Da Vinci Code

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming "The Da Vinci Code" movie, I've decided to summarise briefly how I really feel towards the book. I'll still go watch the movie and enjoy it though - I love Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

I think everyone here, whether they like Da Vinci Code or not - can agree that the novel is a work of fiction.

The book is no doubt an easy and interesting read. Most educated readers probably take it at face-value and understand that it is merely a work of fiction, despite the author heralding at the beginning of the novel that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents [...] and secret rituals in this novel are accurate".

Thus, the critical difference here is that unlike other works of fiction, Brown hails his book as being "accurate". The carefully worded opening is a somewhat deceptive, yet powerful statement, and has lead to many perhaps-more-trusting individuals to accept writing as being "factual". Just, watching the 6 o'clock news the other day, a group of women were interviewed on camera - each of them boasting that they "believed that every single part of the novel was definitely true."

Now, I would not say I am a religious fanatic, atheist or conspiracist. Like most of us, I am merely an interested reader that is also concerned about the impact of novels such as these. By categorizing a book as fiction, and then proclaiming to the world that it is "factual" - there are always going to be a few poor buggers that won't spend the ten minutes researching to see how un-true Brown's "research" really is.

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Random quote for those interested (taken from http://www.aina.org/ata/20060511101121.htm)

"... But (and this is a big 'but') because Dan Brown wrote in the beginning of his book that all information about the texts and rituals and history were accurate, people have been duped into thinking that he has written historical fiction that they can trust.

"In fact, Dan Brown has not based his book on scholarly knowledge and does not have the simplest facts straight. Because Americans have been taught nothing about the history of religions in public schools (a result of the separation of church and state), unless they have taken college courses on the subject or worked hard to educate themselves by reading scholarly publications, Americans are largely ignorant about the history of Christianity. So they have had no way to critically judge Dan Brown's account, and many think it represents scholarly knowledge. It does not.

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