Dan Brown - The DaVinci Code

I watched "The DaVinci Code Revealed" or whatever it was called on the Discovery Channel as well. I wasn't surprised that Dan Brown used fiction instead of fact in his book. The thing that amazes me is how good of a storyteller he is. Not everyone can mix in fact with fiction and create a book that is as intriguing as "The DaVinci Code". I'm sure this book will spawn many an urban legend, but then why shouldn't it? As one of the commentators stated on the TV program, Dan Brown fed the human need for religious change and controversy, and we ate it up.

Of course Dan could be overstating his case for the book, precisely to engage the ruckus it has After all if it wasn’t so controversial would it have sold quite as many copies? And in the program mentioned, Baigent, himself, admitted the idea that there had been a child and thus the blood line was entirely their (Baigent, Leigh & Lincon) speculation with nothing to back that speculation up. It’s ok for him to say "hey the idea that there was a child was our speculation", because I’m sure that the book has sold so many coppies and earned so much they are not worried if sales tail off ( which they wont , thanks to Dan, his book and the forthcoming movie of the same)Anyway, if the book gets you thinking, studying and learning then it got to be good , yes?

I never really understood the hoopla the book got. It was an admitted work of fiction based on an admitted work of speculation.

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"select * from USERS where CLUE > 0http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
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Exactly!I have read a couple of books now that deride and debunk Mr Brown’s book (mainly through quoting scripture; if that was ever a valid argument, especially when the honesty of that scripture is one of the main facts being questioned..)The book is a NOVEL. A piece of fiction. Anything within its pages [other than the legally required information] is subject to fabrication: including any fact ascribed to the world the book’s narrative operates within.If you do any research on this subject it falls apart very quickly. The book is a good read, a catalyst for thought and study, but that’s all. Let’s face it Angels & Demons is the far more plausible story out of the two.If Mr Brown had published these conclusions as a piece of academic study then things would be far different.As it is I think the main reason the reaction has been so vehement, is those of faith reacted blindly to concepts of the story without taking in fully the book’s ‘novel’ status, and misreading the book as a direct attack on the church. All in all, it does seem quite similar to the problems Salmon Rushdie got into over his book. (Another book that had its sales boosted by the religion it was based around taking it way too seriously).

It's only "spellt" () 'Jobby' when you are from posh 'Auld reekie'.In 'Fawkurt' we spell it the proper way.Your way sounds like Jaw-bey, our way sounds like Joe-bey.LOL Just noticed that this thread is about a Dan Brown book!I'm away back to bed.Brian.

Posh Auld Reekie!!! Ah'll huv ye ken ah'm fae Glesga' an' oan a scale a' 1 tae 10, the east end ranks as minus 15! An' it is jobbie, if ye waant tae pronounce it tae rhyme wi' toady ye spell it wi' "oa". Awa' an claw yer simmit!!! Yer bum's oot the windae!

In a similar vein to The DaVinci Code, I recently finished reading The Rule of Four. Billed as 'the ultimate puzzle book' I was intrigued. Sadly, fails to live up to the hype in my opinion. Confirmed my long-held belief that novels written by more than one author are rarely any good. Anyone else read this?

Could you soft southerners keep it down a bit.TTFN,WK

Awwww, Nawwwwww, a Teuchtur!!

Actually, to be honest, I am from Edinburgh originally. So if you scallawags don't pipe down my man will set the dogs on you.TTFN,WK

I have not read the Da Vinci Code, but I have read the Holy Blood & the Holy Grail, and saw Tony Robinson's "debunking" of the Da Vinci Code itself.Also a friend of mine has read the Dan Brown book; I undrestand the plot, sensu strictu, to be almost identical to that advanced by HB&HG, except dramatised. That is, they contain much the same argument, but one is a novelised and tha other presented straight (for good or ill).Clearly Robinson is correct to argue that some of Browns stuff is flat out wrong; the candlesticks at Notre Dame, as he points out, are far to large for any single person to pick up, let alone use as a murder weapon. On the other hand, he openaly admitted that looking at the Leonardo picture of the Last Supper, the figure to Jesus right does definitely appear, at first and second glance, to be female.It's interesting that Robinson chose to go after Dan Brown, even if Baigent was interviewed (and stonrgly defended his argument). That is, while the problem with the candlesticks does suggest Brown is telling porky pies when he says everything in the book is true, its not significant to the thesis of the Holy Blood & the Holy Grail at all, and it is that thesis which is much more important.I was actually very interested to see Baigent defending his argument in the here and now; I have always wondered how, umm, honest the work was. It didn't have too much, but did have a little, of the persecuted tone of the von Daniken types. But like Custard, my overall impression was that a lot of the argument is circumstantially supported by other material - but the specifics about Barabbas, the Merovingians, Mary et al, however, are rather less well supported and probably more open to challenge.Ultimately I thought Robinson shot his own debunking in the foot. His argument was that the whole things was a Surrealist prank perpetrated by the rich and bored, and this view does have some support. What he failed to explain, however, is how a group of 20thC pranksters coincidentally managed to construct the san/graal argument that evolves smoothly into an empowered female role in the (very) early Church, backed as this was by Robinsons discussion of recent Gnostic documents explicitly mentioning female preachers. Also, if there IS no historic female argument, then the quite apparently female figure in the Last Supper, which Robinson acknowledged, makes even less sense than it did before. IOW, Robinsons debunking requires a much bigger elision of the known facts than is required to see the HB&HG as strong.Robinson, of course, is a Christian of the non-fanatical variety, and has produced Christian TV before. Thus I fear he has a vested interest himself in debunking Dan Brown.Asgara, keep going as the stuff on Mary and Jesus does come in a big chunk at the end; and becuase it is all speculation, the only way to make it make sense is to establish in the readers mind their own thought process, hence all the lead-up. But I found it very interesting.The single best criticism of the HB&HG thesis I have yet come across is actually the attack on the very existance of a person of that name in Roman Judea in the first place. The HB&HG argument still depends on the fairly literal existance of Jesus, even if they then claim he is not divine and did not rise from the dead. If the HB&HG thesis is true, then the Islamic argument that Jesus was a prophet, rather than the son of god, would be supported (assuming any sort of divinity at all, of course).

BBC news storymore Da Vinci Bashing including the rather delicious: Pot kettle or kettle pot?I think the Church and its defenders are really hurting themselves in the level of attack they have given the Da Vinci Code. Ok it’s doesn’t take much effort to see that this cracking novel has little or no truth behind it but if this is so why the big fight? Why is the church so worried about people believing in something with little or no real evidence to back it up? I can only guess it only matters when people believe in the wrong fables that are everywhere

Well, its because it also misreads spiritually. It is easy to put aside the fact that it is not likely at any true but that doesnt stop the ""spirtual electrons from flipping in annoying ways while reading the well seqwayed letters it contained.Look, there is nothing conceptually the same when the spirit is not involved. Take for instance Jammer's instance in "The conceptual development of quantum mechanics" that Bohr was more likely using IN BOHR'S MIND William James' ^psychological^ analysis of complementarity rather than the simple angle complements in geometry. Jammer cites James' use of a patient of Charcot's named Lucie who expressed a complementary or schizophrenic or mutually excluded disordered personality insisting that this kind of thought lay behind Bohr's technical term.Now I have a different understanding of the disconinuity and continuity logics, but one that can not span psychologically seperable levels as the first love of my lover interpreted the clinical schizophrenia of my second lover(or take the Charcot patient instead) but this could be a result of Jammer being correct about Bohr's mind and James' and me being instead rather incorrect about the rather pedantic geometry I suspect
instead in both Bohrs mind the mother of my childrens' but it is in no comparison however but *just as physically annoying* as reading the DCODE no matter the spirtiuality, for/because any truth about what is mostly false, for I full well know that biologists cant handle the fibbionici series (and dont do it to the extent Croizat already related to how cells cut)that LDvinci ALSO OBSERVED (2/5 turns in plant stems) way before others. And on the other side of the issue I have read the Bible with said single leveled person (no matter the place of complements) translating it from two languages at one interpreted time.This book is really in more places than it needs to be. I used to use it as a door stop for awhile, just for the fun of seeing how many time I could step over it.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-15-2005 05:50 PM

the Bible or Da Vinci?

Da Vinci-