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

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Brown is poorly written and badly researched. I read The Da Vinci Code and found lacking in both respects. Most unsettling, however, was that after all that rhetoric about the power of woman and Mary Magdalene, etc. etc., Brown would close the novel on such a Puritanical note. Come on, just let the poor people have sex, they're obviously dying to!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw him interviewed the other night- and took an instant dislike to him. He seemed kinda humorless and cocky.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Ugh, really? That's unfortunate. The guy is not a writer. but he is a masterful peddler. Whether we like it or not, his book sold millions and that is something to admire, even if it sold for all the wrong reasons. It saddens me that he is a cocky jerk about himself, though. It just makes me respect him even less!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was saying how TDVC is based on fact.

And of course it isn't...

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

UGH!!!!!!!!! Seriously? We should TP his house!