The final word on the Da Vinci Code

[lagizma]

Once you are done reading this, you can say to anyone in the world, "Oh, I already heard about this from Miss LaGizma, and the issue is just dead to me now. How about that new Guns N' Roses album?"

Given that this is how the book opens:

The Priory of Sion-a European secret society founded in 1099-is a real organization. In 1975, Paris's

Comments

[autumnhawk]

I agree that the popular reading masses are irritating in the way they fixate on a book completely out of context of other books. It's really only to be expected though. A book's only going to sell tens of millions of copies if it's being successfully marketed to the non-reading or light-reading crowd. These people only read something if it's already really popular.

And there's something about most people which allows them to have an opinion regardless of their lack of knowledge in an area. People do it with books, movies, scientific theories, artists -- they push something that they've experienced and enjoyed as if it's the greatest thing since Homer, regardless of whether they have any credibility to make that choice. I instead tend not to have strong opinions unless I've really looked into something, but then again I'm boring as hell. Think of how empty the Internet would be if only people who knew what they were talking about posted.

John Taylor Gatto would probably say it's a result of our culture's attempt to adolescentize (ummmm...?) the entire adult population. And he may be right. I know a 15 year old who has basically read one book in his entire life, Eragon. And yet he is perfectly willing to argue that it is the best fantasy book and best book there is. This I accept (with a fair bit of browbeating) from a 15 year old, but it's not that differnet from the rest of the society out there.