Praise Tom Eaton!

I’ve become Tom Eaton’s Number One fan, I hope he feels honoured.

Regarding his book, The De Villiers Code, some silly interviewer asked him: “As a South African writer / storyteller did you set out to write a story South Africans will recognise as their own?”
My Tom answered: “No. I set out to write a story that South Africans would recognise as Dan Brown's. Stephen Fry described The Da Vinci Code as ‘complete loose-stool-water’ and ‘arse-gravy of the very worst kind’, and while I think he may have been a little charitable, he was going in the right direction. It's not the gullibility of people that offends me. I'm also not a religious person, so I don't get worked up over the arrogance of assuming that 600 pages of drivel by a write-by-numbers typist can reveal what 2 000 years of scholarship couldn't. What I really mind, though, is that his excremental writing goes unchallenged. You wouldn't let a stranger stand in your living room for hours on end, shovelling faeces down your shirt while he screamed, ‘You're a moron!’ So why would you let Dan Brown do it?”

(The whole interview’s at http://www.litnet.co.za/ricochet/homebru_tom_eaton.asp )

The De Villiers Code is one of the most wickedly funny things I have read in a long time, but there’s a catch: you have to read The Da Vinci Code first. You’ll need one of those protective pointy silver foil hats that they wear in the movie Signs; it might help to stop your brains from leaking out your ears, but it must be done. I did it, and look, I’m still fine aren’t I?