bouteillebleu: (Default)
bouteillebleu ([personal profile] bouteillebleu) wrote2005-05-10 05:36 pm

The Internet is small (thank you, Geoff Pullum)

I just had one of those moments where I realised the world is smaller than I think.

I was reading through old threads on Making Light, specifically the one about the Atlanta Nights hoax. In the middle somewhere, the Da Vinci Code was brought up as an example of a very bad first sentence to a novel, and a review of it confirmed that the rest of it is just as bad.

Then I looked at who'd written the review, and it was someone who'd also written a very funny book on linguistics called The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.

From Atlanta Nights to linguistics in two steps. It's not a link I ever expected to make.

[identity profile] atreic.livejournal.com 2005-05-10 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
BTW, I should give you your books back at some point

[identity profile] bouteillebleu.livejournal.com 2005-05-10 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah yes, that's true (though there's currently no space for them on the fantasy and sci-fi fiction shelf - and said shelf is double-shelved at the moment). I've got pretty much no lectures at the moment, so when would you like to meet for me to collect them?

[identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com 2005-05-10 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh yes, I loved that Dan Brown review. It made me feel all justified.

We don't need to know it's a masterpiece (it's a Caravaggio hanging in the Louvre, that should be enough in the way of credentials, for heaven's sake).

LOL. Though I did have issue with one point of it: "by the way, it's the fall that makes a thundering noise: there's no such thing as a thundering gate", yes, that's right, but I thought you got away with that sort of thing if you were feeling poetic; eg. by claiming that the gate had a tendancy to thunder, or something.

[identity profile] bouteillebleu.livejournal.com 2005-05-10 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
And he did that irritating thing of using several different ways to refer to the same person when one or two would do - "Renowned curator Jacques Saunière", "the seventy-six-year-old man", "the curator"... at least he wasn't referred to by his height, hair colour, eye colour or anything like that, but otherwise it's pretty much as bad as poor fanfic.

Oh, and the silhouetted man whose skin, hair and eye colour could be seen. Mr Brown makes me wonder if I might have better chances at getting published than I thought. (That is, if I actually ever finish anything. :)

[identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com 2005-05-11 11:05 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Dan Brown: "OMG! Let's keep reminding everyone he's a curator, that's so exciting!"

OTOH, I want to slap him for that, but he obviously does *something* right, because people *do* enjoy reading it, and for that matter I didn't actually really notice any of the stylistic gaffs pointed out here:

What *did* *really* get to me was the characters. If you discovered your grandfather had sex, would you instantly cut him out of your life without allowing him one sentence of explanation? Firstly, if my grandfather had murdered someone I'd at least listen; it might be self-defence or some other misunderstanding, and if family won't listen, who will? Secondly, OF-FUCKING-COURSE he's had sex, he's your GRANDFATHER, duh! And thirdly, if you are such a consumate prude that this is completely unforgivable to you, when a smooth talking bogus professioned american explains that actually lots of people had ritualistic sex and blah blah blah, why do you suddenly believe, instead of thinking he's just a weirdo spouting off about some weird cult?

[identity profile] reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com 2005-05-10 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I was never going to read that book anyway seeing as I was told that it was rather good by a girl who read things titled “Shopaholic gets married” on a regular basis. I suppose that I shan’t even be tempted now that it’s been compared to John Grisham though.