[CAT] Scratching Post

You ARE the world police!

Finished the Da Vinci Code last week.

Dont really do fiction, but a mate rammed it down my throat, as when in Rome with her this summer many things in the book came up. So I needed to read it.
It was pron for me.
The louvre, Paris, Corrupt Vatican, Pagans, Jesus being a faggot, Ancient shit....its a WunderWankfest.
Loads of intersting shit i could be into.....but id rather read the factual version, without the tosh.


Im now reading the autobiography of Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Da vinci code is a Fisherprice My First Adult book aimed at those who haven't read a book since Desmond the Dinosaur and won't read another. It's utter wank. The guy is a shit writer writing shit books.

I guess we should give him thanks for getting the great unwashed reading something other than Hello, Heat or their benefits claim form but I aint touching another one of his books.

Spandex wrote:Da vinci code is a Fisherprice My First Adult book aimed at those who haven't read a book since Desmond the Dinosaur and won't read another. It's utter wank. The guy is a shit writer writing shit books.

I guess we should give him thanks for getting the great unwashed reading something other than Hello, Heat or their benefits claim form but I aint touching another one of his books.

This.

I tried to read that piece of shit, but quickly tired of Dan Brown's "every chapter is a cliffhanger" style. The man knows one cheap literary device, and he bludgeons you with it until your skull splits and you beg him to stop the thrashing.

Yeah it grated with me too. He also has a habit of having the characters knowing more than the reader. So the main guys would open the vault and see something and you'd spend the next dozen pages reading of their reactions and resulting actions without actually knowing what the fuck they've just seen. A cheap ploy to create suspense where there really is none. I found it more annoying than suspenseful.

I agree, the book was shit. Heh, fisher price my first adult book

Good to have you back, Span.

Agree on The Da Vinci Code, 'Fisher Price' is how i see almost all fiction, some fucks fantasy. But the Da Vinci Code was rammed, rammed I tell you, with stuff Wunder likes, hence I was ordered to read it. Id quite like to read a bit on the subject matter, without the hero, romance, adventure wank wank wank......

Wunderschlung wrote:Im now reading the autobiography of Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

What im finding utterly flabberghasting about this guy.....
He doesnt seem to know what the fuck he is doing!!
OK, so he is going where no man has gone before (literally), so you are going to encounter some unknowns and surprises. But the dude seems to just walk up and see how it goes......in Antarctica?!

Example:
He is sailing this small whaler boat as far North as he can before he hits pack ice and gets out on foot. At some Inuit villiage he asks a local boat guy for some tips. Normal, wise. The Inuit asks how is he planning to navigate. Compass and the sun.
Inuit guy laughs. There is no sun and your compass doesnt work up here.

HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU NOT KNOW THIS UNTIL ONE DAY BEFORE YOU SET SAIL TO THE NORTH POLE??????

Fucking nutter.

It's like that guy they based the film "Into the Wild" on. He showed up in Alaska with no real supplies or plan on how he's gonna live off the land. They found him starved to death within walking distance of a plethora of food. The idea that you're a trailblazer doesn't feed you or keep you warm. He wasn't the non-conformist we should all aspire to be, he was a straight up fucking dumbass, and we celebrate him for it.

Like how the dead turds in "The Perfect Storm" are all heroes for getting themselves killed.

Spandex wrote:Yeah it grated with me too. He also has a habit of having the characters knowing more than the reader. So the main guys would open the vault and see something and you'd spend the next dozen pages reading of their reactions and resulting actions without actually knowing what the fuck they've just seen. A cheap ploy to create suspense where there really is none. I found it more annoying than suspenseful.

Not to mention the lame role of the girl, who's basically there so that the characters can explain the story to the reader. I felt sorry for Tautou in the movie, all she does is go "but why? And what does zis mean?". It was so fucking obvious.

Still, the fucker must be filthy rich by now...

Spandex wrote:Yeah it grated with me too. He also has a habit of having the characters knowing more than the reader. So the main guys would open the vault and see something and you'd spend the next dozen pages reading of their reactions and resulting actions without actually knowing what the fuck they've just seen. A cheap ploy to create suspense where there really is none. I found it more annoying than suspenseful.

You know, they do the same thing in film - especially low-budget shit. Tons of the stuff that got ripped on Mystery Science Theater 3000 had plenty of scenes where characters would react to something offscreen without EVER fucking mentioning something out loud so the audience would know fuck all what was happening. But in those movies it can be funny - in a film/book like DVC (or Darth Vader's Church, which is the Cantonese translation BTW) it is an insult to the audience as the story purports to be something of higher quality than "Attack of the The Eye Creatures."

And regarding the having to read numerous pages of the characters' reactions - a similar pain is the lengths to which Stephen King would go to describe a scene. I mean, I loves me some exposition, but to an extent it becomes padding. Seriously, have you ever seen the size of an original pb of Carrie, his first book sale? It's a fucking pamphlet compared to his later books. Granted, I love H.P. Lovecraft (and eagerly await Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness) but the guy simply refused to nail down a description on anything. Conveniently an abrupt loss of sanity makes it hard for his protagonists to say just what the fuck is going on. And if you crave a book that will have you eating a bullet and thankful to God for the opportunity to do so may I suggest Triton by Samuel R. Delaney? Harlan Ellison can really write but he is such an asshole and most of his books are OOP because he is a ridiculous cock.

John Grisham. My mother-in-law loves him so that's all you need to know right there, I think.

Was reading a newspaper on the weekend and there was a year-end article covering some highlights of 2008. One made me laugh and went something like this: "Charlton Heston dies and the mortician reported that it was surprisingly easy to pry the gun from his cold, dead hands."

I've never had a problem with Stephen King. I generally like his books though his earlier work is certainly better than his later stuff (although Duma Key was pretty good IMO). I know a few people who say the same though - He spends far too long describing things.

Not as bad as some though. Ma Spandex is currently proofreading this guys novel (as a former English teacher she gets off on that kind of thing). Apart from being absolute garbage the guy also painstakingly describes every last detail of every scene. A character went to the post office to post a letter and the guy spent dozens of pages describing it all. Simply writing "he posted the letter" would have sufficed.

King just shits books every month now, he's not even writing them anymore, probably hasn't in a looooong time, lame.