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

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

ah, I missed that programme. Sounded quite entertaining.

I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, as a piece of light entertainment which required very little thought. One of those 'try not to worry about the plot' things. Not great writing by any stretch, but an entertaining enough thriller.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love Tony Robinson. He offered to bring the Time Team in to dig up the floor of Rosslyn Chapel.

Respect!

[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?

[geodesus-christ.livejournal.com]

A close friend of mine recently became a freemason and through his lodge met a guy in the Priory and is trying to join himself. He says they do high-level ceremonial magick and see black shadows moving around in their meeting house... could be that the guy is lying to him I guess.

[jenny_evergreen]

I haven't read the book, but my mother enjoyed it. To be fair, as I understand it, the author has said that he was writing fiction and that he wasn't actually trying for accuracy.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I, too, enjoyed DVC as a piece of light reading, and I also picked up Brown's latest, Angels and Demons, which was also entertaining.

I think it's important to remember that Brown's work is intended to be fiction - granted, with enough "realistic" facts thrown in to make some people wonder if it's really fiction, but in the end, that's exactly what it is and nothing more. I think if one keeps that in mind when reading it, it can be enjoyable.

[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.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. I suspect the guy is lying.

The Priory of Zion turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by three off the wall Frenchmen in the 1950s. They weren't about black magic, but about restoring the Merovingian dynasty. So whatever this group is that your friend has contacted I imagine it has just "borrowed" the name.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. He's touched a nerve and good luck to him.

It's just that this stuff about Sion and Rennes Le Chateau and the Sang Real has been out there for decades and I'm surprised at anyone being shocked or surprised at it.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

When I read "The DaVinci Code", it was like deja vu all over again. "Where have I read about this stuff?" I asked myself- and the answer was on my bookshelf- a first edition copy of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail".

Like everyone else here, I thought it was a good 'what if' sort of romp, but in my explorations of the Grail legends, there was always that sense of fiction underlying all of it. Even when I visited Glastonbury and the alleged place of King Arthur, I couldn't shake that sense that it was all a fairy tale.

It was, but it was still fun. And so was Glastonbury- it struck me as sort of like Santa Cruz CA without the beach. :-)

Sunfell

(PS: My friend [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] turned me onto your LJ, just in case you're wondering where I came from. She highly recommended you.)

[geodesus-christ.livejournal.com]

yeah I don't think the guy ever mentioned the grail, actually.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz has read Angels and Demons. I think she enjoyed it. She says the murders are pretty gruesome.

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect writers of popular fiction to do much research. After all, Conan Doyle placed Taunton at the heart of Dartmoor and all he had to do was glance at the map to discover it's not.

My resentment of Dan Brown stems from my feeling (maybe it's unjust) that he's just taken someone else's book, lightly fictionalized it and now he's making millions. I just don't reckon he's earned his success.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

It's all there in the 1982 non-fiction best-seller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which is still in print.

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.

THANK YOU - I've been saying the same bloody thing since Brown's book came out, but all I got were blank stares. I read the book out of curiosity, and "they" didn't mislead you. It makes John Grisham's books seem like high prose. I suspect Brown knew all along the data was false, but recognized the opportunity for a significant financial score in repackaging Holy Blood's central thesis in a pulp fiction format for mass consumption. Either way, he's certainly laughing all the way to the bank.

I'll be passing on the movie when it comes out.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

More specifically, Brown says the book is fiction based on fact, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Glastonbury used to be my favourite place in all the world. It's been about ten years since I was last there.

I'm afraid to go back in case I find the magic has gone.

I'm glad you found me. I was looking at your journal last night- and I like your style.:)

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

I was a bit worried about the guy they used to dismiss the Sang Real argument last night, because he didn't back up his argument about the mistake by the 15th century monk at all.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There is so much bullshitting in the occult world. There are genuine magicians out there (I may even have met one once) but most are self-publicising wannabes.

And even the genuine ones go in for a certain amount of flim-flam.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's true. I'd like to have seen chapter and verse.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It means he's intellectuaslly lazy.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit unsure that it was a hoax, or was all a hoax, actually, but I haven't read that much about it. I know the guy *says* it was a hoax, but it's possible that either he was misled, or that he was leant on.

I'm totally on the fence in this argument, actually. The person in the Last Supper is obviously a woman, and I've got friends of friends who are high-up Masons and believe all this stuff and have interesting books about it, apparently.

I'm sure the Da Vinci Code isn't a work of art by any means, but I read it before the backlash, and as someone who usually gets offended by badly-written books, I loved it. I was enthralled. If you read it as a straight-up mystery, I think it's earned its status.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I found Tintagel more magical than Glastonbury.

And dammit! King Arthur is not a fairytale! stomps foot :)

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

:blush: Thanks. I do Cranky Curmudgeon quite well, I think.

Glastonbury has a 'place' magick- the geomantic placement makes for some interesting energies there. The people are the icing on the cake. It's definitely a New Agey/Hippie kind of place, but with a lot of warmth, too. That whole area- Glastonbury/Avebury/Silbury etc. had a wonderful 'feel' to it, and I enjoyed exploring it. If there is a Holy Land- that is it. The only other place I have been to with a similar feel is Hot Springs AR, because of its history as a place of peace and healing for the former inhabitants. There's a bit of an angsty overlay to it now, but in a way HS and Glastonbury could be kindred cities.

Sunfell

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

This will sound weird, but I think it's somewhat akin to the Harry Potter phenomenon. If you read it with an open mind and just let yourself enjoy it, you will. If you go looking for all of the things that were "stolen" from other works, you will most assuredly find them and if you let yourself, you will be annoyed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's odd the things that capture the public imagination. Some bestsellers are trash and some (like the Philip Pullman trilogy) are actually pretty good. There doesn't seem to be any way of predicting success.

Just as well probably or all we'd get would be things written to a formula.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Oooh - I haven't been to Glastonbury, but Tintagel is amazing.