One of the strangest parts of the whole Da Vinci Code phenomenon is that this is the only book I can think of that I know a lot about without ever having read it – a lapse that will never be remedied. It is quite fun though to hear it critiqued so thoroughly and to hear just how laughable the errors in it are. Though the unfunniest part of the whole thing is how so many people have bought into its premise in the first place. Add one part bad history, another part bad art history, get a whole bunch of facts wrong and mix that in with a silly plot with pedestrian writing and you get a mega-bestseller.
Of course with the movie coming out in May the efforts to counteract this direct attack on Jesus and his Church are in full swing. I just wish somebody else had made the movie to give it its proper justice. Ron Howard is a capable enough director and Tom Hanks is usually very good. Though with all of the circular arguments in the movie having an actress with the last name of Tautou as in tautology is pretty ironic. Why couldn’t they have gotten Kirk Cameron and the people who made the horrible Left Behind movies instead? Now that would have been justice.
Catholic Exchange developed Da Vinci Outreach to provide resources to help parishes answer the oncoming attacks and to help inform people to the truth. There is more information here on these resources from Jeffrey Schwehm on what to do to prepare Catholics.
Even the bishop’s conference got into the act with their Jesus Decoded site.
Recently Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel were on Catholic Answers in an interesting program covering the book Click to listen to MP3 (right-click to download) They also now have a The Da Vinci Hoax Blog which is operating in a target rich environment.
As Catholics we have become familiar with apologetics to counteract this misinformation. Too many will want to believe what it contains and it will only get worse with the paperback soon coming out, then the movie and lastly the DVD. We can take the Opus Dei approach of making lemons out of lemonade, unfortunately I think we are going to be neck deep in lemons pretty soon.
Though as a programmer I think the code in the Da Vinci Code is spaghetti code. This is a term of art to describe really bad written code that looks like a bowl of spaghetti, i.e. twisted and tangled.
7 comments
Y’know, I read this (a library copy) back in mid-2003, when it was starting to pick up steam. It’s actually kind of funny in a really bad way — but not enough to be worth reading. However, to me the most depressing thing is all the people who say things like, “Wow, this book really opened my eyes”, but when challenged on the facts say something like, “Hey, it’s just a novel!” (Look at amazon.com for this.) It’s only going to get worse after this movie comes out. Ugh.
The idea of the “Left Behind” people making the movie is a great one, BTW!
I have read it and is hardly a work of art as novels go — airport fiction plot (standard thriller), 8th grade to high school level prose, with the aforementioned bad history and bad art history as well. I’m not sure that it will shake the faith of anyone who is a serious Catholic/christian, although those who are willing to believe the worst about Catholicism and christianity will find their prejudices confirmed in its half baked pseudohistory. It’s realy just kinda silly, but people believed “In Search of Noah’s Ark” as well…
I have had kids in my school (even teachers) reading this book. Two kids even did an oral report on it in English class (free-read assignment). I’ve never personally read it, though.
From an outside view, it kind of seems like a stupid read if it’s not true- it’d just be “great, a dead rabbi had a girlfriend. That’s nice”. It’s so untrue, there is no way the Catholic Church could be hiding it because it is from what I’ve heard no where near what we believe. But because it deals with Christianity, and is an attack on the truth, it is an “exciting” read.
I think I’ll just go and read some more Narnia now.
HA! HA! I’ve read fanfiction thats better written than The Da VInci Code.
Thats what worries me. People saying how well written it is. i could tell from the first page that it was crap. What is wrong with these people? They need to read more and learn to think for themselves.
Hubby and I both read this in August 2003 (second honeymoon, so we both had time!). We ripped through it pretty quickly, and at the time, he asked me what I thought of it. I said that there really wasn’t anything new in it, and it just repeated a bunch of old heresies (though I might have just said lies instead). I’d never heard of Opus Dei before that, so I researched it a bit.
As far as how well-written, it is one of the better-written books of his (we had five at one point, which I ditched on eBay). I figured out the identity of the “Holy Grail” by about the third or fourth chapter. It was exciting, I guess, in the sense that each chapter stopped in the middle of something (which was a bit annoying when you want a stopping place – you’re better off stopping mid-chapter with Brown).
Oh, and it might not lead a lot of faithful Catholics away, but my husband told me that because he read TDVC and Angels and Demons, he decided to research the Catholic Church more carefully. He read parts of the Catechism, bought a couple of books on the Church (including Triumph!), and will be confirmed in less than three weeks now. So good can come of it.
What fascinates me about the DaVinci Code phenomenon is that so many very devout Catholics have read it and see no problem with participating in this cleverly veiled attack on the Church and the divinity and sanctity of Christ.
My mother-in-law, who is one of the finest and most devout people that I know, was confused by my adamant refusal to read the book. “It’s only fiction,” she responded. A nun that I know well also encouraged me not to take it too seriously.
I am not a goodie two-shoes or some sort of holy roller, judging everybody and everything. But I do believe that Satan is more clever and insidious than we give him credit for. I’m sure that he is content to slowly erode faith in the divinity of the Lord by offering minute bits of poison in the guise of harmless popular culture.
He is a sly one. that Lucifer. And millions of entertainment-starved people, including Catholics and other Christians, will eat this stuff up and ingest a bit of the poison that breaks down our resistance over time.
Patience is a virtue the Evil One doesn’t mind possessing.
Дабе немного отвлечься, предлагаю высказывать мнение за чертой о предыдущем пользователе.
Например:
—(делаем такую черту)
Позитивная запись, ещё бы немного длиннее и в самый раз. (это текст)
Идею взял с ЖЖ ) Надеюсь поддержите!