The Da Vinci Hoax (2)

The Popularity

Why the incredible popularity of the novel? Veteran Catholic journalist Sandra Meisel wrote of The Da Vinci Code's audience appeal: "With his twice-stated principle, 'Everybody loves a conspiracy,' Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier bestsellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn't so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation's books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies' book club" ("Dismantling the Da Vinci Code," Crisis, Sept 2003).

Women are the major consumers of novels, and my impression as I read the book was that its main target audience was white, middle-aged women. But once something becomes the rage, as this novel has, it develops a somewhat different consumer dynamics.

In an interview a couple years back Carl Olson critiqued the literary style of the novel, and gave further possible insight into its popularity. He noted that "the novel reads much like a made-for-television movie script, with short chapters, curt conversations, little character development and sparsely constructed backdrops." Like Meisel, he observed that "the book is based on a standard formula used for romance novels." Yet it mixes with that some contemporary intellectual trends. "The novel mixes together elements that are quite appealing within a postmodern culture: a relativistic attitude toward truth and religion, conspiracy-based claims, radical feminism, dislike for religious authority and the implicit belief that reality is malleable and can be customized, so to speak, to each person's wishes" ("The Truth Behind 'The Da Vinci Code,'" Zenit, March 13, 2004).

The Da Vinci Code plays upon people's fascination with the controversial and esoteric. It also supports the Western trend of the last several decades for an alternative "spirituality" that is less Christian, less dogmatic, more subjective, and more sensual. It appeals to the baby-boomer rejection of Christianity in general and dislike of Catholicism in particular. The case presented by the book against the claims of Christ, Christianity, and the Church offers pseudo-intellectual supports for those wanting to doubt or dismiss it all. This is aggravated by the profound historical ignorance of most people and their inability or unwillingness to think critically (i.e. their gullibility) - something of which they are blissfully unawares.

Western society has rejected the morally demanding God of revelation to embrace lesser gods of their own making. G. K. Chesterton's famous quip seems most apropos here: "When men cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything!"

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