Sunday, October 10, 2004
A Mormon's take on The Da Vinci Code
Many, many moons ago I promised a review of The Da Vinci Code. Dave, over at his Mormon Inquiry "never misses the opportunity to put "Mormon" and "Da Vinci Code" together in one post title!" -- and although this isn't specifically a Mormon view of the book so much as a review written by a member of that church and therefore whose views are colored by it, he's got a point: the title is catchy.
And so, to harp on the old cliche: better late than never. Here you go.
I picked it up and read it this summer after enduring copious praise for it from a friend of mine whose taste in literature I usually enjoy but sometimes find questionable -- he's usually good for a recommendation of a good story, but not always for literature of deep philosophy.
I found that generality to ring true by the time I'd finished DVC. Before I discuss the philosophy, let me establish one point:
I loved the book. I couldn't put it down.
Why? I'm a sucker for a detective novel. I'm a sucker for a mystery that needs to be solved. I'm a sucker for puzzles that I can try to solve while the main character is doing the same thing. If you're not a fan of mysteries, chances are you'll have much less appreciation for DVC -- but if you like them, and if you can treat it simply as a mass-market mystery novel (which, really, is what it is), then you'll probably enjoy it.
It's not particularly amazingly written. It's not prose that I read and say, "Wow!" and wish I could emulate. In fact, I would run out of hands and toes before I'd counted the number of people that I know personally who could write better. If you're expecting it to be a work of stylistic magic...don't. Then again, if you can endure mediocre writing for the sake of a compelling story, you might enjoy it.
Some people don't really find it a compelling story. Some also have criticized it as Dan Brown taking the opportunity to write a Mary Sue (or, if we're going to be proper here, I ought to call him a Gary Stu). I'll grant that as a possibility. Whether the author has written himself into the story does not necessarily bear on the enjoyability of the story. It can irk people -- but it doesn't bother me that much, because I don't know Dan Brown in such a way that I could automatically equate him with Robert Langdon. What matters to me is whether the character, as written, is plausible. Is Langon? To my mind, yes.
And that brings us to the other main sticking point -- the philosophy, or quasi-religious foundations of the novel's mystery. In order to solve a mysterious murder in the Louvre and to save his own skin, Langdon must unravel a rather sticky mystery that hinges on the fact that Mary Magdalene was not only the woman who Jesus met in the Garden after his resurrection, but also one of his chief disciples -- and his wife.
Now, I'm in no position to say whether that's true or not. It certainly wasn't among the teachings that I grew up with, and that naturally leads me to immediate skepticism. But whether it is fact or not really doesn't have to be established: the book is a novel. It is fictitious. And more than one fictitious novel -- indeed, almost all of them -- has been founded on an fictional or only quasi-historical event or presupposition.
This, I think, is the point with which most Christian denominations have trouble with the book. I've heard it said (by friends of the Conservative Christian persuasion) that the problem arises not from the book being "bad" or even necessarily from the supposition on which the story is based being inherently wrong (as it is if you don't believe that Christ and Mary were married and that the Catholic Church has been hiding that fact for thousands of years -- a belief that most Christians don't subscribe to). Rather, the problem, as my friend put it, is that people read the book and then believe it to be true.
A number of books have come out since DVC trying to explain or debunk it (see here and here and here and here and here and here). I haven't read any of them yet. Someday, when I have those copious amounts of free time that I'm always dreaming about, I'll pick up one or two. I'd like to read more on what members of the Catholic church have to say about it, as well as members of my own. So is it true? Is it not? I don't know. I can't say. But that does seem to be one of the big draws of the book -- a suggestion that something we have hitherto not believed might possibly be true.
Or it might not. And it might merely be deception.
But if it is -- and here's my last word on it -- it's amusing and diverting deception. And it is a novel, after all. And novels are allowed to be untrue.
In fact...I like them best that way.
And so, to harp on the old cliche: better late than never. Here you go.
I picked it up and read it this summer after enduring copious praise for it from a friend of mine whose taste in literature I usually enjoy but sometimes find questionable -- he's usually good for a recommendation of a good story, but not always for literature of deep philosophy.
I found that generality to ring true by the time I'd finished DVC. Before I discuss the philosophy, let me establish one point:
I loved the book. I couldn't put it down.
Why? I'm a sucker for a detective novel. I'm a sucker for a mystery that needs to be solved. I'm a sucker for puzzles that I can try to solve while the main character is doing the same thing. If you're not a fan of mysteries, chances are you'll have much less appreciation for DVC -- but if you like them, and if you can treat it simply as a mass-market mystery novel (which, really, is what it is), then you'll probably enjoy it.
It's not particularly amazingly written. It's not prose that I read and say, "Wow!" and wish I could emulate. In fact, I would run out of hands and toes before I'd counted the number of people that I know personally who could write better. If you're expecting it to be a work of stylistic magic...don't. Then again, if you can endure mediocre writing for the sake of a compelling story, you might enjoy it.
Some people don't really find it a compelling story. Some also have criticized it as Dan Brown taking the opportunity to write a Mary Sue (or, if we're going to be proper here, I ought to call him a Gary Stu). I'll grant that as a possibility. Whether the author has written himself into the story does not necessarily bear on the enjoyability of the story. It can irk people -- but it doesn't bother me that much, because I don't know Dan Brown in such a way that I could automatically equate him with Robert Langdon. What matters to me is whether the character, as written, is plausible. Is Langon? To my mind, yes.
And that brings us to the other main sticking point -- the philosophy, or quasi-religious foundations of the novel's mystery. In order to solve a mysterious murder in the Louvre and to save his own skin, Langdon must unravel a rather sticky mystery that hinges on the fact that Mary Magdalene was not only the woman who Jesus met in the Garden after his resurrection, but also one of his chief disciples -- and his wife.
Now, I'm in no position to say whether that's true or not. It certainly wasn't among the teachings that I grew up with, and that naturally leads me to immediate skepticism. But whether it is fact or not really doesn't have to be established: the book is a novel. It is fictitious. And more than one fictitious novel -- indeed, almost all of them -- has been founded on an fictional or only quasi-historical event or presupposition.
This, I think, is the point with which most Christian denominations have trouble with the book. I've heard it said (by friends of the Conservative Christian persuasion) that the problem arises not from the book being "bad" or even necessarily from the supposition on which the story is based being inherently wrong (as it is if you don't believe that Christ and Mary were married and that the Catholic Church has been hiding that fact for thousands of years -- a belief that most Christians don't subscribe to). Rather, the problem, as my friend put it, is that people read the book and then believe it to be true.
A number of books have come out since DVC trying to explain or debunk it (see here and here and here and here and here and here). I haven't read any of them yet. Someday, when I have those copious amounts of free time that I'm always dreaming about, I'll pick up one or two. I'd like to read more on what members of the Catholic church have to say about it, as well as members of my own. So is it true? Is it not? I don't know. I can't say. But that does seem to be one of the big draws of the book -- a suggestion that something we have hitherto not believed might possibly be true.
Or it might not. And it might merely be deception.
But if it is -- and here's my last word on it -- it's amusing and diverting deception. And it is a novel, after all. And novels are allowed to be untrue.
In fact...I like them best that way.