A single bell chimed on Mal’akh’s grandfather clock, and he looked up. Six thirty P.M. Leaving his tools, he wrapped the Kiryu silk robe around his naked, six-foot-three body and strode down the hall. The air inside this sprawling mansion was heavy with the pungent fragrance of his skin dyes and smoke from the beeswax candles he used to sterilize his needles. The towering young man moved down the corridor past priceless Italian antiques—a Piranesi etching, a Savonarola chair, a silver Bugarini oil lamp.
Wow, antiques. Though - hold it, Piranesi etchings
aren't priceless; they're multiples, and they go for about twenty thousand quid from Sothebys. A Bugarini lamp would be even less, eight thousand USD. A Savonarola chair is a style, not a maker, but Sothebys hasn't sold one of any age recently at over 2,500 euros. I could buy the lot myself, and I'm not even six foot.
It's Brown's word association method of composing coming out again: "antiques" just comes to his mind already a phrase, "priceless antiques".
Just for laughs, let's try that another way:
A bell chimed on Mal’akh’s clock, and he looked up. Six thirty P.M. Leaving his tools, he wrapped the robe around his body and strode down the hall. The air inside this mansion was heavy with the fragrance of his skin dyes and smoke from the candles he used to sterilize his needles. The man moved down the corridor past a Piranesi etching, a Savonarola chair, and a Bugarini oil lamp.
Practically Hemingwayesque.
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Dan Brown gives me the impression that he wants people to be reminded, forcibly, that his books are fiction. He ties fact and fiction as his m.o. So, to teach people to distrust even the "facts" they pick up from the books, he mangles the easy things.
Anything with emotional attachment is priceless.
Are they original? Probably not.
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