The Da Vinci Code

[poliphilo]

They say the Da Vinci Code is badly written. That's enough to put me off. Life is too short.

But what really gets me is that people are reacting as if this stuff about The Priory of Sion and Mary Magdalen and Rennes Le Chateau were new and shocking. It isn't. It's all there in the 1982 non-fiction best-seller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which is still in print. Also it's all over the Net. What sheltered lives some people must lead!

Also, if Brown had researched properly- instead of just reading The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail- he'd have known that the Priory of Sion has long since been revealed as a hoax. I'll admit I didn't know that myself before last night (when Channel 4 revealed all) but if I'd been proposing to put the Priory at the centre of a novel I'd have made damn sure I found out all I could about it before I went ahead and committed myself.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I never bothered with The Da Vinci Code because I had read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail some years ago, plus my husband, a great reader, couldn't even finish the book and kept swearing at it while he was trying to read it. Good enough to warn me away.

Can't you just see a Time Team episode on that?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a cracking good read. Pity it turns out to be a work- if not of fiction- at least of wishful thinking.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

It's been awhile since I read it. Isn't that the one that links up Jesus and Mary Magdalene with the Stewarts?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Stewarts come into the picture.

The Priory of Sion was supposedly dedicated to reinstating the Merovingian line which carried the "blood royal" of Christ and the Magdalen.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Okay, I read something somewhere that drew the line out through the whole French royal line and into Scotland, which makes a rollicking good story, especially considering the characters of the last of the Stewarts.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The Holy Blood littered a whole family of books that elaborated and extended the mystery.

I've got to admit I'm a sucker for all that kind of thing. I would love for Bonny Prince Charlie to have been a direct descendant of Christ.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Given his alcoholism and illegitimate daughter among other things, I presume?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed!

Only one illegitimate daughter? That was showing restraint by Stuart standards!

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Maybe due to the alcoholism, he suffered brewer's droop too often to sire more. And really, if you look at it, it was only Charles II that was busy repopulating his kingdom. James I, Charles I, Mary and Anne didn't have any bastards that I know about, and I don't remember too much about James II, except that he liked ugly mistresses.