Others have guilty pleasures too...

I have to admit that I also liked Da Vinci Code (and was embarrassed about it too) but my favorite thing about it right now is that it's prompting a spate of discussion about whether or not it's actually any good at all. Or if it's just fluff dressed up as literature.

Stephen Bayley (author of A Dictionary of Idiocy - my new favorite book title) discusses "good bad books" in today's LA Times. Apparently, in shades of Rumsfeld's known unknowns and unknown unknowns, there are good books, bad books, bad good books, and good bad books. The Code falls into the last category.

From Bayley:

Good bad books are not the same as books that are merely bad. Good bad is more subtle. A good bad book is one that achieves a surprisingly exhilarating effect despite flaws of style and construction, which disqualify it as (what Updike calls) "literature." Significantly, good bad books translate very well into film, perhaps suggesting that cinema is an intellectually and artistically undemanding medium.

Is this the home of Helen Fielding? And does a novel's status change over time?