Do not demonize

After all that has been said, written or shouted on the Da Vinci Code, difficult to comment on it and to escape categorization: between scholars and backward choose your camp?
The Da Vinci Code is accused (in addition to being an American bestseller on French soil, must not close our eyes: we do not hear the scholars belling on each output Marc Levy and Bernard Werber) to be riddled with historical inconsistencies. Big deal, I do not remember having seen such a violent outcry at the exit of Gladiator, whose sombre realism in ridicule.
So why not try him for what he is: a novel that has no other ambition than to entertain. Occult thriller about the Holy Grail flirting with the esoteric, the Da Vinci Code is clearly in the tradition of Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco or Sacred Enigma, which exploit the mysteries or the white history with some gusto. The Da Vinci Code comparatively abandons the complexity of millenarian intrigues - or at least the watering down - and is moving towards a playful and captivating hunt treasure. Inconsistencies and diverted truths are many and obvious, but what is more normal, it is a fiction. The entertainment function is not affected.
We can make a second reading that would rather be sought in the curveball and a tale of manipulation. The inconsistencies are indeed becoming more and more frequent and huge as the story up to construct a completely preposterous theory which turns to farce. The reader expects to find a photograph of the mysteries and conspiracies of history and finally found itself manipulated by the author.
Finally we can see in the Da Vinci Code a militant and dangerous work similar to Oliver Stone's JFK. In both cases the mysteries of history (the Kennedy assassination, the life of Jesus), where powerful institutions may have hardened (the CIA, the Church) and hidden part of the truth to the masses. The logic of the authors is "because we are hiding part of the truth, I assume your guilt and I devises a theory that puts you in question". In both cases, historical inconsistencies pamphleteer castrate the project scope. Remains a kick sensation in the anthill quite enjoyable (except perhaps for the military in one case and cathos pure juice in the other).
Finally, the Da Vinci Code is a fairly efficient and well made thriller, which recycles tested recipes. A book that develops a very attractive story and which one really wants to believe but falls very largely the domain of fiction and imagination ... like the Bible actually.