Yesterday, I finished the Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code is your basic murder mystery with a heavy dose of Knights Templar, cryptology and art history thrown into the mix.
I think Dan Brown's writing is above average, but I think one of the key ingredients to the book's success is just how filled with conspiracy the book is. He ties everything he possibly can together. The frequent jumps between characters and the short chapters make it ideal for a movie adaptation.
When I read a book that is wildly successful, I want to figure out what makes it so. Within the book, The Catholic Church and the Vatican are painted as the bad guys, and Christianity is portrayed as a subversion of Jesus' ideas. The ideas presented within the book have lead to the real-world Vatican to appoint an archbishop specifically to debunk the book.
Who would have ever thought a pop fiction thriller could garner the attention of the Catholic Church?
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