I doubt your committment to edginess
Once, long ago, an author released a book unto the world. And this book was considered to be awful by many many many critics, to the point where much parody was made of the author, the book, and the fans. This mockery ramped up when a movie was made, and even more people were introduced to the author. And, of course, all truly "hip" readers turned up their noses, refusing to call that... that... tripe... literature.

I am, of course, talking about Dan Brown.

Over at Literary Tattoos, Loosma writes:

I love Dan Brown, particularly his Robert Langdon series and I have huge respect for him and his research for his new book The Lost Symbol. I'm reading that now and I'm having a hard time putting it down but there are some great quotes in here. I keep wanting to highlight them and come back because sometimes I come across a sentence that hits me hard just because it relates to me in a way. As do everyone when they tattoo a quote or lyric or whatever on their body

Anyway, so really if any readers of those books have gotten a tattoo relating to the plot or through some quote in there? Especially puzzle lovers? lol

Marvel at the pretentiousness, when we're assured that people are basically sheep and only the amazing folks at Literary Tattoos are capable of sorting that a dancing dog isn't that big a deal.

Be assured that a book is no longer any good once it's popular.

Discuss how Brown does research wrong! Have other people insist that Dan Brown actually does lots of research and is very accurate! (I skipped that, because I am an historian who lives with a theologian, so LOL NO)

OMG! Everyone is so meeen! - not from the OP, although she agrees. More MEEEN!

The OP ultimate tacks on her flounce, in bold:

Ok ok! I got the message! Dan Brown sucks, I have horrible literary sense, the oprah book club thing is probably I something should check into, etc etc etc. Anyway, everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless of how polite or bitchy it was presented but to each their own.

I just want you all to know that I hated Dan Brown before it was "in" to hate Dan Brown. I bet it's now ~edgy~ to be scholar who loves Dan Brown for the plot, and I totes want to be ~edgy~. Dan Brown Forever! Go Robert Langdon!

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julian_black
2009-09-21 09:00 am UTC (link)

The part that had me eyerolling from the word go was Silas, the killer albino monk with pink/red eyes.

People with albinism do not have pink eyes; they are usually a shade of gray-blue. Also, people with albinism almost always have seriously impaired vision, and many are legally blind. In the unlikely event a person with albinism had so little pigment in their eyes that the irises were pink and the pupils were red, they would be totally blind.

So when the pink-eyed killer albino monk is going around shooting people with deadly accuracy? Under the extremely low light conditions that exist in the Louvre at night (because it's lit with dim red lights to minimize the paintings' exposure to light)?

Seriously?

Five minutes on Google. Five motherfucking minutes on Google, and he would have realized that the killer monk couldn't possibly be the OMG CREEPY KEWL albino. Or maybe he did JMFGI, but decided his pink-eyed albino was too cool to discard and wrote it anyway.

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	feenix 2009-09-21 09:33 am UTC (link)
	Oh come on. I think Silas was the point where I realized that Dan Brown was on serious amounts of crack. And it became more awesome. Awesomely bad, but still awesome. I reiterate: If I ever make a rock band, it'll be called "Killer Albino Monks." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kookaburra 2009-09-21 11:17 am UTC (link)
	Also... how could pupils be anything but black? They're HOLES in the EYE. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	irised 2009-09-21 12:02 pm UTC (link)
	He's been looking at rabbits. Albino rabbit eyes are some creepy shit, man. ... rabbit snipers! Pyew pyew! Bet you'd never see THAT coming! (Reply to this)(Parent)

irised
2009-09-21 12:08 pm UTC (link)

Come to think of it, if pink eyed rabbits have red pupils then it makes sense for pink eyed humans to have them too. And creepy isn't the right word actually, just odd ... when I said creepy I think I was thinking of rabbit eyes in a human face or something XD I rescued an albino rabbit of the side of the road and wow, I could have stared at her eyes for hours. OKAY DONE TALKING ABOUT RABBITS NOW SORRY D:

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	kookaburra 2009-09-21 12:24 pm UTC (link)
	I wonder if it has to do with pupil size? Since pretty much my only experience with rodents is attempting to eradicate them from the barn, I haven't really specifically studied their eyes much, but aren't their pupils fairly large? That would make sense - more light gets in and reflected off the retina, enabling us to see the pink color instead of black. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	big_bad_wolf 2009-09-24 04:51 pm UTC (link)
	1. Hate myself for this, it is total kneejerk Aspergers and I understand completely how much of a COCK saying it makes me. 2. IT IS IN NO WAY RELEVENT TO THE DISCUSSION. But. Rabbits aren't rodents. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO TELL ME TO KILL MYSELF. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kookaburra 2009-09-24 10:24 pm UTC (link)
	D'oh! You are correct, and I knew that. writes 'I will not comment when I am bone tired' on the board 100x (Reply to this)(Parent)

white_tean
2009-09-21 04:23 pm UTC (link)

As I understand it (I've had albino and the yellow morph lutino in birds) the light just passes though the rest of the un-pigmented eye, so the pupil is illuminated, whereas normally the pigment in the eye would mean that area was dark from the light not passing through it. Red eye in cameras is caused where the flash is closely located to the lens and the light travels on the same path as the image being taken and illuminates the back of the eye, which is naturally red (If I'm recalling my photography lectures right). Although I'm not a scientist so this is kind of fuzzy.

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	julian_black 2009-09-22 03:43 am UTC (link)
	[facepalm] Sorry, I meant irises. Anatomy fail FTL. However, if the individual didn't have any pigment in their eyes, the pupils would show as red, too, because there would be more light entering the eye. Sort of like a pink-eyed rabbit's. (Reply to this)(Parent)

_goblin_
2009-09-22 07:33 am UTC (link)

Behind your retina, you have a layer of very dark pigment. This absorbs all the light that's not absorbed by your retina, because you don't want that extra light reflecting around inside your eyeball and making it hard to see the primary image.

An albino doesn't have that layer of pigment, so the inside of their eye is retina (red) on top of sclera (white).

It would be a problem getting enough light into their eye for you to see anything, but in those situations where you could, their irises would look more red than a normal eye.

Part of the reason normal irises look black is because the eye is designed to absorb all light that goes into it. Albinos are missing one element in that design.

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	kookaburra 2009-09-22 09:08 am UTC (link)
	Ah ha! That makes sense. I completely forgot about the pigment in the eye that makes it dark. Of course albinos would be missing that. insert V8 forehead slap (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lady_ganesh 2009-09-21 02:25 pm UTC (link)
	I actually saw a kid with pink eyes once. I don't think his pupils were red though. And I was Really Wanting Not To Stare so I didn't notice how well he could see, etc. But yeah, JFGI. (Reply to this)(Parent)

white_tean
2009-09-21 04:16 pm UTC (link)

I always thought that pure albinism did have the red eyes and red pupils you see on rabbits/birds/snakes/rodents, etc., although as I recall there are other varieties of albinism which can have pale pigmented eyes instead. I wonder if the effect on birds is as severe - I've never noticed red eyed albino/lutino budgerigars have any problems flying around.

The wikipedia page on albinism has this to say "The eyes of an animal with albinism occasionally appear red due to the underlying retinal blood vessels showing through where there is not enough pigment to cover them. In humans this is rarely the case, as a human eye is quite large and thus produces enough pigment to lend opacity to the eye, often colouring the iris pale blue. However, there are cases in which the eyes of an albinistic person appear red or purple, depending on the amount of pigment present." so I don't think the eye colour was an impossibility, although as you said, writing the killer monk character as an albino was more than a little ridiculous. I have more of a bone to pick with the fact that once again, what's unusual has been rendered with villainous qualities.

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