Using up some of my gift card funds I decided to purchase one of these cases for my iPod. It came with a free trial membership at Audible (supposedly a month long membership, but in signing up it came up as just 14 days). In poking around the site deciding how to use my one credit, I came across the audiobook copy of The Da Vinci Code. Given all the hubbub (and the upcoming movie and being a somewhat reformed conspiracy buff), I’d been considering adding it to my reading list for a while, but not been curious enough to actually buy a copy. So I downloaded the audiobook and have been listening to it the past couple days.
It is hilarious. The writing is, well, clearly aiming for those people who consider reading the credits on a movie to be challenging (I don’t need to hear the dead guy’s four line message repeated twenty times, especially when you’re trying to explain what just one line means. Heck, I’ve heard it enough I could now recite it backwards in pig latin while drunk). The exposition sequences are even more ponderous than the description of the tabernacle in Exodus. And for characters that are supposedly such brilliant thinkers and have amazing storehouses of knowledge of these secret machinations they sure are slow to reason out what’s going on and what each little clue means.
On top of it all, so many of the “facts” and theories are either wrong or just lack any real reasoning. The best debunking I’ve found in the tiny bit of searching I did (I don’t plan to do any more as I’ve got much better ways to spend my time), is this write up, Crash Goes the Da Vinci Code. On a few points, that piece’s arguments don’t quite hold up to the light of reason (or historical evidence), but it does point out the flaws and inaccuracies in some of the more outrageous claims.
Overall, it keeps making me think of the Celestine Prophecy, which I will admit had gotten me on the verge of believing back when I read it in high school. In my defense, I was in high school and it was around the time that I was toying with a belief in the Force. (pausing while the laughter subsides) Anyway, back to the funny book for me. (And for the one (or more) of you waiting for the political invective to shoot forth and burn out your eye sockets, it’s coming soon. And it’s bringing a local friend.)
[...] Well, as I mentioned just a couple days ago, I’ve signed up for a trial membership at Audible.com. One of their offerings is a year long subscription to an audio version of Charlie Rose. At $50 (taking into account the discount I get with my trial membership), it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a buck an episode at Google. When I first saw it the other day I hesitated though. I figured I’d have to log in to the Audible site each day to download the new episode, which isn’t how I think technology should work. [...]