My Take on The Da Vinci Code

[shiredancer]

There has been much talk going on lately about The Da Vinci Code, because of the imminent opening of the movie. Well, here are my thoughts on the whole thing

See, I actually haven't read it yet myself. I've been trying... really! But several valued opinions right here on LJ sort of alerted me that it wasn't going to be top-quality reading, so I anticipated it being a bit of a hurdle. Enough RL people kept telling me what a *page-turner* it is, though, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Got through three chapters, totally bored, totally couldn't get the albino from The Princess Bride out of my mind... I mean, come on, an *ALBINO* as the main bad guy? How over the top is that??

And puh-leeze, I'm a character-driven reader, and I haven't seen such shallowly-written characters since, I think, reading Nancy Drew. The dialogue is stilted, too. Still, I tried. Put it down and forgot about it though, until some RL person (like my husband, who is not nearly as critical as I am and loved it for the clues and all that) would get on my case about reading it again. This happened about, oh, five or six times, with me never getting past the fourth chapter. By the way, Peter bought me the illustrated edition, so I thought maybe the pictures were just intruding on the plot too much -- so I went and bought the paperback when it came out. Finally knuckled down and *forced* myself to get past the fourth chapter. Was making some progress... okay, the guy can't write his way out of a paper bag, but yes, a lot of the facts are quite interesting -- I never heard of The Rose Line before, for instance. The interpretations of various paintings with their clues -- well, I never studied art history (oddly enough, for someone who has adored art all her life and chose studio art as all of her high school electives) so don't actually know the truth of those tidbits. If these are accurate reflections of the views of traditional art historians, then cool -- I'm learning something. Wish I knew what is fact and what is fiction, though -- Dan Brown blurs those lines so much!

But... I finally, finally, got to the part where Robert and Sophie make a break out of the Louvre (and OMG, didn't *that* take just about forever?? Who said this story moves fast??). And here's ol' Sophie, driving the freaking *get-away* car, right, and heading for the U.S. Embassy and "Sanctuary!!!" (hears The Hunchback of Notre Dame's cries as I write), and suddenly she's reminiscing about what caused her terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day... I mean, split with her grandfather... AND SHE'S SO LOST IN HER MEMORY SHE DOESN'T EVEN SEE THE STUPID POLICE BLOCKADE until Robert says (and I quote) "Sophie! Stop! Stop!" You like that dialogue? And she says, and I quote, "What? What happened?!" Does it get better for you? And by then I'm fuming, not only at the utter stupidity of this scene, but because she's just been mentally describing a pagan ceremony that is so straight out of The Mists of Avalon, and I can't imagine any pagan *I* know cavorting around in secret underground grottoes and watching people shag in the middle of a circle, and it's just. so. dumb. And by the way, the book doesn't actually say at this point what she sees going on in the middle of the circle that shocked her so, but if it isn't ol' Sauniere getting it on in a two-horned antler get-up with some babe playing the goddess part, I'll eat my new straw hat from last week's Renaissance Faire. Huh? Am I right? Yeah, I'm right. And as soon as I suck it back up enough to continue reading, I'll prove it to myself. Because I'm *grimly* determined to read the damn thing before I see the movie. I'm funny that way. Opus Dei members might wear those cilice belts and flog themselves with The Discipline *snort*; I have my own forms of self-torture. This book being Number One on the list.

Ah, and there's a side note for you! I actually know a former member of Opus Dei, and another one is an emeritus professor from my department. The lady who was a former member has her own book out, "Beyond the Threshold". She's a lovely, aristocratic Spanish woman (who makes a mean Spanish omelette, I can tell you) and I worked with her for 10 years at my former job at the Education Abroad Program. She's a kick. I first heard of Opus Dei from her, and got *very* negative impressions (well, duh). She was just featured in a big local newspaper article, where they announced that she was going to be interviewed during this past Tuesday's History Channel showing on Opus Dei. Did anyone watch that? I meant to, but forgot.

Other bits and pieces: I've heard a few things about what lies ahead in the book, including details like Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene. Oh come on, that's an old one -- I've been hearing that from New Agers and fringe-element types for years. And why isn't anyone referencing Tom Robbins' "Another Roadside Attraction", if they want to point fingers at debunkers of the Bible? Now, *that* is one great story, by a master storyteller. It too totally turns around the ending of Christ's story, and it's sweetly, whimsically beautiful. Okay, I haven't exactly been following the controversy closely, so maybe somebody *has* referenced it...

Still, I enjoy a good treasure hunt and a clue-filled mystery. Most things so far I've figured out *well* ahead of the supposedly-brilliant lead character. So I *will* plug away and finish it... eventually. Damn it.

Rant over! You may return to your day.

Comments

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

*stands up on her seat to cheer*

*shrill whistles of appreciation*

LOVED it--your review, not the stupid book. I was bored in the first two pages, but I had to read it for work. Gah. Sounded to me like the guy got lost in the metaphsyics section of his local bookstore one night and decided to write a novel about it. More Gah.

If you're truly interested in what's real and what's not in the comments about the paintings, there are any number of books out now that are actual facts about the subject. I haven't ready any, but I'm sure someone can point you to a good one.

I'm probably going to just ignore the movie, anyway. X-Men 3 is coming up; who needs more than Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, anyway?

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

*Bows* Why, thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Um, so you're saying I'm *not* going to find it getting better if I just keep plugging along? Drat. I'm really in for a long haul, then. Peter just tells me that I should be readiing faster! Guess that would be one solution -- get it over with quick. And thanks for the suggestion about the "guidebooks" to the facts -- the symbols and clues in the pictures and all really do intrigue me, but it also irritates me to not know if his research is good or not. I've heard just enough to make me sceptical.

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

Heh. Just realized that that should be "skeptical". Can't have any spelling errors in a rant about how a book is badly-written, now, can I?

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw -- the one fact that he quoted that *really* got to me was the one about 5 *million* women being burned as witches over the course of three centuries. Any idea if that's accurate? That absolutely made me shiver. And I do give him points for his discussion over the complete wiping-out of the feminine divine. Again, I worry about the accuracy of the information. But on the whole, it sounds about right.

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

No, that's not an accurate estimate. The actual number was probably less than a million and maybe even less than that. But the 5 million is what many New Age and Wiccans and feiminists like to spout off with to prove their point. http://www.draeconin.com/database/witchhunt.htm is an excellent, factual, well-researched article into the subject.

Also http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn2.htm That particular website is one of my favorites for real information on this kind of thing.

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/02/01/witch_craze/index.html is an article directly referencing the DaVinci Code.

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

Great -- thank you! I will definitely check these sources. And I'm glad the number wasn't accurate -- one million is entirely bad enough.

[rae-lindorie.livejournal.com]

Man..... this is the third or forth time that I've felt like a complete idiot.

I liked it. I got to read an advance copy we got when I was working at the bookstore. (That is the one thing I miss)

Anyway- I dont know if it was because it was 4 years ago, or because I just can't tell a bad book. I liked it, I haven't gone back to try and read it. maybe 4 years really will make a difference.

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

Hey -- don't feel bad about liking it! My husband (whose opinion I value) liked it. My best friend (whose opinion I also highly value) liked it. My sister liked it. I guess the point I forgot to make is, I'm definitely the one in the minority here. And I'm just feeling extra-snarky lately, so I'm enjoying a good little rant. But I'm well aware that I'm being on a bit of a high horse, nose-in-the-air snooty-intellectual sort of thing. It's just fun, once in awhile, to swim against the stream.

And also, since I'm *still* not very far into it -- I'm well aware that if I let the plot just catch me and sweep me along, I could definitely eat my words by the end! And that will be fine, too. I'm willing to keep more of an open mind than I'm letting on, and see if I'm loving it later.

So I'm glad you liked it! And am I right about what Sophie saw that night??

[haleth.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing how bad it is, so I haven't even tried to read it. But reading your review was starting to make me almost want to read it, just to see if it really is that bad... then I remembered after seeing Ed Wood, we decided to rent Plan 9 from Outer Space, because we were intrigued by its reputation as the worst movie ever. That? Big mistake. Finding a copy of this book and trying to read it would probably be a similar mistake.

[shiredancer.livejournal.com]

Heh. I leave it to your own judgment. Sometimes when there's a big hoopla over something, I just *have* to read it/see it, to get what the fuss is about. Biggest mistake I ever made along those lines was going to see Mel Gibson's movie -- The Passion of Christ? I was so horrified, I put the title right out of my head.

Anyway -- I guess if you can set aside any literary merits, it's probably enjoyable to most people as just a good mystery full of clues. Peter says I just need to read faster. Hmmmm.