Da Vinci Code

I'm thinking of rereading The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown in case you've been living in a cave in Tibet these past 3 years). All the hype surrounding the movie release has been getting to me and I'd like to refresh my memory.

I don't take this decision lightly since this is one of the worst written books I've ever finished. Usually when writing is this crappy I just toss the book aside, but the plot--can I call it that?--was sufficiently interesting in the first half of the book that I was hooked. I say "first half" because by the second half my reason for finishing the book was more a fascination to see just how bad things would get. The same reason people slow down to look at car wrecks, I guess.

I read the book in May of 2003, a month after it was released and well before the landslide of publicity. There's a lot in the book I like, I just wish someone who could construct complete sentences had written it. Or knew what the word "plot" means.

I know, I know. Lots of people view this book as very plot heavy but it's not. Instead of a plot it has what could best be described as a treasure hunt approach to writing a novel. It's an easy way to plot a book for a writer that isn't very good. Witness Redfield with his novel Celestine Prophesy. A more recent example would be Michael Crichton's State of Fear. What all 3 books have in common is a "plot" in which the characters get mysterious clues which they proceed to run down. Of the 3 books, only Crichton's did the job very well though I did like Celestine Prophesy despite its clunkiness. Another thing the 3 books had in common was a desire to tout a certain point of view. Crichton argues against Global Warming and Redfield was promoting his new age views on psychology and counseling--which just happened to be what he did for a living.

If you think about it, most of the traveling in DaVinci Code wasn't necessary and only seemed to pad the page count and allow Brown more time to preach his message at us. Personally, I got tired of the speechifying by the time I hit the middle of the novel. I do think this type of book can make a very good movie so I have high expectations--and having Tom Hanks in the lead is a good sign.

By the way, did anyone see 60 Minutes last night? The segment on the Priory of Sion (an integral part of the plot of The Da Vinci Code was based on this secret society) was quite good. Apparently the Priory of Sion was invented in the 1950s by a French man who had a history of being a little unstable mentally and was in and out of trouble with the law regarding fraud charges and a history of swindling people. Interesting segment.

Anyway, I'm reading a book by John Lescroart (The Second Chair) right now but Da Vinci Code is next up if I can hack my way through the 400-plus pages. Again.

By the way, my vote for worst book I've ever read is Southern Gold by James Alan Vitti. Now there's a true train wreck of a novel. I actually stopped reading it after 2 chapters--but was so fascinated by its awfulness that I went back to the library so I could finish it--just to see how bad it could be. It was bad--almost, but not quite, campy in it's awfulness. Not even Dan Brown is that bad.