DeVinci Code - storm in a tea cup

The DeVinci Code is a bit of a storm in a teacup and yet says something about our time. Basically its your Dad's Robert Ludlum (rather than Tom Clancy - not enough tech or family values) book with a theological bombshell rather than a nuclear one and still gets the girl at the end. It has become the world's best selling hardback novel. Dan Brown, writes well and keeps his yarn running at a good rate of knots.

Much has been said elsewhere about the way that it draws on the Gnostic gospels, so I wont go into that here - which is also good because I am not qualified to comment with any kind of authority on the accuracy or theological merit of the book.

What I found most interesting is the parallels with the war on terror, the white middle class end-boomer hero battles unknown religuous forces 'determined' to keep its own believers enslaved in a deluded faith. I was struck how much of George Bush like view this is of Islam and the current war on terror. Just in the same way that 1950s sci-fi films were a mirror held up to the audience of their own Cold War induced paranoia.

I am sure that Gnostic-based self help books will pepper the holiday reading charts this summer.