My guilty secret 🙂

We can’t talk about Christian and Fiction and leave out Dan Brown; even though you may prefer I did.

I loved The Da Vinci Code movie, and the Angels and Demons book and movie. I think Brown tells a great story, and his other works are definitely on my TBR pile. (To divert from the church-y stuff… have you read his first novel, Digital Fortress? I thought the end was a fab twist.)

There has been a lot written about the Da Vinci Code. Endless articles and critiquing of the story. Understatement alert… it does not show some parts of the Roman Catholic church in a good light. Nor does the suggestion that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married, thrill many Christians. Numerous writers  have been at pains to point out the errors and exaggerations.

It does bring up again, the question raised by Nick Park in his article which started me off on this theme (click here for the post the explains my AtoZ theme)… is the reason Christians don’t write good fiction, the fear of the heresy hunters? Brown is not worried about getting theology wrong; he’s far more concerned with getting his historical facts straight. He is extremely well researched so much so, he says himself in an article on bookbrowse.com, he has little or no time for reading fiction His time is concentrated on reading, “non-fiction-histories, biographies, translations of ancient texts.”

He has taken actual organisations like Opus Dei, the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, together with some associated conspiracies, and built works of fiction around their history. He has done the same with the NSA and the Freemasons. He’s a fan of secrets and telling stories about them. I believe he does it very well. He spins a good yarn, as they say in Ireland.

The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons are engaging entertaining reads that kept me guessing. They had added spice of religious imagery, religious history and a big dollop of religious conspiracy. Christian Fiction they certainly are not. They are fiction about Christianity, and I confess, confession being good for the soul, I love ‘em.