The Da-Vinci Code

I did it!!I finally read the book!

For months I have trying to get my hands on this book.I tried in the library at Chicago,only to be placed at the end of a lo..o.ng waiting list,then again in vain at Detroit...But finally my quest was rewarded with success..in St Cloud.I guess someone might say that it would have been much more simpler to just go out and buy a copy..but then,for a book that has apparently entranced so many people,I was only too ready to wait.

The author Dan Brown has surely hurt the religious sentiments of a huge section of the general public and the clergy with his theories and suppositions in this book.But that has not prevented success from embracing him..he even has had law-suits slapped upon him(the surest sign of success?).

But what a book!A moderately big read at 436 pages....I spent one frenzied day reading it.It stimulated and touched me in a way that no book hasnt since a long time now.The book describes a quest-guided by clues hidden in the most unlikely of places,a quest that seeks to find Christianity's foremost symbol-the Holy Grail.it touches upon sensitive ground by implying that Christ was a mortal after all and had even married Mary magdalene and fathered children with her.

However,what enamoured me to this literary work is that it transcends the genre of being a mere thriller.True,ever since the book has hit the shelves,lots of people have further researched what has been written in it and have decided that many of the facts have been twisted.Come on folks,it is a novel after all-a work of fiction.Nowhere does Dan Brown claim this book to be an authentic depiction of history.

And in fact,this is the exact point that Dan Brown successfully raises.What are the Facts?Are they the stories handed down through the generations in the form of the Bible?Or is it possible that even the Bible has been doctored at some point in history to suit the times?

As for everything,there are always multiple sides to a story.For centuries,we have been led by our religious leaders and more so,by an innate human desire to trust,to believe what is supposedly written in our books of religion and history.We have been gullible enough to follow,sometimes blindly,these men of religion who guide the ways in which we think and act.But as Dan Brown mentions in his final pages,
"The pendulum is swinging,We are beginning to sense the dangers of our history...and of our destructive ways".

Amen to that!!