All I Hope Ever to Have to Say on "The Da Vinci Code"

[quasigeostrophy]

I liked the book. Not a literary breakthrough and a bit telegraphed, but an entertaining and quick read. Even though I've heard the movie (understandably, considering the book is a lot of exposition) drags, I may go see it for the heck of it.

Currently, I've been half paying attention to a documentary on The History Channel called Beyond the Da Vinci Code which is uncovering the truth behind many of the so-called claims in the novel. I like the approach of this documentary. The facts are being presented neutrally. I've read so many similar debunkings that annoy me with a tone, explicit or implicit, of "Dan Brown got it wrong!"

Give me a break. He wrote a work of fiction!!

Many years ago, I fell in love with a novel called The Eight, the first book by Katherine Neville. It's still one of my favorite books. It's a creative placing of historical characters from around and after the time of the French Revolution linked to another story thread set in the 1970s. They're all where they were, doing for the most part what they did that is recorded historically, when they did it. But Neville changed their motivations, often extremely. To me, whatever his actual intent, Brown's The Da Vinci code is the same sort of thing, except only with present day protagonists.

People having cow puppies about things Brown claims in the novel about the Catholic church and so forth, IMHO, just need to get over it.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I'd agree, except that the book swept through the unwashed masses like a tsunami, and the Great Conspiracy Theory Nut Brain Trust has latched on to it as factual. So debunking it for them isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's always interesting to me to see documentaries exploring the truth behind fictional accounts, cuz, anal hypercritical Virgo here, yanno? In most cases it's just entertaining; in this case I think it's a good shot at the dingbats.

[krasota.livejournal.com]

I'll give a great big ditto to all of this.

It's fiction. It's extremely well-written popular fiction. It's definitely translatable to the big screen. It's entertaining. It's commercial and therefore isn't so heady and esoteric that the eliterati will devour it. It seems heady and esoteric, so the less snobbish folks and the masses *will* eat it up. It's fiction. It's fun. It's even mildly thought-provoking.

I read it the other day. Enjoyable read. Then I finished an old Ludlum paperback I've been gnawing on. Now I'm reading Map of Bones. It's the week of comfortable thrillers, apparently.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

IIRC, most of the book was inspired by/borrowed from Baigent/Lincoln/Leigh's 1980's book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" - a work of speculative history, FWIW. I read it back in high school and as it was my first taste of an "alternative view" of the historical events surrounding the life of Jesus it had a huge impact - really made me think about religion in the historical context.

Over the years I've grown more skeptical about the book, but keep a battered copy on hand to loan to people, just because I think it's helpful to burst through the Christian mythology so many people are raised with.

I was confused as to why the authors of "HBHG" sued Dan Brown - theirs was a work of history (accurate or not) and "The Da Vinci Code" was a work of fiction - when did it get illegal to base fiction on history?

I did read the Da Vinci Code (or, rather, listened to the audio book) and .. well, it wasn't great, it wasn't awful, I figured DB had fun building a story around an old book. But I do think that for a lot of people the Da Vinci Code was an awakening of sorts, a new way to look at old stories. The controversy never hurts popularity ratings, either :P

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I simply hated "The Da Vinci Code". The writing gave me a headache.

On the other hand, I adore Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. So what the hell do I know? :)

Are you into English detective fiction at all? Reginald Hill is a simply gorgeous writer, and his Dalziel and Pascoe series gets better with each book.

[karenthecroccy.livejournal.com]

See, now, I liked Da Vinci Code. Fun, easy read. Made me go "hrmmm" a few times. Dan Brown has a few things that drive me crazy character-wise ... but ... it wasn't all that bad :)

I think some of my sales girls and I will see it Monday

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

I was annoyed at some of the story changes they make in the movie, in my mind unneccessarily.

But both are fine entertainment. Not to be taken as anything more.

I pretty much grew up reading things like Chariots of the Gods, so this sort of genre is great brain candy to me. And I've loved how, over the years, the things that were 'explained' in Chariots have since been actually explained by further exploration... and reading about them as the scientific story unfolds (a) decade(s) after I read the book is highly entertaining...