Derivative

BBC: Da Vinci Code 'copied book ideas'

A claim that Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code copied the ideas of two other authors has gone before London's High Court.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh say Mr Brown stole "the whole architecture" of research that went into their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

I have read both of the books in question, and didn't particularly enjoy either. Actually, no, that's not true: I never managed to finish The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail because it was a pile of specious bullshit masquarading as historical research, and it irritated the pants off me. Pseudohistory annoys me as much as pseudoscience, and that's saying something.

I have to say, Baigent and Leigh's book crossed my mind on numerous occasions as I read The Da Vinci Code last year. Dan Brown had clearly read their silly book, but at least he has the decency to admit that his derivative was a work of pure fiction. I hope he wins his case.

Postscript: He did.

Richard Carter

A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.

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