Reading Da Book!

Over 20 million copies in 2 years, and the topic of discussions everywhere - in the media, among friends, neighbors, colleagues... If you think you can escape from it – good luck. Now it is even going to be made into a movie. Not only that, but look at the dozens of book on the novel that are being sold.

Pressed by the fuss made about it, I finally got down to read ‘Da Vinci Code’ in my holidays.

Guess what – it’s just a mostly entertaining cheap novel and nothing more. Basically it’s like all conspiracy stories (the literary equivalent of ‘24’): one-dimensional characters, simple vocabulary, many pseudo historical and religious references with, above all good thrilling suspense.
That’s all there is to it. So what’s the big deal?

My theory is that it is just in touch with today’s obsessions - religion and conspiracy, with a nice touch of feminist theory which finally empowers women with ‘religious’ status. It may also make people feel more intelligent in the end because of the many references (more or less accurately) explained. But if one wants to feel more intelligent, it would be better to read a good old Umberto Eco.

The dumb thing to do is probably to take ‘Da Vinci Code’ for more than what it is. Wake up people, it is just A NOVEL. Brown said it himself, it is a novel… well yes based on facts that are… wrong?

A good example is Brown's dubious sense of direction – in fact, someone should really have given him a map of Paris for, among many other mistake – there is NO WAY for you to go from Le Louvre to the US Embassy through the Champs-Elysées… no matter how screwed up your sense of discretion may be and that’s just in the first few pages… A mistake… Or maybe the obvious sign that it is not to be taken seriously. Da!

For more about the ‘mapping mistakes, go to

http://www.stanleymeisler.com/news-commentary/davinci-code.html

For Dan Brown’s own words, he has a site of his own:

http://www.danbrown.com/