This book rated number one on the 2006 Angus and Robinson Top 100 book recommendations... so I’ll clearly state that either: Angus and Robinson have been sorely misled, or the Australian reading public have a lot to answer for. While Dan Brown-bashing is a popular pastime amongst those sneeringly referred to as the “literary elitist snobs”, I’m totally not afraid to side myself whole-heartedly with the snobs. And it’s not that I’m a resentful wanna-be unpublished author, or a jealous contemporary, or that I was someone who had a go before ACTUALLY reading the thing. I just really didn’t like it. The Da Vinci Code was spewed by Dan Brown and then published by Transworld Publishing. It took the world by storm and everybody loved it but me and some other people.

The content

This tripe-fest has 560 pages and frankly, towards the end I may not have read them all as thoroughly as I would have read, say, “The Sneetches” by Dr Suess. I really have three basic objections about this book. Firstly, it is very averagely written. The guy isn’t a literary genius, people. It was pulp. Secondly, everyone got really excited about the whole religious conspiracy malarky, which I won’t detail about because I wouldn’t want to ruin it for everyone who is going to race out and purchase a copy of this book based on my review. The religious conspiracy was actually a) done before (Umberto Eco, people?) and b) not that bloody clever and revealing. Anyone who has even very coyly flirted with conspiracy 101 wouldn’t find this too exciting. That whole mason’s triangle-with-the-eye-secret-society-whatsit is way more out there. And thirdly, for a book that celebrates the sacred feminine, it is really quite sexist. I won’t go into that here. I intend to blog about it at some later stage when I am feeling less jaded.

Who is this book for?

Well in my opinion, this book is only for people with too much time on their hands who have read everything else at the local library and are totally desperate for things to read. Or it’s for people who are stuck on a small farm in Tasmania without own transport and are systematically reading everything on the shelves. Or it’s for someone who wants to do a bit of Dan Brown bashing and feels they should really read his stuff before getting into the slanging match with their literary snob mates. Or, if you just feel like sneaking in a bit of pulp because your brain feels a bit heavy,you could also read it. See, it’s a good read for lots of people! I’m not totally negative you know!