The Da Vinci Code
On a less 'Me fear change' note (see last post), I finished reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" last night. Then I couldn't get to sleep for an hour, because every time I turned out the light I thought an alibino monk would attack me.
I enjoyed the novel. Yes, the cheesy cliffhanger ending of each chapter got annoying, and some of the narrow escapes strained my credulity, but it was still good. Those two traits should have made it light summer reading, were it not for the fascinating trip into Catholicism, Grail lore, and feminist theology. As a person of faith, I can't just brush this off. Admittedly, I'm not thrown into a dizzying faith crisis spiral like some people would be -- frankly, my own religious experience has led me to think that if I ever actually wake up and feel as if I have no fundamental doubts about Christianity, then I'd be freaked out. It wouldn't be normal.
So I'll try to make time to do research into Da Vinci and Opus Dei and Mary Magdalene, and read the Gnostic gospels and the Apocrypha. No matter what I find out, I won't stop trying to be a forgiving, giving person who accepts others and honours God for giving me the chance to do so (that's my creed, right there) -- but I don't want to be responsible for passing on false information.
My one real problem with the novel is this -- it dwindles at the end. It's like Dan Brown woke up one day, nine-tenths through writing the novel and said "Holy Crap! I publish this, and I'll be in Big Trouble with the Pope. Aha! I'll just make my plot bend over backwards so that the bad guys don't actually end up being associated with organized religion. I'm a genius!"
Come on, Danny boy. Either have some spine, and be controversial, or don't. You can't have it both ways.
Admittedly, I didn't see many of the plot twists coming, and that's a good thing, but the ending still felt like a placatory gesture to keep everybody except biblical literalists (who, honestly, need their feathers ruffled a bit) happy.
Anyhoo, that's all for now -- I'll come back when I've got something else worthwhile to say.
Bento The Now I Have To Go Pay Off A .21 Cent Charge On My Visa Card - Blarg.
posted by bento at 12:17 PM
4 Comments:
Admittedly, I found the ending a little weak too, for exactly the same reason. "Hey, all of my bad guys are big movers in organised religion! Yay! I mean, oh shit. This is going to get me firebombed even more than for all the 'Blood of Jesus' stuff."
BUT the rest of the information was good enough to make up for all of it. Although sometimes I thought he was just using the characters as mouthpieces for facts, y'know?
I still rate it as an excellent book, though.
1:07 PM
You're right about the 'mouthpieces for information' thing, although that comment did help lead me astray (enjoyably so) so that I wasn't prepared for the plot twist involving the character I thought was most obviously just an expert plunked in for chunkage (and who, conveniently, helped Sophie and Langdon flee France). That was such a good twist that it took me five minutes of blank incomprehension, followed by another ten of flipping back through the book to confirm what I was reading before I believed it. V. good.
2:43 PM
While we're on the subject of doubt being a good thing sometimes (that's the subject, wasn't it?) I found a neat little site for you. Don't worry, it's a Christian writing for other Christians. He goes through the Bible piece by piece (yes, even the boring bits) and explains, points out contradictions, highlights good ideas and bad ideas and generally makes the case that if God was the writer of the Bible, then maybe God should have proofread first. ;)
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
7:56 AM
Thanks for the link. Although I should point out that I don't (and never will, for just such information contained on that site) take the bible literally. Most of it was written back when history meant storytelling, not fact-telling. I mean, it's more complicated than that (I don't take the bible literally, but I don't consider it pure allegory either) because it is the bible, but some bits (like Genesis) are obviously more mythological than others.
PS -- my friend Les HATES the New Testament writer Paul because he has terrible run-on sentences and confusing clauses. A good candidate for a little more celestial editing if I ever saw one ("Though shalt not make lists of more than five items." "But God -- I love my lists that go on for whole paragraphs!" "NO." "But..." "I said NO! Do you want me to smite you again?" "I guess not...")
2:39 PM
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