I'm 200 pages into this book and fully intend to finsih it before we leave for Ireland. Almost everyone I know has read it and liked it. Here, I'm putting forth the contention that The Da Vinci Code is the literary equivalent of Oreo cookies -- fundamentally not good for you, immediately tasty but ultimately of poor quality, and borderline addicitive.

On Sunday, I got grocieries for Sarah and I. For some reason probably having to do with farm subsidies and economies of scale, a gallon of milk was cheaper than a half-gallon, so I put that in the cart. I knew there was no way Sarah and I could drink a gallon a milk before we left on our normal "cereal for breakfast" routine, so I picked up some Oreos to facilitate the milk consumption, even though I knew it was a bad idea. It was a bad idea because I inhale Oreo cookies. The package was going to last two, three days tops, even without Sarah's help. Dunked in milk, dry, whatever, I go after them like Boba Fett after Han Solo, not stopping until my stomach, it feels, is encased in carbonite.

How are Oreos and The Da Vinci Code alike? Well, both are not really good for you. The Da Vinci Code is not going to send me to hell or anything. Nor am I a pop-lit snob who believes that entertainment is not a function of prose; clearly it is, and I believe that's all some prose has to be to be good -- entertaining. But The Da Vinci Code does not challenge me in any way. Certainly not on a literary level. Not even on an ideological level. I've played enough RPG's and watched enough X-Files to not be terribly surprised at an ancient conspiracy resulting in murder. The Vatican, covering things up? Wow. Never seen that device used before. Oreos are, at best, neutral in nutritional value. At worst, they put inches on my waist and fill my veins with trans-fats. At best, I'll be entertained by the book. At worst, I'll feel a little less smart after it's all over.

Oreos are, in the overall hierarchy of cookies, not really that great. They're chemicals, fats, and sugars. They're nowhere near the level of a homemade molasses or chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of the oven. Even so, there is something immediately satisfying about them, the texture of the thing as you bite into it -- crunchy chocolate, smooth vanilla creme, then chocolate again. (A texture, of course, that changes into a sublime chocolate-vanilla mush when dunked in milk. I've never been a twist off the top and lick the middle kinda guy). With The Da Vinci Code, there is an immediate satsifaction in reading it. It certainly moves, in it's own awkward fashion. But, let's face it, the writing sucks. I'm 250 pages in and have no sense about any of the characters other than what is immediately relevant to the plot. There are sentence fragments -- not Faulkner-stream-of-consciousness-fragments, but I'm-too-lazy-to-finish-a-thought-fragments. There are mixed metaphors and cliches. Half the book violates a primary rule of writing -- "Show, don't tell" -- as there is a whole lot of telling about the great consipracies. There are plot elements that make sense only as a mechanism to establish what needs to happen in order for the story to function. For example:

spolier space for those three people IN THE WORLD who haven't read the book

In the very beginning, when Silas is going to kill the Louve curator. He shoots him once, in the stomach, and then RUNS OUT OF BULLETS!!!! Opus Dei assassin, sent to kill the man who has covered up a millenia-old conspiracy to set years of planning in motion, only brings one clip, even when he's been assigned to kill four people. I guess he had to shoot each of the other Priory of Scion guys four times, leaving just one for the Louve fellow, and left the other clips in his spare cassock. Of course, the stomach wound is necessary for Louve curator to have 15 minutes to live to leave the clues that set the book in motion. All because the assassin ran out of bullets. Yeah, right.

spolier space over

The book is not well written, yet even so I cannot stop turning the pages. Just as I'll sit and shovel Oreo after Oreo into my mouth, even though I know they are bad for me and really don't taste all that great, I turn page after page of The Da Vinci Code while complaining about the writing and generally knowing where the whole thing is going. I can't help it. Maybe I have a problem. Maybe there is something in the paper. The borrowed copy I am reading, after all, is part of the 42nd print run.

I could go on, I suppose. I could talk about how, like the two parts of the Oreo, there are two parts to the book (the actual narrative and the copious amounts of "scholarly" backstory and explanation), but I should just stop here. I have some cookies to eat.

(and, yes, I want to see the movie. Tom Hanks is a good actor and has a blank slate to create the character of Robert Langdon).