Popular Fiction (A Post with an Obvious Conclusion)
Still not impressed with the DC? Visit an airport bookstore! When I was on hold-over in Minneapolis, not only was the book itself on the front table and under “Famous Authors” and “Best Sellers”, but most of the other sections featured related wares. Fodor’s Guide to the Da Vinci Code and The Da Vinci Code Travel Journal were prominent, the spin-offs section was full of books like The Templar Revelation, The Last Templar, The Jesus Papers, and The Gospel of Judas, there was a little volume called Jesus, CEO under business, and even the food section offered The Diet Code. (The only section seemingly devoid of DC books was labeled “Simply Good Books.”)
Now of course a lot of this is because of the lemming phenomenon of pop hysteria, but I offer another explanation as well, beginning with the fact that as fiction goes, The Da Vinci Code is actually pretty lame. The tangled-up puzzle of plot is pretty well put together, but the only trick Brown knows to induce suspense is to break every chapter at a critical juncture, the little surprises he tries are utterly predictable, and worst of all, he has the vocabulary of a smart grade 5 student.
Here’s a related fact: a lot of crummy fiction gets published and read by Christians simply because it’s Christian. Such works are read not because they tell good stories, but because they make a point. The same thing works for an un-Christian message: why is the Code so popular in spite of being poorly written? Because, I fear, there are a lot of people who are less interested in the story than in the denial of Christ’s kingship. Don’t know how to conclude this post, so I’ll leave it at that.