Really Got Them Rattled

Like millions of others, I was recently fascinated to read Dan Brown's publishing phenomenon "The Da Vinci Code". Best sellers are ten a penny, but this book appears to have captured the imagination of the world, having been published in more than forty languages. With most books that would be success enough, but this novel has spawned the publication of several books that elaborate further on the evidence to which the Da Vinci Code refers. The Rough Guide to the Da Vinci Code is a good example.

Today on reuters.com (via Boing Boing) I came across an account of of an interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in which he basically says the book is a pack of lies and right-thinking folk (Roman Catholics in particular) shouldn't buy it. Apart from being a rather lame attempt at stable door bolting, the piece seems a little thin on detail. One would have thought that the mighty propaganda machine that is the Vatican, could have come up with a point-by-point rebuttal of Dan Brown's thesis. I suspect that account would not grace the best sellers lists, however.

I hadn't got round to reading The Rough Guide to the Da Vinci Code yet, but this sort of reaction from the Vatican makes me all the more intrigued to find out a little more about the subject. Perhaps the good cardinal hasn't heard of the phrase "the oxygen of publicity"!