recent discovery: i like guacamole

So, I started reading The Da Vinci Code out of sheer boredom and because it was in front of me. My uncle thinks it's great, but he also thinks anything Bruce Willis does is great, like Hostage. I'm only a few really short chapters into it, but already the bad writing is beginning to grate on me. Filling the manuscript with excessive metaphors and similes will not improve the plot and/or your writing, Dan Brown. Examples:

 

"His usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and drawn tonight. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw and dimpled chin. Around his temples, the gray highlights were advancing, making their way deeper into his thicket of coarse black hair. Although his female colleagues insisted the gray only accentuated his bookish appeal, Langdon new better." (what sort of man writes sentences like that?)

 

"Langdon stared at the picture, his horror now laced with fear. The image was gruesome and profoundly strange, bringing with it an unsettling sense of deja vu."

 

"As they entered the deserted park, the agent reached under the dash and turned off the blaring siren. Langdon exhaled, savoring the sudden quiet. Outside the car, the pale wash of halogen headlights skimmed over the crushed gravel parkway, the rugged whir of the tires intoning a hypnotic rhythm."

 

New game: Count the adjectives! Wee!

 

Unfortunately, Brown has felt it necessary to present information up front, setting up stories so we might know all the background. He feels in necessary to describe the characters, mention what they've done, their backgrounds. He gives us their resume without letting the story tell it to us.

 

I was reading this on the bus and train this morning, but felt self conscious. I took the jacket cover off the book, but didn't like the idea of people seeing the title on the tops of the inside pages. I don't want people to see me reading it and judge me. Is this vain/presumptuous? Hmm.