Finished The Da Vinci Code last week. I resisted reading it for a long time because I knew it would be poorly written. Which it was. And even poorly conceived in a lot of ways .
(Dan Brown's idea of suspense: 'she thought about telling him the important secret, but decided to keep her mouth closed for the time being' end chapter)
But I really enjoyed it. A good conspiracy, great (if often obvious) symbolism, and historical context to boot. If only the man had a decent editor.
My point, though, is that I really appreciate books that make you believe, even for a minute, that there might be a little magic in the world. When a lot of your day is spent with your face in some guy's armpit on the el or having people swear at you from their cars, it can be hard to believe that there's any spirituality or even enough basic kindness left in the world. Though Brown certainly tears down some of the foundations of modern Christianity (memo to Church: relax, it's fiction!), he also lays out a fairly convincing argument that we, as humans, are part of something greater than our individual selves. Brown's characters (both dead and alive) may be a bit flat, but they're cognizant of their place relative to the generations before them and the generations to come; they show us something above a plodding day-to-day reality; . I'm not religious, but it's nice to believe, even for a minute, that we're in this together.
I hope that makes sense. I haven't slept all that much this week.
I've moved onto The World According to Garp. John Irving doesn't disappoint.
Oh yeah, and the job didn't work out. More on that later.
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