The Da Vinci Code is a pop­u­lar and very con­tro­ver­sial novel writ­ten by Dan Brown and first pub­lished in 2003. Nowa­days, it’s really famous because it gen­er­ated crit­i­cism from the very moment it has been pub­lished. Since the movie is going to hit cin­e­mas on May 18th this year, it’s about time to take a closer look at this topic. Well-known actors like Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McK­ellen, Jean Reno and Paul Bet­tany, just to name a few, should be able to get some peo­ple storm­ing the the­aters. Also, there’s a game slated for release on May 19th (the movie will be released in the USA on this day too).

First of all, I’ve read the book in 2004 and I found it quite enter­tain­ing. Oh yeah, I’ve been bap­tized and I was a Catholic Chris­t­ian until I turned 19. At least, it’s been this way on the paper. My tutors and teach­ers always encour­aged me to think for myself, to ques­tion things instead of blindly believ­ing them and so I did. I won’t bother writ­ing about the reli­gious aspects of my life. I’m not reli­gious and I believe that nobody can nei­ther prove nor dis­prove God’s exis­tence. Either way, I wouldn’t care because belief only mat­ters to the believer as I shortly tried to point out here.

As of March 2006, more than 40 mil­lion copies have been sold. Obvi­ously, the book is a work of fic­tion but it isn’t treated this way. Instead of the usual crit­i­cism, this book has gen­er­ated much more con­tro­ver­sial dis­cus­sions and there has def­i­nitely been a lot of pub­lic­ity; in fact, there still is. The Da Vinci Code has attracted gen­er­ally neg­a­tive responses from within the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties through­out the whole world. It has been argued that Brown has dis­torted – fab­ri­cated, even – his­tory to fit his novel best. Because of two law­suits and the call for boy­cotting the movie from a Vat­i­can offi­cial – there’s even a web­site refut­ing the key claims in the novel – Sony won’t have to put that much money in pro­mot­ing the movie, that’s for sure.

As for the ques­tion if your money’s well spent on the book or the movie, I can’t be of any real use. I do like a good read and it’s been quite enter­tain­ing, as I already stated in the very begin­ning. There are many bet­ter reads, that you can be sure of. The Da Vinci Code repeats a num­ber of erro­neous claims, which only mat­ters because of a state­ment in the begin­ning of the book: All descrip­tions of art­work, archi­tec­ture, doc­u­ments, and secret rit­u­als in this novel are accu­rate. If you’d like to know more about these claims be sure to head over there. Even­tu­ally, you’ll come to under­stand what that fuss is all about.

As a reader, I don’t care. I’d never expect a fic­ti­tious work to con­tain an accu­rate repro­duc­tion of the real world we live in, no mat­ter what kinda dif­fer­ent claims there may be. I’d like to be enter­tained. I want the book to thrill me. I need the book urg­ing me to read on until I’ve reached the end. I can’t say that all this applies to The Da Vinci Code. Nonethe­less, I’m gonna watch the movie and I’ll try to evade the not so open-minded fanat­ics boy­cotting the movie because of some wannabe-claims in a fic­ti­tious book. Yeah, I’m gonna laugh out really loud although it’s a very sad world we live in. With all the efforts they’re ded­i­cat­ing to this cause they could help thou­sands of other peo­ple. They chose to boy­cott the movie and the book respec­tively in a fruit­less effort to cleanse the world of this blas­phe­mous work. It’s a pity.