Four-page Chapters

The Chicago Sun-Times tries to figure out why The Da Vinci Code has been so successful. Apparently, finding the answer to this question is tougher than solving the Da Vinci Code.

It’s a puzzle that might stump even Brown’s Harvard sleuth, Robert Langdon, but one thing is certain: Whatever the secret of The Da Vinci Code’s success, it’s not the book’s literary qualities.

With its flat prose, stick-figure characters, wooden dialogue, perfunctory scene-setting and an unfortunate tendency to interrupt the action with momentum-killing lectures, the novel is in some ways the unlikeliest of best sellers. Many Chicago writers, critics, scholars and book-industry insiders are flummoxed by the book’s success.

"I read 50 pages and put it down," says Bill Young, president of Midwest Media and a frequent escort of authors who come to Chicago for book-signings and other appearances. "I had Dan Brown in town and liked him, but I was just amazed that his book took off to the extent that it did."

Author James McManus, who teaches creative writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and writes about poker for the New York Times, had a similar experience with The Da Vinci Code. "It’s painful to read stuff like that," he says. "Give me some Novocain." . . .

The list of Brown’s literary crimes and misdemeanors ranges from the merely irritating, such as his overuse and occasional misuse of ellipses, to the downright maddening, such as his tendency to over-hype his story even as he’s telling it. In something like the manner of Rachael Ray, the chirpy Food Network chef who keeps insisting that her recipes are "awesome," Brown continually assures his readers that his ideas and plot developments are "astonishing."

Personally, I think the four-page chapters have something to do with it.

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