Posted on 05/23/2006 9:42:06 AM PDT by Caleb1411
Lost in all the brouhaha about "The Da Vinci Code" is a simple observation that seems to have gotten lost with all the protests and condemnations and threats of boycotts.
It's just not very good.
I'm a latecomer to this whole kerfuffle. Blissfully oblivious to the controversy, I didn't even know what the book was about until a couple of weeks ago, when I picked it up to kill some time on a long airplane flight. I wasn't more than 20 pages into Dan Brown's thriller when I realized what a woofer it was going to be.
Readable? You betcha. I cranked through almost the whole thing on a flight to San Francisco and back again. Reading "The Da Vinci Code" is like eating popcorn: You keep reaching into the bowl, hardly aware of what you're doing, and suddenly, you're through.
But good? Hardly. With 105 chapters — each about the length of a potty break — and sentence structures not too far removed from "See Dick run," the book seems to be written at about a sixth-grade readability level. The plot advances in a series of enough improbable "a-ha!" moments to burn through a couple of grosses of light bulbs. And the galloping, thinly strung conspiracy theory makes your typical Kennedy assassination theorist look scholarly by comparison.
To call the thing a piffle is to insult piffles.
The film breathlessly packs the book's 450 pages into about 2½ hours. Tom Hanks is a much more skeptical protagonist than you'll find in the book, and the cinematic version soft-pedals the whole church-as-thug idea, assigning most of the malevolent deeds to a rogue, beanie-bedecked "shadow council" of clerics instead of Mother Church herself. Still, the movie is, if anything, more laughably strung together than the book.
Does it offend? The book irked plenty of people — just take a peek on the Internet. And protests broke out around the world before the first frame of the film was shown to the public.
But as a practicing Catholic, I find the idea of corrupt churchmen and Holy Grails far less troubling than the insinuation that any person with any cartilage whatsoever in their spiritual spine would find "The Da Vinci Code" the least bit threatening to their faith.
Faith is the acceptance of things we can't see, after all, and the idea that someone would suddenly believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married just because "Da Vinci" actor Ian McKellen said so suggests a faith that probably wasn't all that strong to begin with.
But linking art and faith is a tricky thing. If you believe in the power of "The Passion of the Christ" to kindle passions in the hearts of the reverent, then I suppose you also have to believe in the power of "The Da Vinci Code" to make the faithful falter.
Art has a unique power to open eyes, to foster conversation and critical thinking, and it's no secret that that provocative power represents a threat to organizations that rely on unquestioning obedience to authority.
Which, I suppose, puts me in the position of defending "The Da Vinci Code." And I don't really want to do that: I mean, I was so embarrassed to be reading the book in public that I peeled off the dust jacket so I could pretend to be perusing, say, Proust.
I'd just feel a lot better if the art that provoked us was as rigorous and well made and profound as the questions it tries to ask. Neither the best-selling novel nor the movie rises to anywhere near that level. They're just pop-culture schlock.
Is Dan Brown responsible? Well, no. He's a novelist, not a prophet. He just wrote the book — it's the millions who bought "The Da Vinci Code" who turned it into the kind of a best-seller that would inevitably be spun off as a movie. With its bite-sized portions and its pretensions to intellectualism, it's the perfect, easy-to-settle-for menu item in our fast-food nation.
And so, maybe it's not a crisis of faith we should be worried about. Maybe it's a crisis of taste.
I'm sure it's every bit as good as his movie called "Joe and the Volcano."
The bible has been TRANSLATED a number of times. 'Rewritten' it hasn't been.""
I have read a number of books that indicated it had- Especially the rewriting on the topic of reincarnation.
Not all the Popes were wonderful, either. It can be very interesting reading if you find the various books that bring up alternative ideas.
I am definately NOT bashing today's Bible...bit I firmly do not believe it is exactly like the original writings, which were in essence recollections of the closest followers of Jesus in his wanderings and teachings. I have actually had people tell me that Jesus wasn't a Jew...I think they are wrong.
My wife, who's pretty devout, loved the onovel. I hated it. The difference is that she read it purely as a work f fiction, whilst I (amateur historian and biblical archaeology buff that I am) read it as bad "historical" fiction.
I think someone told me Macs are the best laptops. I wish I could have just a laptop anymore and not the big hurky thing at home. I lost a lot of Kodak Easyshare pix.
Are all opinions "equals"? Mein Kampf sold a lot of copies.
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LOL. I anticipated some not so generous replies, but please, comparing Hitler's blueprint for killing Jews to Dan Brown's thriller is kind of silly, don't you think?
I realize that some look at DVC as "anti-Christian", but if you can find within its pages a single word that might provoke genocide, I'd be interested in the page number.
Maybe it would be best to maintain some sense of proportion or perspective when comparing apples to oranges.
Wow! Are you like getting commissions? I think they should pay you for sending me that ad! I had no idea they were so reasonable! I thought they were much higher in price!
What books might these be, and what are the credentials of the individuals who wrote them? (Please don't bother listing any books by any member of the so called "Jesus Seminar". Their call themselves 'scholars' while being anything but.)
Not all the Popes were wonderful, either.
And that relates to our discussion how?
"For instance, this "expert" was surprised to learn that Leonardo used mirror writing in his notebooks."
That really struck me as funny.....
You mean that voting by using colored beads to indicate the degree of authenticity of Jesus' words or deeds isn't scholarly? Elaine Pagels is an especially biased "scholar".
Exactly, especially since the criteria they used to make the determination was extremely biased. One would think they set the criteria with an agenda in mind. :)
It appears to be the favorite pet word of James Taranto at the opinionjournal.com web site. He works it into almost every edition of his "Best of the Web" column.
It means a small meaningless commotion, as in, "The Valerie Plame kerfuffle."
Thanks!
Rule of Thumb:
Domestic take must equal production plus publicity costs. About half of the take goes to the theaters, but the movie typically "doubles up" on sales, DVD/VHS rentals, and overseas markets.
Overseas markets are much less profitable than domestic ones. England, and to a lesser extent Australia and Japan, is somewhat closer to domestic profitability. (The sheer size of the Japanese market is a plus.)
However, Da Vinci seems to be doing quite well overseas, but will probably do relatively poorly on video/DVD.
>> What the heck is a "kerfuffle"? <<
I think it's a gang of irate piffles.
>> Just as "The Last Temptation of Christ" <<
The difference is that no-one, absolutely no-one, actually paid to see the Last Temptation in a theater; and its only readers were Brown-University "Diversity in Western Literary Mythology" classes.
Seriously, that movie didn't make enough money to pay for the catering.
First, it will profit via worldwide sales. It will be considered one of the worst of the year. Second...forget about a sequal. Third...Dan Brown made a bundle off the movie deal and can't complain.
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