I find it fascinating that people can take something like the Da Vinci Code that cannot be proven, but they regard it to be absolutely true. I find such faith to be religious in nature. I don’t feel I’m prejudiced at all. I just try to be honest about what I see.

In the case of The Da Vinci Code, I believe I’ve finally figured out why it was so successful. That is, why it was so successful at convincing so many people that it is powerfully true, without any genuine evidence at all. This is only my theory, mind. But I think it’s a good one.

It’s not the Catholicism. It’s not Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s not gnosticism. It’s not even the hidden codes or the manhunt story. All these elements help, of course. But I do not believe they are the key.

I believe the key is in the writing.

I hadn’t read The Da Vinci Code in years – at least three or four. But just last week I took it down from my shelf for a look. And what I found when I read it shocked the life out of me.

Dan Brown is is truly powerful writer. Powerful. I’d forgotten the effect that his writing had on me. Not powerful as in “brilliant.” Because it’s not brilliant writing. Not in a literary sense. There are plenty of logic errors. The grammar is awkward. Often just plain bizarre. Not powerful as a piece of scholarship at all.

Brown’s writing is powerfully CONVINCING. It is the most convincing writing I have ever seen. Hideously, almost forcefully convincing. I have never encountered writing like it, not anywhere else in my life.

I found myself believing it. Every sentence, every word rang true. All my scholarship went out the window. I found myself actually falling under Dan Brown’s spell, actually feeling like he knew what he was talking about, even when I knew it to be blatantly false.

I actually had to put the book down and wonder what was being done to me. Against my own will, I was being seduced by its bizarre magic. How fascinating.

I actually brought out my huge books of scholarship I had collected over the years on the factual faults in The Da Vinci Code – religious faults, historical inaccuracies, and so on. I placed these books side by side with The Da Vinci Code novel itself.

I proceeded to read The Da Vinci Code. Every time I came across some little fact or historical detail I knew to be false, I would look it up in one of my research books.

None of that mattered. Even with the correct research by my side, The Da Vinci Code still FELT truer than any of it. This was absolutely remarkable. A very powerful effect. It literally took my breath away.

Dan Brown has an almost hypnotic writing style. Something about the way he fits words together – it’s psychologically uncanny. It FEELS true, even when it’s not. It almost goes beyond the words. It’s almost a spiritual effect. This is absolutely extraordinary, something I’ve never encountered before. A form of psychological writing. Completely unique.

I can quite understand now why this book has so many followers. It sucks you in. It does something to you. Something creepy. I find it strangely invasive, almost offensive.

A German poet once referred to Adolf Hitler’s speeches as “psychological rape and murder.” You didn’t just hear them. You FELT them, too.

The Da Vinci Code is like that. You don’t just read it, you FEEL it. I never really understood what that meant until now. And the feeling you are left with upon reading The Da Vinci Code is that it is absolutely, authoritatively, TRUE.

What to make of this? It is exceedingly strange. I regard The Da Vinci Code book as a psychological artifact – something designed specifically to twist the human mind. How it is done, I cannot say. But I’m fascinated. I’m in. I have to know the mechanics of it. It’s an extraordinary book, in a psychological sense.

A book like The Da Vinci Code doesn’t get onto the national bestseller lists around the world for two years for nothing. Dan Brown’s book seems to have worked its bizarre spell on millions of people, across continents. And that’s no small achievement.

Now I want to know how it was done. I think this could have profound implications for psychological research. If there IS a style of writing that can convince people against their will of certain things, it would be interesting to know how it operates.

In short, I don’t hate The Da Vinci Code. I am fascinated by it. But for all the wrong reasons.

I am disturbed by how so many people around the world have been worked over by this book, probably without understanding what was really being done to them.

Are people really this delicate? Are we really this easy to fool? The evidence would seem to suggest that we are. And this is not good news at all.

I must confess myself to be profoundly creeped out.

If you don’t like them get rid of the books and stop watching the movies. Donate them to someone who has a far more open mind than you do. Or maybe you would rather listen to Hitler’s ideas.

Fahrenheit 451 is probably your favorite book!

@ Susie….
You should continue to read things you don’t enjoy…most people know this, it’s common sense. It is funny how you streotype everyone who likes these books as hypocrites, stubborn, etc. Seems to me you are the only one with these negative qualities here, friendly advice: take a look in the mirror babe.

Talking about your dislike for intolerence and inflexibility of the Dan Brown fans, well, I daresay, I could not help noticing that your posts too diffuse a tad too much of the same.

While I appreciate the fact that you may very well, not like a book or a movie or a writer, I would strongly suggest you to refrain from your desperate attempt to nag your point and substantiate them with nothing but mere comments and feelings.

@Uu, a nice thought

I personally, do not really think that the movies were too much of fun for me, since I watched them after reading the books. I think you will understand guys, what I mean. However, I think that the movies, (especially Angels and Daemons) are good when they are not compared to the books and are viewed as independent movies. The movies are indeed thrillers, whereas the books are more of research works submerged in imagination and a thrilling backdrop.

Guys, let’s try not to get too distracted by the adverse comments against the Dan Brown work and accept the fact that everyone cannot like the same thing. Even if someone cannot really prove a point, it is after all about an individual not enjoying a book.

Regards