Code-busting

So ... I hate the The Da Vinci Code. Hate it with a deep, abiding, and profound hatred. I read it largely to see what all the fuss was about, and the longer it stays at the top of the bestseller lists, the more I despair for the future of literate culture. The writing is piss-poor, the historical and artistic assertions are erroneous, the characters are no better than cardboard cutouts, and the albino villain is laughably absurd. Even worse, it pretends to deal with topics that I would normally be quite interested in: feminist critiques of Christianity, histories of the occult, etc. I know, I know: "it's just a novel!" But, irritatingly, it's become more than that, and the vast majority of its readership seem to take the author's assertions of historical validity at face value. Even more irritatingly, much of the negative response to the book has come from conservative or conservative religious sources, such as this gathering profiled in the Strib. I don't know if this is because intelligent liberals are afraid to critique a book masquerading as feminist (which it most emphatically is not), or if it's from a more sensible appreciation that critiques only give the damn book more importance. Erk. Anyway, if you've been thinking of reading it, for god's sake don't. Read this instead; it's a much, much better treatment of the same topics, and it won't rot your brain out.