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While Dan Brown's blockbuster novel may have turned heads with some of the assertions made, the single most true fact of "The Davinci Code" is often overlooked by those viewing with the critical eye of disapproval. That fact is that the book is fiction.
I do not intend by this claim to debunk any of the statements made as fact in the novel. To be perfectly honest, I haven't got a clue as to what in the novel is fact and what is fiction and, more importantly, I do not care. The idea of writing a novel that we title fiction is not at all about deciphering what it is based on but, rather, much more internalized. It's about our own interpretations of the work.

I'll admit, reading the novel made me think. I'm not a religious person and never was. What is and should be interesting is the possibility of corruption in the most divine and holy of establishments.
The question addressed by Dan Brown is not the legitimacy of Christianity so much as it is the purity of those embracing what they call a benign pursuit. The message is not about Constantine or the ancient history of Christianity, that's really only the vehicle for the message.
The goal of an author is to speak to an audience. For Dan Brown, the audience is a world full of people who feel some way or another about Christianity. Some people are shouting, "that's what I said!" in praise of his work while yet others condemn him to hell. The point, sadly, is being missed by both.
Yet another group of Dan Brown readers have considered the work for more than literal sense, more than what it's based on, not bothering to buy a used copy of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," and just sat down and applied the concepts.
What happened with a church two-thousand years ago is hardly so important as what is happening with the church now. That, the Church of now, is exactly what the story is about. It's the time setting we're given for the entire work. In short, what the Davinci Code is based on is not ancient inscriptions, lost books of the bible and secret organizations but bold corruption in the face of what we are at least lead to believe is the omni-benign.

Learn more about this author, David S. Kadaris.
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