The Da Vinci Code has not come to a theatre near me. Natch. There are no theatres near me. But I've read the hype and been irritated at what yet again seems to be a too-easy-belief in conspiracy theories-- this time against the commonly understood relationship between Christ and Mary Magdalene and a reinterpreation of the extra-biblical Holy Grail. This latest craze is dressed up in narrative creatively calculated for mass appeal with a trace of mock-historicity AND a shiny cover on Amazon, To the masses who will devour anything they see on a best-seller list, this stuff is way more interesting than that outdated eternal God stuff between those boring black leather covers. And this makes me sad. Seems by and large, we set our standards for entertainment and "truth" very, very low and there are people getting rich off it.
Though few may care to separate wheat from chaff when it comes to "entertainment", Dismantling The Da Vinci Code by Sandra Miesel looks at some specific distortions made by Dan Brown, author of the book that has sold more than 4.5 million copies since its release in March 2003. For the even smaller number that want to look at greater depth into what is more commonly believed about the personalities and events of Biblical and early post-Biblical times (including Gnosticism from which Brown draws many of his "facts")-- this page looks at
If anything is more inflammatory than politics, it certainly must be religion. I offer these links FYI and now you know one more in an enormously long list of recent books I will not be reading. I'm not prepared to make further attacks or defense on either side of this topic and haven't read all the articles linked at LeaderU (though I have found their material to be carefully put forth and scholarly in the past.) It's just what came off the top of my head this Saturday morning before my second cup of coffee.
Posted by fred1st at January 10, 2004 06:38 AM | TrackBackGood for you, Fred. For a while I thought the fuss over this book (Da Vinci Code) was just one more case of passing, media-created silliness, but yesterday morning I noticed with surprise that it's still #1 on the best-seller list, NY Times, I think it was. What a waste of time and money, to buy and read this book! My book club read it early on, and found it too absurd even to merit much discussion. Not only are its pretensions of being scholarly and based on facts and research patently false, but it's not even a good read - the characters and plotting so unbelievable, etc.
So what is the attraction here? Someone said, "I know it's not true, but I wish it were."
Posted by: Lin B at January 10, 2004 09:49 AM
This book may prove Barnum was right... it's not on my list of reads either.
However, like you and most sensible folk, I consider discussion of religious dogma outside their immediate family or church an invite for a pointless verbal dustup. To each his own.
Posted by: feste at January 10, 2004 03:21 PM