I just finished reading probably the single most crappiest book ever to have insinuated its way onto my otherwise illustrious reading list. It's called "The Gaudí Key", and it's by a couple of Spaniards who tried to jump onto the "Da Vinci Code" bus back in 2006.
The plot (I think – it's all over the place) goes like this: Catalan artist Antoni Gaudí protects a great religious secret by leaving a string of clues in his artworks in Barcelona. Now I'm a huge Gaudí fan, and I love the city of Barcelona. So I had reasonably high hopes for the book – even though I knew it was a Dan Brown knockoff.
I couldn't wait to see what secret symbols were hidden (fictionally or not) in the gorgeous Sagrada Familia cathedral. As a work of architecture, it's a breath-taking combination of science, mathematics, art, religion, construction and history.
Too bad the book was such a pile of poo.
What irritates me most is not the stinking craptitude of the book. No, what makes me really mad about the book is that I cannot start reading a book and then not finish it. For some reason I've convinced myself that every book is great (by virtue of its printed pages alone), and that if I cannot read a book until the very last page, then there's something wrong with me. Crap movies I can walk out of. Crap TV shows I can switch off. Crap books? I feel compelled to sit through them, no matter how bad they are. There's something about the whole paper/ink combination that makes me think that books carry greater cultural gravitas.
The writers of "The Gaudí Key" must have known this about me.