That Damn Book (And Film)

[poliphilo]

The Da Vinci Code comes too late for me. I did all this stuff in the 80s and 90s.

I'm not saying I was in the vanguard. As someone in the Observer pointed out this morning, people like Robert Graves and Margaret Murray were putting together theories involving the Great Goddess, the sex life of Jesus and centuries-old ecclesiastical conspiracies over fifty years ago.

And behind them lies Frazer's Golden Bough- one of the key texts of the early 20th century.

What was once the prattle of a few off-centre scholars and pseudo-scholars has finally gone mainstream.

There was a time when I hoped and half-believed it was all true.

But now I know it isn't.

There never was a Goddess worshipping Golden Age.
The Priory de Sion was the invention of a mid-20th century fascist hoaxer.
Opus Dei may be sinister- but it doesn't employ albino hit-men.

And so on...

That's what irritates me about Brown. If he'd done proper research- instead of cherrypicking the conspiracy websites- he'd have known that most of the ideas he's playing with here were shot to pieces ages ago.

Comments

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes!

People keep asking me if I've read Code, and I'm always a bit embarrassed to tell them "no" because I feel like my reasons make me sound like a snob: this stuff about Magdalene and Christ may be 'news' for the general public, but this theory has been out there for ages, and I studied it years ago, and frankly I'm not interested in conspiracy theories.

Just last night, I said to a friend "Holy Blood, Holy Grail came out decades ago."

And of course there is the issue of being able to tell the difference between 'myth' 'fiction' and 'history' -- with the caveat that 'history' is often blurred by the first two.

Personally, I like the idea of Magdalene and Christ having been married, but that's all I take it as: either a story that can be well told, and as a myth that speaks to certain elements of my spirituality. All this conspiracy stuff is stupid. I think.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

It is rather disconcerting that so many church officials and religious organizations both Catholic and Protestant felt they had to respond to this in the first place. But then, a thorough grounding in religious history and doctrine has never been a prerequisite for membership in any religion, so a large number of people are prepared to accept any theory that's thrown at them (particularly a juicy one involving naughty bits that has religious authorities pulling their hair out). Like poliphilo said, the whole "It's in a book, it must be true" mentality as a social phenomenon is more interesting than the conspiracy theory itself.

Maybe the silver lining is that Da Vinci Code will inspire a few to delve deeper into the history of their faith?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe Opus Dei have been receiving millions of hits to their website and have come round to regarding the whole thing as a great opportunity to get their message across.

There's no such thing as bad publicity...

[methodius.livejournal.com]

Which is why Baigent et al sued Brown.

It's a win-win situation: sales of their books went up, sales of Brown's books went up, and it's grand pre-publicity for the film.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes; I find it perfectly plausible that Jesus was a married man. I remember being taught in theological college that it would have been downright scandalous for a 1st century rabbi not to have had a wife.

But there's no evidence. And it's very, very unlikely there ever will be. After all, there's no evidence outside the Christian scriptures for anything to do with the life of Jesus.

I haven't read the Code either. And for the same "snobbish" reasons. Also I understand it's very badly written...

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Controversy's a powerful motivator. I read Code for the same reason I read the first Harry Potter book, because some religious types are up in arms about it, and being a graduate student of religious studies I need to stay abreast of these sorts of things. :P

Using the two books as my basis for comparison, I'd argue that Rowling is more competant as an author.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's odd how certain books capture the public imagination.

Rowling is also a fairly derivative writer. She's not the first or even the second author to locate her fiction in a school for magicians.

Why, out of all the hundreds of perfectly competent popular novelists, have Rowling and Brown emerged as pack leaders? I wish I knew.

[methodius.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I enjoyed Rowling's books.

Though I wouldn't class them as great literature, I think they're better written than a lot of kids books (Enid Blyton, for example), and they are certainly better written than The da Vinci code.

A couple of years before Harry Potter appeared on the scene, there was a dearth of good children's books. I browsed a few bookshops looking for some interesting ones, and the only things available were ones by R.L. Stine in the "Goosebumps" series. Have you read any of those? Absolute drek! And that was all that was available if you weanted to give a kid a book as a birthday present or something. Harry Potter was like the breaking of a decades-long drought.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to read my kids G.K. Chesterton and M.R. James.

They loved the Father Brown stories.