Cheating again... How can one not write about The Da Vinci Code?

Yeah, I said "one post a day in the second half of May." I am cheating and adding another one today.

I didn't read the Da Vinci Code. I will surely see the movie. I am a sucker for hype and my wife did read (and seemed to enjoy) the book. What has really interested me is the reaction people seem to have to this novel.

On one hand, you have people who are willing to embrace this tale as some sort of truth even though it is clearly a fictional tale. On the other, you have people who are up in arms about that and who are about 3/4 inch away from treating Dan Brown the way jihadists treat Salman Rushdie.

The controversy itself seems a little ridiculous to me. Okay, VERY ridiculous. However, I don't want this post to turn into anything that will inflame Code fans or critics. Instead, I wanted to mention one great argument the hype and controversy has made that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention.

It shows us all that even in this information-thick age when we are supposed to be unable to deal with data overload and are allegedly paralyzed by the constant fast flow of information, that writing does have an impact on the world.

One thriller has inspired allegiances, arguments, attacks, analyses and a few other things that start with the letter "a" that I have surely overlooked. If nothing else, DVC should remind us that writing can escape the page into the collective consciousness.

Sure, it might be nicer if the discussions it produced were a bit more productive, etc. But that's a different post altogether... In the meantime it is nice to know that text inspires something.