In Reply to: this line from the article explains why posted by exer on May 11, 2006 at 15:37:30:
I don't think that entirely explains why so many people don't seem to understand that it is a work of fiction. The assumption seems to be that Brown was purposely trying to mislead his readers by that preface, however it's fairly common for fiction writers to include many factual elements in their story, eg, settings, historical info, etc. But just because a fictional book contains some factual information doesn't make it non-fiction. I'm not aware of any other fictional book that has caused such confusion among so many readers. Or maybe that's just an impression I'm getting from news reports. Maybe most people are smart enough to know the difference.
On the other hand, why are so many Church leaders so concerned that their flocks may mistake the book for non-fiction? I just don't get it. Are they worried their flocks' faith will flounder over this, or is it that they feel most are too stupid to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction so they have to spell it out for them? Like I said, I guess I'm gonna have to read the book to see why so many people seem unable to make that important differentiation.