had a short SF story - The Thirteenth Labour - submitted to Clonepod magazine for several months, now, but heard nothing back. It looks like this is another magazine that has folded, or at least "gone on hiatus" (which, all too often, is just a euphemism for the same thing). Apart from increasingly plaintive posts from contributors/helpers, the site hasn't changed since late March.

Shame. It's a nice site and a nice idea : SF and fantasy stories distributed as MP3 audio files rather than text. I'd rather read than listen to a story, for sure, but there are plenty of times when a short story or two on an MP3 player would work well. A train or bus journey, say. Let's hope the magazine comes back to life soon. But I'm afraid I've timed out and sent that particular story off to another magazine : Pantechnicon.

I'd not come across this particular 'zine before but it's a good find : a, well, truck load of interesting content on the web site and a PDF fiction magazine to download too. I grabbed Issue 9 to see what the stories were like (because, of course, we writers always read a magazine before submitting to it, don't we?) There's a lot to like. I think I may subscribe.

The Keyboard is Mightier than the Pen

The debate about whether writing is best done with pen and paper or with keyboard and screen is a long-running one. Quite a few experts - writers and tutors - have told me not to use a computer for writing and that longhand is just better. It's a view I don't have too much time for. I accept that there are advantages to pen and paper. For one, it's much easier to open a notebook (by which I mean the paper sort) and jot down ideas than it is to boot up a computer to do the same. Notebooks are also portable and cheap. They are satisfyingly low-tech. And in fact I do often carry one around for writing down whatever stray ramblings occur to me.

But these notes are strictly temporary. As soon as I can I decant them onto a computer. The electronic copy of the text is the "real" one. Once things are on the computer they can be searched, copied-and-pasted, edited, backed-up and so on. I basically don't feel comfortable until everything is transferred. I would never dream of writing anything of significance longhand. Obviously it's the way things have been done for most of recorded time. When I try it now I rapidly end up with a text strewn with crossings-out and arrows : in effect the cut-and-paste operations I want to carry out but can't. Paper is just so limiting. And then there's the muscle cramp. These days, although I can type for hours, I find it can be actually painful to write for the same length of time. Obviously this is just because I'm out of practice. But one of the big problems I had doing the recent degree was having to write for 3 hours straight in an exam. It was, to some extent, a matter of basic physical endurance.

I've heard people say that you feel more in touch with your thoughts using a pen; that with a keyboard you're more detached. I get what they mean. But I think they only say this because they're not truly comfortable with a keyboard. They can write without having to think about it; the pen becomes an extension of their mind. But they're not fluid with a keyboard and so it becomes an obstacle. For people brought up using a keyboard, or who have become naturalized later on in life, writing on the computer can be just as intuitive.

I suppose the ideal solution, for me, would be a computer that was as portable, cheap and easy to use as a paper notebook. There's no sign of such a device existing just yet. You might get close with a handheld computer with a touch-sensitive screen that you just write on, but all the ones I've tried have been clumsy, error-prone and slow to use. The hardware certainly does get in the way. One day, I'm sure, we'll have something that looks and feels like a paper notebook but which is actually a "computer", giving you the best of both worlds.

Right now, I think typing into a computer via a keyboard (and mouse) is the best way to write. One problem with this, of course, is that desktop computers aren't very portable. Because of this, I also use a mobile-phone with a slide-out qwerty keyboard that I use to bash out jottings when I'm out and about. So, in other words, more or less the electronic equivalent of a paper notebook. It works pretty well, although you do end up typing with your thumbs. The small keyboard is a bit fiddly, but it's perfectly possible to type out a couple of paragraphs, say, and the great thing is that I can easily copy what I've typed on to the main computer without having to re-enter it. Or I can take a copy of some Word documents from my main machine and edit them while I'm out and about.

It's still not the ideal solution, though. Just recently I've splashed out on a half-way house between a full-sized computer and a mobile : a "netbook" computer. These are essentially just smallish, cheapish laptops. The term "netbook", incidentally, is just marketing-bollocks as these machines are perfectly good for word processing etc. They are light enough to carry around in your hand, only a bit bigger than a novel, but have good-sized keyboards and screens. I think they are an excellent option for the writer. You could easily take one to the library if you were researching something, say. Or you could go and work in the garden with one, or take one with you when travelling to write while you're away from home.

Mine is a Samsung NC-10, which is pretty much the pick of the current bunch. It will never be able to run the latest and greatest video games but it is more than adequate for writing. It has a good battery life (6-7 hours), a great keyboard and a nice, bright screen. It is, unfortunately, a wide screen, but then they pretty much all are. Computer manufacturers seem to think people buy computers just to watch video on. But it works fine. With an old copy of Word on there, you can display around 25 lines of standard-sized text. I'd avoid Word 2007 and its huge, clunky "ribbon" though - it would take up too much screen-space. And it's also, you know, pretty useless. You could also use Open Office instead, of course.

I've set my netbook up to synchronize automatically with my main computer when it's within range so everything should get backed up automatically. It all seems like the ideal solution. Now I have no excuse not to be writing ...

The Actual Writing

I haven't posted much of late on the actual writing I'm doing. Basically this is because I've been working away on "the next novel" (codename : Engn) and there isn't a whole lot to say that will be of great interest. It's progressing nicely. I have about 20,00 words of it down so far but it hasn't told me yet how long it will eventually need to be. The 20,00 words is at about 3rd draft stage. I find that some days I like to just write new stuff, break new ground, and write and write without any restraint or self-censorship. Other days I spend my time rewriting and editing what I've previously written. Quite often I do a bit of both. I don't think I could ever write a whole novel in rough first-draft. I have to polish as I go along.

But I am trying to be a lot less controlling and proscriptive with this novel. I mean, I know where I'm going. I know how it starts and how it ends. But I don't know everything about what happens in the middle. I want it to come to me as I write and let the characters do some of the work! Actually, I don't even know how it ends. There are two possible endings and it will be one of the hooks to the text that the reader won't know which way things will go at the end. To keep it interesting (for me and the reader), I'm deliberately not making that decision until I write that bit.

Hedge Witch is still being considered by an agent. So it's great that they're still considering it and agonizing that I haven't heard anything back yet. The publishing industry can, of course, often move at tectonic speeds. It's tempting to send the manuscript off to other agents too while I'm waiting, i.e. to simsub. I understand why people do but I'm resisting the temptation and playing by the rules ...

Meanwhile, Writer's Database tells me I have four short stories currently submitted to various magazines : A, C, G & T, Seek Alternative Route, The One Thousand, One Hundred and Eleven Gates to Faerie and The Thirteenth Labour. So that's 2 SF, 1 fantasy and one "realist" piece. Sounds about the right proportions to me ...