23
Apr
2009
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
First off, I will say a few things about myself before getting into why I did not and still do not like this book. When this book came out, I was in college, where I double-majored in English (emphasis in Creative Writing) and Comparative Religion. My fascination with religion started at a very early age, mainly concerning Greco-Roman mythology, but also dealing in questions about my own religion (a loose sort of Catholicism).
I distinctly remember asking my Mom as a little kid why Jesus wasn’t married and why didn’t he just marry Mary Magdalene. To this, along with my other questions such as, if aliens exist, is God the God of them, too? my Mom replied that she didn’t know (though she was often helpful in other parts of religion, such as the time when I was in third grade and worried that the devil was going to come get me when I was alone in the shower and she looked me in the eye and said, there is no Devil, there is no Hell, after which I have not believed in either for the rest of my life).
Particularly during the debut and hype surround Da Vinci Code, I took a class on Goddesses, for which I did my term paper/presentation on Mary Magdalene. I had not yet read the book (and actually just listened to it on CD in the car when I eventually did) but I had virtually no interest in reading it. As one Religion prof of my said: it’s pulp. I am a bit of an elitist when it comes to books (you may have noticed), and so when my roommate urged me to read it, I declined since her bookshelf was mainly filled with Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson. Suffice it to say I know more than many people about Mary Magdalene, about the Cult(s) of Mary Magdalene, and about what makes a book well written. I want you to know these things so that you will realize that what I am about to say, I say with modicum of authority and knowledge.
The main reason I do not like the Da Vinci Code is because it’s a craptastic book, in plot/structure, prose, and premise. Without further ado, allow me to address these elements.
PLOT/STRUCTURE:
More of the boring-ass mystery novel set-up. We enter upon the scene of a crime, where the detective brings in his suspect in order to compel him to confess upon facing the gruesome sight. Of course, as in all such cases, the detective is unable to get his suspect to confess for one of two reasons: either the suspect is brilliantly stoic/arrogant and realizes the detective does not have enough evidence on him, or the detective has the wrong guy. Plus, if he confessed, that would be then end. This is the basic set-up of any episode of Law & Order you have ever seen.
Then boy meets girl who is somehow tied to the murder/investigation, they spark and dash off escape near-catches and/or death, because they have to clear the guy’s name by solving a bunch of cryptic clues. Eventually they solve it but for whatever reason can’t go public with it, and their information or treasure ends up in a box in a warehouse full of identical boxes. Oh, wait, that was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sorry, I got distracted for a minute there.
While Brown trendily changes POV (though still staying in 3rd person) it is done mostly, I think, for suspense and we are always certain who is the hero, and who is on his side and who the bad guys are, until the twist at the end when suddenly some (but not all) of the bad guys are redeemed and two characters turn out to be played by the same actor a la Psycho
PROSE:
I’m just going to throw out a few random examples of clunky, cliché, or just plain annoying excerpts of Brown’s writing:
“Twenty Thousand feet above the Mediterranean, Alitalia flight 1618 bounced in Turbulence, causing passengers to shift nervously. Bishop Aringarosa barely noticed. His thoughts were with the future of Opus Dei. Eager to know how plans in Paris were progressing, he wished he could phone Silas. But he could not. The Teacher had seen to that.” (Chapter 10)
“Now, sitting aboard a commercial airliner bound for Rome, Aringarosa gazed out the window at the dark Atlantic. The sun had already set, but Aringarosa knew his own star was on the rise. Tonight the battle will be won, he thought, amazed that only months ago he had felt powerless against the hands that threatened to destroy his empire.” (chapter 5)
“She gave a pleasant laugh. ‘That goes without saying. I simply wondered where to begin your tour.’
Silas felt his eyes focus on the altar. ‘A tour is unnecessary. You have been more than kind. I can show myself around.’
”It is no trouble,’ she said. ‘After all, I am awake.’
Silas stopped walking. They had reached the front pew now, and the altar was only fifteen yards away. He turned his massive body fully toward the small woman, and he could sense her recoil as she gazed up into his red eyes.” (Chapter 19)
“Inside the Salle Des Etats, Sophie stood in silence and endured the sharp pang of loss.” (chapter 23)
And that’s all without getting started on the sad descriptions of art and architecture, which is why the “Special Illustrated Edition” sold so well. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but Brown hardly even tries. Be it emotion or art, Brown is a “tell don’t show” kind of guy.
PREMISE:
As aforementioned, I did a lot of research on Mary Magdalene around the time this book came out. The next year I got in an argument in class with both my professor and a distinguished Kalamazoo, MI judge (at the time I didn’t know he was a judge, nor that he would soon have to drop out of the class due to cancer-I’m not that terrible) over whether or not Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus are the same person (I said they are, as Pope Gregory I basically decided and has been accepted for the last oh, 1500 years). Therefore, I have qualms about anything and everything below. Let’s break it down into parts:
1. In the book there is a grand conspiracy dating back centuries organized under the Priory of Scion, which included many famous people like Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton. The beginning of this book claims that its real, and that documents were found in Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale that prove this. As it turns out, that was a hoax. Some dudes snuck these fake documents in there. So… yeah…
Note: a lot of novels claim a sort of “truthiness” either in the beginning or just throughout the book as a part of the story. However, the stir that this book caused was so great, it becomes part of the problem with the book itself, even if only as a symptom of the idiocy of the population at large who readily buy into whatever they see/hear. Much of the following explanations/arguments of my opinions may be directly related to this.
2. You might be saying, that clearly the symbols Brown sites as examples are proof that Da Vinci believed this. That dude in the last supper totally looks like a chick. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t look like a chick. But I will show you some other pictures: here’s a picture of Donatello’s David
Or, if you really insist on sticking with Da Vinci, here is his John the Baptist:
OMG! Italian Renaissance painters thought David was a woman, too! And so that makes the Queen of Sheba… A lesbian? Conspiracy!
*rolls eyes* It was the Renaissance and most of these guys were probably gay. Deal with it.
3. It is true that many other people have in fact believed in that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and/or had a child together. This was primarily a belief in southern France where some theories/stories/mythologies/historiologies suggest she evangelized, possibly with John, who was possibly once her husband, which was possibly the wedding at Cana, after which John possibly left her to follow Jesus… But this book doesn’t make any mention of any of these things.
It could be that Jesus was once married, because, as many say, he was Jewish, and the custom dictated that a man of his age and station should be married. Of course Jesus wasn’t one for following rules. Some think that the reason that there is no mention of his marrying Mary Magdalene or any other woman in the Bible is because there was a conspiracy to marginalize women. What’s more likely is that as Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire, it took on certain attitudes towards women, just as it took on certain anti-semetic attitudes that were common in Roman culture.
And yet some readers may still protest that the Gnostic gospels, which reference Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ favorite and Him kissing her on the mouth, were purposefully left out of the Bible because they didn’t jive with what the church wanted.
*sigh* A lot of gospels were left out of the Bible, and the ones that made the final cut don’t always agree either. The reason the Gnostics were left out was not really a conspiracy, but because the Gnostics weren’t ever mainstream Christians. They believed that there’s a spark in people that allows them to become enlightened, and if you don’t have it, well, sucks for you. So, yeah, that definitely didn’t jive with the message of (most of the rest of) Christianity. They also believed some things like Eden was a Hell of ignorance and the serpent freed Adam and Eve. And the whole kissing thing is a metaphor, dumbasses. Do you think that when Jesus was betrayed by Judas’s kiss they were gay for each other, too? Or do you take the whole Bible at face value, and believe that, say, the Book of Revelations will come true, too?
So, yeah, believe what you will. I myself am left a little unsure about Mary Magdalene myself. Though I don’t think that they ever had kids, because it’s the whole Lois Lane and Superman argument that her ova probably couldn’t handle his sperm (assuming here that Jesus was divine, and if not, who cares?). Mary Magdalene remains my favorite saint, besides the Blessed Mother, and if I ever get around to making my confirmation, I’ll probably take her as my saint. And besides, if it was an illicit love, well that just makes it all the more sexy.
But OMG, there are better books out there. If you want some mindless excitement, then fine, read your heart out. And at the very least, this book got many people talking about the role of women in religion (both past and present). So I go back to my main points: this is not a well-written book, it presents nothing new, and it uses a hoax as its crutch.
Buy The Da Vinci Code on Amazon
If you like this book/author, you might like:
(my reviews in blue)
The Book of Q by Jonathon Rabb
The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips
Lamb by Christopher Moore
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton by Thomas Merton
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Other works by Dan Brown by:
The Lost Symbol
Angels & Demons
Deception Point
Digital Fortress
