Club Silicon isn't necessarily the place to discuss literature either, unless it happens to be on a website, .txt file or blog of some sort. Regardless, this particular case applies since Jeanette and I are both reading the same book, I on my Treo 650 and Jeanette on her Tungsten E2. This is the first time I'm reading a book on a small computer, therefore it gets into Club Silicon without the site having an identity crisis. Jeanette and I are both quite pleased with the book, and here is my take on it so far. Note that neither of us has finished it as of this writing.
The book is called "The Da Vinci Code" and it is perhaps the fastest selling book of all time, no doubt garnering its author Dan Brown quite a lot of money. So far, the book is a very good one. Simply put the book combines a murder mystery (perhaps the most compelling form of storytelling), history and religion into a very accessible thriller. The book most recently has been turned into a movie starring Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen and Jean Reno, among many other stars.
The book deserves a rating of "very good" because of its detail and its clarity of plot exposition. It doesn't win any awards for brilliance because it isn't able to keep the reader captive for very long without bailing out with an action sequence. Asimov, for example, was able to keep you on the edge of your seat for over a hundred pages without any violence or action of any kind, merely with dialogue. P.G. Wodehouse was able to keep a reader glued with wit (though his wit is admittedly somewhat outdated), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did so with his wide spectrum of characterization; a protagonist who is addicted to cocaine has yet to be reproduced with so much universal admiration.
The standard thriller has the same hallmarks, and Brown follows this blueprint in much the same way that John Grisham and Michael Crichton do, thus appealing to mass market in a very safe way; the book is just plain easy to read, and has a good amount of detail to back it up, albeit sometimes the detail gets out of hand (his description of Sir Leigh Tebing's Range Rover, for example). Brown sets himself apart, however, by addressing religion in a very direct way, yet doing it in such a seemingly nonpartisan style that the reader pays more attention to the story than their most firmly held beliefs. When finished, I'm sure a devout Catholic will be downright upset at this book, but regardless it asks a lot of interesting questions and brings to light things that make you want to read more about the history of religion. Not many books I know achieve that sort of thing. So my congratulations go to Dan Brown for this.
This comes on the heels of my father telling me something I'll never forget: "Reglion is incredibly important. It is the foundation of civilization, but that doesn't mean you have to actually follow it. You just have to understand it's history to be considered educated." I get my father's realism and skepticism and my mother's faith, the latter of which, yes, keeps me talking to God and figuring out where the Holy Trinity really lies in the grand scheme of things. But the Da Vinci Code made me realize that while God provides my faith and the teachings of Christ are a valuable part of my area of worship, Christ isn't necessarily what he is written to be in the books we're taught to revere just as highly as these supreme deities.
This brings to light another thing my father told me when dear Danc was developing his fundamental game design motivation for our first RPG: "The Circle" around 1996. I explained that Danc created factions that believed in a circular chain of events; when something good happened, something bad was bound to happen sooner or later, and vice versa. Dad looked at me and said "there's someone else who came up with that, you know." "Who?", I asked. "Well, who is the most influential philosopher you can think of?" I sat puzzled as I rattled off the names of those I knew: "Aristotle?" "No." "Socrates?" "Wrong." "Plato?" Dad was rolling his eyes by this time. "Pythago..." He cut me off: "How about Jesus Christ?"
His explanation was simple: "Christ proposed the idea of sin, admittance of sin, and forgiveness. This is a circular way of living." By Jove, he was right. It didn't take "God walking on Earth" to figure this out. God speaking through a man might have even been enough. But the question still remains, and in my copious spare time I plan to do a little more reading on the subject.
The short version of all this? Go buy the book, and enjoy it, whether you are a Christian, Moslem, Bhuddist... heck, any religion at all or none. It's a cracking good read.
