Notes on "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown
Blimey, is this what there was so much fuss about? I picked up a tatty copy of this novel in a charity shop for a pound. We were on holiday and I hadn't brought many books; now that Barney is old enough to play by himself, I found I had more time to read than I'd expected.
But after the first couple of pages - during which our hero woke in a strange hotel room, thought "Where am I?", then examined his own good looks in the mirror - I was convinced I must have made a mistake.
After all, this is the story that has prompted a whole new industry of conspiracy theories, not to mention a Hollywood film. Could something this cheesy, this cliche-ridden, be as good as so many people had said it was?
No; and yes. The novel as a work of literature is plain bloody awful, much of it the kind of stuff I'd expect a teenager to write (and indeed, the kind of stuff I was writing when I was a teenager). But the pace of the action, the depth of historical research, and the way Brown incorporates so many classic mysteries into a single plot, kept me reading.
So I hated this book; but I couldn't put it down. And that must be why its been so popular, and is being made into a movie.
Labels: books
