FACT:The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as "corporal mortification." Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.
§Note from the The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Savidge: Obviously, you were just looking at the Last Supper there. When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline?
Brown: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is—all that is fiction, of course, is that there's a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.
§From a CNN interview on 25th May 2003:
I'm quite tired of reading book reviewers' descriptions of their subject matter as "X meets Y", which is why I'm reluctant to write anything like that now. If I did, I think X would stand, in this case, for Raiders of the Lost Ark and Y would stand for Scooby Doo. In fact, even that description is generous because Indiana Jones and Scooby Doo are at least quite good fun and do not take themselves seriously—two qualities that could not be accredited to the Da Vinci Code. It's Mr Brown's constant insistence that his story is basically fact that has exposed his book to so much criticism. If the author acknowledged its fictitious nature it might constitute a mediocre airport novel. Mr Brown has instead produced a discordant pseudo-history in which accepted hoaxes, poorly researched and bizarre theories, misunderstandings and wilful misrepresentations, not all of them closely related, are bound together rather unconvincingly by a plot that has not only made his ideas readable but has also allowed him to bypass mainstream academic criticism, and so has found an audience that might take the claims seriously.
The book contains scores of errors. Most of them would have been picked up by a competent editor ; some of them are minor ; quite a few are so primitive, so preposterous and so superficial that any claim to thorough research on Mr Brown's part must stretch credulity.
The author's ineptitude is evident even in the book's title. The phrase "da Vinci" means of Vinci—a reference to a place of birth. "Leonardo" is the short form used by real scholars. This is a bit like referring to Diana Princess of Wales as "of Wales" or Henry VIII as "the Eighth". Mr Brown appears to believe Leonardo's surname was "da Vinci".
There are many codes in da Vinci's works. I first learned about them while I was studying art history at the University of Seville in Spain. Later, I married an art historian who happens to be a da Vinci fanatic. And from there, there was no escape. I ended up studying it for many years… Leonardo da Vinci was a man centuries head of his time. He was fascinated with secrets. He was one of the first cryptologists, and he devised many ways to keep information secret, and portray it in ways that most people, when you look at a painting, don't really see. That's really what the book is about. When you look at paintings like the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, that there is really more there than meets the eye.
§From the CNN interview on 25th May 2003
So So the Da Vinci Code is really about codes in Leonardo's works ("like the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper"). The "code" contained in the Mona Lisa is apparently a reference to Amon and Isis:
Langdon finished writing and stepped back from the projector.
Amon L'isa
"Ring any bells?" he asked.
"Mona Lisa... holy crap," somebody gasped.
Langdon nodded. "Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci's [Mr Brown seems unsure whether "Da Vinci" has a capital D] little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa's knowing smile."
§The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 26
It's not very convincing is it? Is L'Isa supposed to be French? Much more importantly, Mona Lisa isn't the real name of the painting—in fact it's the English name that's only really been used since the nineteenth century. Leonardo did not use it, or even know about it. If there is a code hidden in the Mona Lisa, Mr Brown certainly hasn't discovered it. Is "code" even the right word for a bad anagram?
What of the other "code" mentioned by Mr Brown?
"Venturing into the more bizarre," Teabing said, "note that Jesus and His bride appear to be joined at the hip and are leaning away from one another as if to create this clearly delineated negative space between them."
Even before Teabing traced the contour for her, Sophie saw it—the indisputable V shape at the focal point of the painting. It was the same symbol Langdon had drawn earlier for the Grail, the chalice, and the female womb.
"Finally," Teabing said, "if you view Jesus and Magdalene as compositional elements rather than as people, you will see another obvious shape leap out at you." He paused. "A letter of the alphabet."
Sophie saw it at once. To say the letter leapt out at her was an understatement. The letter was suddenly all Sophie could see. Glaring in the center of the painting was the unquestionable outline of an enormous, flawlessly formed letter M.
"A bit too perfect for coincidence, wouldn't you say?" Teabing asked.
§Chapter 58
There's one big problem with this theory and it isn't one that Mr Brown addresses. There are only thirteen figures in Leonardo's painting of the Last Supper. One of them is Jesus and the other twelve are His disciples. Mary Magdalene isn’t present in the painting. The youth with the shoulder-length blond hair is St John and not Mary. Jesus and John do form a V. Well, sort of. A letter M is very difficult to see, try looking for it in the picture above and you'll probably be disappointed : the left-most stroke is missing and the next two strokes are also part of the V. Even if the M is there, it doesn't really demonstrate anything because Mr Brown has no idea what M is supposed to represent:
"Conspiracy theorists will tell you it stands for Matrimonio or Mary Magdalene. To be honest, nobody is certain. The only certainty is that the hidden M is no mistake…"
But why on earth would Leonardo wish to portray Mary Magdalene, a figure who, according to the Gospels, wasn't present at the Last Supper? According to Mr Brown, it's because he was a member of a secret society called the Priory of Sion, set up to conceal evidence of Jesus's relationship with Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion is a well-documented hoax. (See here for a CBS story on the subject). Pierre Plantard, who invented it, was a fantasist attempting to establish his claim to the French throne. He would later admit that he had written the Dossiers Secrets under the influence of LSD and that the Priory of Sion was a fabrication. His Wikipedia article makes interesting reading.
In fact Mr Brown says nothing about Leonardo that's very accurate.
It can't just be a coincidence
This assertion is a staple of Mr Brown's story ; arguments from disbelief are used far too often and nearly everything is made to depend on them. This is a selection of the sort of thing I'm talking about ; in fact this type of argument appears in nearly every chapter:
The Little Mermaid was a spellbinding tapestry of spiritual symbols so specifically goddess-related that they could not be coincidence.
"...Their agreement was too great for coincidence."
"It's far too coincidental that this supposedly random account number could be rearranged to form the Fibonacci sequence."
The Star of David, Langdon thought. No coincidence there.
Langdon knew it was no coincidence that the word [sic] minstrel and minister shared an etymological root...
In the previous example Mr Brown is perhaps trying to say that it's no coincidence that the words minstrel and minister look the same since they do in fact have the same root. What he actually writes is reminiscent of: Langdon knew it was no coincidence the two men shared the same parents since they were in fact brothers.
Finally a rather garbled example:
"What!" Langdon was thunderstruck. Three more murders? The coincidental number hit him harder than the fact that he was the prime suspect. It seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence.
Mr Brown's plot acts as a vehicle for his peculiar theories. His undeveloped characters exist to recite large chunks of his research. One of them is a sinister "Opus Dei monk". Apparently Mr Brown is not aware that Opus Dei is a lay organisation—i.e. it does not have any members who are monks. This "monk" is working hard to hinder the investigations of a Harvard University "symbologist" and a member of the "Cryptography Department" of the French Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire. These job titles are equally ridiculous. "Symbology" is not an academic discipline and real life criminals don't tend to leave behind clues in secret code form for their pursuers, which means "Cryptography Departments" only exist in the minds of lazy authors of bad novels. And this one is very bad—its tedious stream of consciousness style reads so much like parody that it will tend to amuse rather than immerse its readers. This is on top of poor grammar, irritating tautology and monotonous clichés, so rich a collection of which will be yielded by a cursory reading of even a short section as to make elaboration in these paragraphs unnecessary. Nevertheless, the following selection of some of the writer's character introductions provides an illustration of his awkward, clumsy prose style:
Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.
…the hulking albino named Silas limped through the front gate of the luxurious brownstone residence on Rue La Bruyère.
"My God, one of these books was written by Sir Leigh Teabing—a British Royal Historian."
- A note: I just noticed this. It's a complaint about a similarity between Anthony Lane's wonderful review of TDVC and an equally wonderful Geoffrey Pullum review. Oh dear. I thought my list was original. After noticing this book's horrible beginning I had looked for the first mention of each character. Even worse for me, Language Log also has this. The complaint about the title is a well-known one, perhaps because it is so obvious. I think I may have read it first in this article by Christopher Howse of the Daily Telegraph.
No comments:
Post a Comment