I can’t thoroughly look down on it until I’ve actually read it, plus it’s good to know what really bad writing looks like so one can avoid making similar mistakes.
For A level we had to read a collection of essays on literary criticism by C.S. Lewis. The only bit I can remember was him saying that there is no such thing as a bad book, only a bad reader. I think novels like The Da Vinci Code proves him wrong. Just because you're a 'good' reader and can see that the book is rubbish, doesn't stop it being rubbish.
An example: we’ve just been introduced to the character of the police captain Bezu Fache, and been told he is nicknamed ‘The Bull. He is described as stocky, dark, almost Neanderthal, his (double-breasted) suit straining to cover his wide shoulders, he emanates authority as he advances on squat powerful legs...
Enough already, yet Brown starts the next chapter as follows:
“Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow’s peak that divided his jutting brow and proceeded him like the prow of a battleship.”
It’s so heavy-handed, even if you ignore the repetition of ‘wide shoulders’ - I nearly did Brown a favour by substituting broad for wide in my synopsis - and the uncomfortable rhyme of brow and prow, it’s still the work of a pebbledasher trying to create a fresco on a chapel wall.
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Acts of Minor Dissent
Sep 2024