I am currently reading a popular mystery novel. It's not bad overall, but the author has an annoying method of achieving a cheap sort of suspense. It's like a perversion of dramatic irony. Instead of the reader knowing something that the character doesn't know, a character knows or does something, and the author coyly alludes to it but smugly waits to inform the reader until a later chapter. I was wondering if there is a specific term for this literary device, which achieves a sort of cliffhanger effect but at the expense of distancing the reader from the action. (Other than irritating, that is))

Heh. I was gonna say it sounds like "The DaVinci Code," until I realized this is a pretty common technique. "Foreshadowing" or either "presaging" comes to mind; but maybe too subtle?

It does sound like "The DaVinci Code." The only thing worse than reading smug foreshadowing is to listen to it on CD. Elackk.

LOL two nails hit squarely on the head. It is in fact the Da Vinci code that I'd referring to. LOL. I love this place.
*Beers on me*

You'd better save them for yourself. You're going to need them. That is one suckass book.

Cheers! :)

Heh heh. I actually finished it last night. I think the main thing about that book is, it is a great idea for a novel, excecuted with mediocrity. I get the feeling that the movie will be better than the book, given Brown's weakness when it comes to basic storytelling, and his bad ear for dialogue. On the other hand, it had a lot of elements that are neat, like ciphers, art, buried treasure, etc. A reviewer at Amazon described it as "Foucault's Pendulum for dummies," which I tend to agree with, although I would add that Eco's work tends to be too dry. Somewhere between Foucault's Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code lies loveable work of fiction.

great idea for a novel
I did like the non-religious aspects of the mystery, but for the most part I saw the religious scandal as flat, weak and way over hyped. Can it ever be about anything other than sex?

Heh. I was gonna say it sounds like "The DaVinci Code," Good for you, Anna--kudos!

I loved reading the book (note: this is different from saying I loved the book); I like to read books where things happen, and they certainly did in this one.

As to your complaint, Alex (I don't know if there's a name for the technique; I presume the author thought he would enhance the reader's suspense)--I couldn't help but think what a difference there is between Dan Brown and Dick Francis, whose books I've been re-reading lately. ('Nother note: God bless the internet. I decided that once and for all, I'd like to find out which of his I still don't have, and I found a place on-line that lists them all. Then, I was tickled to death to find the missing ones, used, on a large bookselling site--one cost 59¢, and the other three: one penny each!) Anyway--Dick Francis does the same thing, but SO much less "in your face" than The Davinci Code: he usually has the main character just "do some thinking", along with describing what else he's doing.

cwc, you said the religious scandal as flat, weak and way over hyped. Can it ever be about anything other than sex? . (Aside--sorry about the color; I don't like orange; but with your name, I just kind of had to...) I agree; except that for me it wasn't really a "scandal". I'm still wondering what exactly has made this book capture the public's attention so widely. I suppose anything that even hints of contradicting a long-held belief could do it. But...I mean, come on, people--this was a novel, not a scientific report!

I think part of the appeal of the book is that, despite its literary flaws, it suggests a larger mystery in the world that remains unsolved, and the clues to this "mystery" are publically-accessable, in museums, books, churches, etc. Plus, it is always titillating to read about secret societies, and if they are secret organizations within a respectable institution such as the Vatican, then so much the better. It's like the ultimate episode of the tv show "City Confidential." Throw in an orgy, er, uh... a holy sexual rite, and you got yourself a pot boiler.

With all the sensationalizing of the code (is it fiction?!, is it fact?!) going on before I read (listened to) the book, I thought it would build to something more. It did have a compelling start and middle but the end was not special for me. Maybe I wanted more shock and scandal. Something that would make a thinking Catholic question themselves (for a brief moment, of course!). Instead I got a boring ol' orgy and one of the corniest audio-reads I've heard in a few years - no fault of Dan Brown, I hope. (Men are not meant to play French girls.)

One of the versions of this is the notorious Mary Roberts Rinehart "Had-I-but-Known" syndrome, in which the narrator, who is the main character usually (most Roberts books are in the first person) at least once in the book starts, "Had I but known what I learned later ..." or something to that effect, which if you did know it, the mystery would be solved.

"Heh. I was gonna say it sounds like "The DaVinci Code," until I realized this is a pretty common technique. "Foreshadowing" or either "presaging" comes to mind; but maybe too subtle?"

This isn't really what I think of as foreshadowing, somehow. To me, that term implies something that happens early in a book or movie that is very like something that happens later on, but perhaps less intense than the later plot development. I think of a particularly lousy movie I saw once ("Fun House", I believe it was) where the heroine is taking a shower and you think she's about to be hacked to bits and it's only her brother annoying her. Brian DiPalma, a director I really don't like, pulls that stunt pretty often.