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.
But you do find Pagels in the history section and her stuff is basically romantic fiction. Don't kid yourself. Many a Yale graduate will read Brown and think it is more nearly true than, say, Sir Walter Scot's "Ivanhoe." (Assuming, of course, that they have ever read "Ivanhoe")
I read it and found it to be what I look for in books: an easy read, entertaining and mildly intriguing. Like Grisham's Pelican Brief.
To think that anyone actually would make any more or less of it kind of scares me - it speaks volumes about We the Sheeple! ;o)
As I have said before, here is guy who is so jet-lagged in Paris that he can't be woken up by the ringing phone. Once he is up he never again sleeps, eats, or takes a dump for more than 3 days. This is a plot????????????????????
When you put it that way, it's easy to see your point.
However, consider too that the church certainly has culpability in fathomless scandalous events...beginning with wars...ongoing with pedophilia...
I wouldn't speak for Brown, but I read quite a bit of that in his book, if only between the lines!
~snicker!~ We're back on The Terminal again? And how brain-dead can Zeta Jones play?
It's not the intelligence of Americans but the absolute unfaltering allegiance of the aetheistic and anti-catholic groups that pushed this comic book without pictures into "best seller" status.
Sadly they actually believe this book has merit, and that its conspiracies are fact.
Of course their knowledge of things spiritual are generally ignorant... so when someone presents a "gospel of Judas" or "da vinci code" to them that routinely and completely counters the very words of Christ himself.. well to them they can't see the hack for what it is... since they have and want no true perspective or knowledge.
Oh God, that thing had an interesting premise, but it was horribly executed... if you saw the preview, you saw everything in that movie worth seeing.... It was aweful.
Hollywood's never figured out who really has the last Word.
What about Opie...he has a flop, too. All I can call the director is Opie now...poor Opie he needs our prayer. I'll never go see another of his movies or Hanks. They've offended with this movie a majority of Americans.
Oops - Happy Days was 20-30 years ago, too!
Well, not exactly. The word "disingenuous" comes to mind. The author, rather than attacking the book as most fundamentalists have done (ie: heresy, lies, blasphemy,etc), attacks it as a 6th grade reader. To suggest he, as a practicing Catholic was oblivious to the whole controvery is absurd. Then to say he read the whole book, while hiding the cover simply adds to his credibility issues. His agenda was to label the book unworthy for any reader.
But the 44 million who did buy and read it may feel otherwise. If you look on Brown's website, he lists a few of the numerous reviews of his book. They are from professional reviewers and other well known mystery writers, all showering the book with praise.
It was to me what it was intended to be, a better than average thriller. Books such as these are designed for entertainment, not education. For those Christians who are offended, use it as a means to generate discussion about Christianity. For those Christians who were not offended, fine, but participate in the discussion with other Christians.
So nowdays a movie that makes double what it cost to make, opening for $250 million worldwide the first weekend is a flop?
I'd love to know what a success is in your world.
I suggest you take a look at "The Dead Sea Conspiracy " by James K. Fitz patrick. To give you an idea of its contents I give you part of what is on the back cover:
God is dead. The Social Gospel. Liberation Theology. Neo-modernism. Massive defections from the priesthood. Deserted Convents. Teihard de Chardin.
Is there any connection? Sometimes the most tropubling questions can be asked only in a work of fiction.
What if secret archaeological evidence about the Resurrection and Aascsnsion of Jesus had been found among the Dead Sea scrolls.
What if a cabal within the most powerful order of priests in the Catholic Church [the Jesuits] was in possession of this secret.
What if Teihard deChardin was the central figure in this conspiracy.
You get the drift. But the author writes for "The Wanderer." so what we have here is pure fiction. Pure irony, here.
Sounds to me like Fitzpatrick has some anthropology background, maybe a pretty fair amount, even. Sounds like a GREAT read!
Yeah, the best fiction has a grain of salt [from the dead sea, perhaps?]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.