I've been stuck on page 168 of The Da Vinci Code for the past three weeks. Life is just too short and I cannot force myself to continue through this linguistic hell. When I mentioned to my friend Michael, three weeks ago, that I was stuck on pg 168, he looked at me with surprise.

“You mean you made it that far?”

“You didn't?” I said.

“I picked it up in the bookstore and couldn't get past the first page.”

That's the benefit of a PhD in Lit, I guess. The crap meter works instantaneously.

I'll wait for the movie. This sucker is going back to the library (thank heavens I started cleaning house today, or I'd have forgotten the darned thing was buried beneath a pile of papers).

Foucault's Pendulum and The Last Temptation of Christ are much better written; Temptation, at least, is every bit as controversial as Da Vinci.