BOOK: The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown

I will confess that when The DaVinci Code came out back in 2003, I deliberately ignored it. One of my co-workers gave her copy to me to read on my trip to San Diego last September when the Marine!Goth graduated from boot camp, but I just couldn't get into it then. Now, with the release of the movie, it seems that once again everyone is talking about it, so I thought I'd give it another try. I just can't believe how many people are angsting over it. It's been banned in several countries!

I just want to say, "Hello, a work of FICTION here." Fiction, by it's very nature, implies a 'willing suspension of disbelief'. One of the way writers involve their readers is by skillfully blending just a dash of reality into their make-believe world. And there are plenty of 'real' threads woven into this fictional tapestry.

But people seem to be taking this novel - this work of fiction - WAY, WAY to seriously. The History Channel is all over this - interviews with the real "Opus Dei" membership, biographies of those identified as the 'Grand Masters' of the Priory of Sion, "Breaking the DaVinci Code", etc. When it came out, there were even church and secular study groups investigating the work, refuting it, retelling it.

The book is A MURDER. MYSTERY. NOVEL.

A nicely plotted one, with several neat plot twists. But the POV bounces around enough to make the reader dizzy and there are several logistical holes. Still, a good lunch hour read for the past couple of weeks. I guess people just love a good conspiriacy theory.

Will I see the movie? I'll probably wait for the DVD. I almost always am disappointed in movies made from books I enjoyed. They always seem to cut the minor character that I loved or omit the subplot that fascinated me.

Will I read other books by the author? Sure. His first novel Demons and Angels was recommended to me by a couple of people.

One last thought. It's ALWAYS good when a book entices people to read. And several people I know who are not "book readers" (poor benightened souls) have read this book. Think of it as Harry Potter for grown ups. And consider it to have about as much factal basis.