The DaVinci Backlash

I read The DaVinci Code some time ago, while on a short vacation. I found the story intriguing, and pretty much couldn't put the book down, finishing it in a matter of hours. This, however, is not that unusual for me. I don't recall having any particular feelings about Dan Brown's writing style.

Apparently, this means that I wasn't paying attention:

I am still trying to come up with a fully convincing account of just what it was about his very first sentence, indeed the very first word, that told me instantly that I was in for a very bad time stylistically.
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The writing goes on in similar vein, committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph (sometimes every line).
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Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad. In some passages scarcely a word or phrase seems to have been carefully selected or compared with alternatives.

Yikes. Well, at least the movie's getting good reviews, right? Uh, no, not exactly:

There's no code to decipher. Da Vinci is a dud -- a dreary, droning, dull-witted adaptation of Dan Brown's religioso detective story that sold 50 million copies worldwide.

Even Kurt Loder thinks it's bad. But wait -- there's got to be something good about it, right?

Not so much, considering that it provoked protests by Christian groups and albinos. To be perfectly fair, though, the albinos have a point: More often than not, the media portrays them as evil villians. Check out the list.

Update: I went to see the movie Saturday night. It was okay -- nothing special, just a pretty literal interpretation of a mystery novel involving some religious themes.