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Reviews.... DAN BROWN'S DAVINCI CODE VIOLATIONS I’m not sure how many of our readers are familiar with The DaVinci Code, the runaway bestseller by author Dan Brown. After all, this is a men’s magazine, and one reviewer, Sandra Miesel, who reviewed the book for the magazine Crisis, writes that “Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies’ book club.” But whether or not you’ve read it, you must have heard of it. One of the major networks, which shall remain nameless, broadcast a primetime “investigative” special into the central thesis of the book, i.e., that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers and had a child. Other claims include that Mary Magdalene was actually the Holy Grail, that it is she, rather than Saint John, who is pictured next to Christ in Leonardo DaVinci’s painting “The Last Supper” and that a secret society, the Priory of Sion, is the keeper of this truth and the true religion, both of which, of course, have been covered up by the Vatican for all these years. There’s more, but please don’t make me rehash this drivel. It has already been effectively debunked by numerous critics in the Catholic and secular press. Here’s a sampling of quotes from reviews not found on the book jacket, all of which can be found on the web at either www.envoymagazine.com or www.opusdei.org. (To find the list of reviews on the Opus Dei website, simply type “DaVinci Code” into their search engine.) *The aforementioned Miesel, a medieval historian, concludes her review by writing that, “in the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess.” She goes on to note that, unfortunately, the damage is done because “after all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?” *Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest and author, who never goes out of his way to defend the Church’s teaching or historical record, nevertheless writes in the National Catholic Reporter, “Brown knows little about Leonardo, little about the Catholic church, and little about history.” That’s too bad because this book is about Leonardo, the Catholic Church and history. Strangely, Greeley thought this book was skillfully written. That assessment does not make me want to rush out and buy any of his many novels. *Bruce Boucher, a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, writing in the New York Times, asks and answers the following question: “How much does this murder mystery have to do with the real Leonardo? The short answer is not much, and the author’s grasp of the historical Leonardo is shaky.” *I’ve reserved the best for last. Peter Millar, writing in the London Times seems to have liked this book a tad better than I did. He writes, “This is without doubt, the silliest, most inaccurate, ill-informed, stereotype-driven, cloth-eared, cardboard-cutout-populated piece of pulp fiction that I have read. And that’s saying something.” Yes, it is. It’s all that and more. It’s blasphemous. Since many writers more qualified than myself have already put the lie to the bizarre notions included in this work of fiction masquerading as fact, I’ll not bother to echo their arguments. Look ‘em up at the above websites. For my part, I’ll just focus on a few points: the secret, true religion that the Vatican has supposedly suppressed, the use of codes in this book, sex and the “sacred feminine,” and the Church’s understanding of pain and suffering. As mentioned above, the book posits the existence of a group which is the guardian of the Holy Grail, i.e., the remains of Mary Magdalene, as well as the keeper of the ancient rites of the authentic religion. The nature of this mysterious rite might be one thing that keeps people reading, for the author has one of the main characters, a beautiful young woman named Sophie, recall bits and pieces of her glimpse of it at her grandfather’s chateau. Apparently, it was so scandalous that her grandfather’s involvement caused a rift between the two for many years. Eventually, we learn of the sacred liturgy of the suppressed “true faith.” Poor impressionable Sophie stumbled upon a ceremony in which a group of chanting men and women, all wearing masks and gowns, were circled around an old man and woman, also wearing masks, but no gowns. Let’s just say the elderly pair she saw on a “low, ornate altar in the center of the circle” were not chanting. They might have been grunting, but they weren’t chanting. Unfortunately for poor Sophie, the objects of everyone’s reverence were her grandfather and an unidentified woman, who, we learn later, was actually her grandmother, whom Sophie thought was dead. Now we’ve all been embarrassed, perhaps, by our parents and grandparents, but this was a bit much, even for our intrepid heroine. I was left thinking, “That’s it? That’s the great religious ceremony? A bunch of people dressed up for Mardi Gras watching a couple of senior citizens copulate?” If this is the new faith that we’re all supposed to embrace, the song “Just Give Me That Old-time Religion” just acquired a lot more meaning for me. This train-wreck of a novel is called The DaVinci Code with good reason. Codes abound. Many of them are kind of like the jumble or wordscramble in the Sunday paper. A little rearranging of letters, and, presto, on we go to the next one. I got so caught up in the process that I found myself rearranging words and letters in search of hidden meaning. For example, Sir Leigh Teabing is the crippled English millionaire who is an authority on the Grail legend and all the other hogwash passed off as fact in the book. He is the unfortunate character who has to actually make most of the outrageous and historically inaccurate claims which come at the rate of about three per page. His statements slowly started to get under my skin until, finally, my lower self prevailed, and I went into code-mode. “Hmm,” I thought. “Teabing. If you switched the ‘t’ and the ‘b,’ it would read ‘beating.’ Maybe Sir Leigh Teabing is in for a beating!” Did he get it? Well… ? Other commentators have made much of the fact that they view the novel’s “hero,” Robert Langdon, as the author’s projection of himself and note that Dan Brown’s literary agent, Kaufman, makes a cameo as Langdon’s literary agent, Faukman. The two characters, at one point in the novel, have the following exchange. “‘Robert,’ Faukman finally said, ‘don’t get me wrong. I love your work, and we’ve had a great run together. But if I agree to publish an idea like this, I’ll have people picketing outside my office for months. Besides, it will kill your reputation. You’re a Harvard historian, for God’s sake, not a pop schlockmeister looking for a quick buck.’” Hmmm. If you rearrange the words in that last sentence, you get what very well might have been the actual conversation between agent and author. “You’re a pop schlockmeister looking for a quick buck, for God’s sake, not a Harvard historian.” So much for codebreaking. While that stuff is harmless fun, the danger in this book lies in the errors that abound concerning the Catholic Church and its teaching. For example, the Church is attacked in the book for being anti-sex and anti-woman, while the ancient rites glorified sex and celebrated the “sacred feminine.” First of all, the Church is not anti-sex; Catholic families that follow Church teaching on such matters normally include numerous children; and, though this may be news to some, those children weren’t brought by the stork. No, the Church doesn’t discourage sex, only its misuse. In fact, throughout history, she has condemned as heresy the view that everything of the material world, including sex, is evil. That type of dualism (spirit good, flesh bad) has arisen under many names in the last 2000 years and it has always been condemned. In its rightful sphere, marriage, She is the greatest defender of the beauty and dignity of the physical act. Ironically, the author seems to favor the ancient rites which involved ritualistic sex acts designed to celebrate a woman’s reproductive power. Have I missed something, or is there an institution that is more reviled in the world today for celebrating a woman’s reproductive power than the Catholic Church? Why the double standard? For that matter, the Church frequently takes it on the chin from Protestants for “worshipping Mary.” We don’t, but we do venerate her, seek her intercession, consecrate ourselves to her, honor her, and love her. No, Mr. Brown, we Catholics don’t need to read any new-age lectures about the sacred feminine. I’m running out of space, but I can’t let this observation pass. There is a familiar if somewhat tawdry air to some of the claims made in the book celebrating the “spiritual” aspect of intercourse. At one point Prof. Langdon is talking to his students, and he offers this advice to the young men. “‘The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical, spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine.’ The women smiled knowingly, nodding.” Now I’m no prude, and I think sex is beautiful, not to mention fun, but this sounds like something some scumbag would say to your sister trying to get her do to something she shouldn’t, or, better yet, a desperate line used as the lights flicker signaling last-call at the pick-up bar. “It’ll be a religious experience.” Yeah, sure it will, pal. And those young women smiling knowingly and nodding will know they were used once the religious ceremony has concluded, and the spiritual guy hasn’t called for a week. And, finally, for most of the book the major villains are members of Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Pope, this Pope, John Paul II. He seems to me to be a holy man and probably a pretty good judge of character. I don’t think he would give such a clear personal endorsement of any organization as sinister as Opus Dei comes off as in the book. But they are big boys and girls. They can defend themselves. Honest and sincere inquirers can find out about them at www.opusdei.org. What I take issue with is the fact that a longstanding practice in the Church, corporal mortification, is made to seem the practice of a lunatic. To emphasize the grotesqueness of the practices, Brown depicts a giant homicidal albino “monk” (There aren’t any monks in Opus Dei, and by the way, where is the Albino Defense League on this one?) doing the scourging of his own flesh, and it does seem demented so described, but the author has stacked the deck. Granted, such practices are out of vogue, and far be it from me to advocate them (rigorous penance for me involves sitting on the couch instead of lying down), but many of the great saints practiced corporal mortification. The Church teaches the primacy of interior mortification and only allows external penances to be undertaken under strict spiritual guidance, but She and all Catholics view suffering in a unique way. For most people, suffering and the problem of pain are the great stumbling blocks to faith. But the Church teaches us that our own suffering can be redemptive. Through suffering we can participate in the passion of our Lord, atone for our sins, and make reparation for the sins of others. Through physical penance we can discipline our body so that we are not ruled by our passions, whether they be of a physical or spiritual nature. If, today, the Church demands very little of us in the way of fasting on Fridays or during Lent, if She is an indulgent Mother, can we not, as men, see something attractive in willingly taking on suffering for the sake of a higher good? While the unfortunate albino comes off as a wacko, I would argue that in two scenes from past movies, corporal mortification might be viewed in a different light. In fact, understood properly as a Catholic, they seem like manly things to do. The movie Becket ends with King Henry II, played by Peter O’Toole, submitting to a lashing at the tomb of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, whose death he had, unintentionally perhaps, commissioned. This is a stirring and dramatic moment in the film; it does not seem like the action of a madman. It looks like he is atoning for his sin. The other film is Blackrobe, the story of the Jesuit missionaries to the Native Americans of the northeast and Quebec. After witnessing a Frenchman having sex with a young native woman in the bushes, the main character, a young man himself and a priest, is shown whipping himself with a stick. This makes less sense to the modern mindset. What purpose could it possibly serve? Perhaps he was aroused and tempted. Corporal mortification has long been recognized as one remedy for lust. Maybe he was doing it to offer penance for the sin of fornication being committed by his friend. Who knows? It does seem strange because we are so far removed from such actions, but are not the two reasons posited above noble in their way. Would we respect the young priest more were he to be shown masturbating in the bushes, which is what our modern “sexperts” would probably tell him to do. I doubt it, or at least I like to think not. So, the Catholic approach to pain is at odds with that of the world. The world today tells us that suffering is the worst thing and is to be avoided at all costs. The Church knows that suffering is not the worst thing. Sin is. With that in mind, I know that the suffering I endured while reading The DaVinci Code was not without meaning. Still, I can’t help but wish that I was able to do as the writer H.L. Mencken did when reviewing a book that began with a wretched first line. In what I think is perhaps the greatest book review ever penned, Mencken simply quoted the first line, which was atrocious, and then wrote “Thus the story begins. God knows how it ends.” Would that I had remained innocent of the content of Dan Brown’s latest. Written by John Moorehouse, editor. |
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