how prithee can I read Bay Poetics when I haven't yet finished The DaVinci Code????? I've never much sought out bestseller material in my reading but I occasionally feel obliged. I read Love Story long ago, in about 20 minutes, just to say I did. saccharine aside, it's hard to believe someone who taught at Yale wrote it, it's so clumsily written. wait a sec, or maybe not so surprising. I mean, Harold Bloom's at Yale... bestsellers tend to market low rent controversies, which don't light my fire. DC's controversy is at least high rent. its peek at the origins of the Church are compelling, even titillating. there's an awful lot of exposition in this book, necessarily. I mean he can't assume people know anything about the Grail legends. Brown has resorted to long expositional scenes. those get confusing when they are flashback scenes. 2 things I can't fancy in novels is flashbacks and dreams. flashbacks tend to be too quaintly jarring, as well as less effective than when done in film. when writers write dreams, it is usually with a vivid label saying I'm being obvious here. and the dreams always read like crummy movie scripts rather than dreams. no dreams so far in DC. I get a little tired of these worlds where it makes sense for innocent people to run away from the cops, lie that'll help your cause. in DC, it is done across international borders and includes the idea that, having fended off a murderer, you should bring him along too. that's a quibble, of course I believe everything I'm reading is reasonable. why shouldn't I? I've been reading the internet for years, and everything is true there. Brown does everything he can to keep the plot moving. no doubt we'll see the movie too.