THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE

I've never doubted that A.O. Scott earned his salary, but sometimes he really proves it, as in his review of The Da Vinci Code. Scott describes it as an adpatation of "Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence," a thread he picks up later on:

To their credit the director and his screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman (who collaborated with Mr. Howard on "Cinderella Man" and "A Beautiful Mind"), have streamlined Mr. Brown's story and refrained from trying to capture his, um, prose style. "Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair." Such language — note the exquisite "almost" and the fastidious tucking of the "which" after the preposition — can live only on the page.

Yep. I haven't seen the movie yet, so maybe I shouldn't judge. But I did make it to page 12 of the novel before packing it in. Last night Stevie made it to page 15. We both hope never to encounter the phrase "chocolate to the ears" again.