Friday, April 28, 2006
The Da Vinci Code is to great literature what Indiana Jones is to great cinema. The book is a relentless plot machine – with only one real pause right up until the final 15 pages – utterly unconcerned with any details that fall outside of its pursuit of the next clue.
In case you have not noticed, we are about to be deluged with hype – the ads have already started – for Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s blockbuster. With a cast that includes Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautoo, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina & Jean Reno, a script by Akiva Goldsman (Cinderella Man, I, Robot, A Beautiful Mind), & locations that include the Louvre & Westminster Abbey, Sony Pictures is really hoping that it has its ducks all in a row, ready for a monster hit to trigger the summer film season a little early this year, coming to every damn screen at your local multiplex on May 19th.
So I thought I ought to take the vaccine as early as I could & read the book, not the sort of fare I would normally pick up.
The Da Vinci Code is to great literature what Chinese take-out is to great cuisine. Easy but involving & it’ll leave you hungry again in a few hours. And beware the MSG.
I enjoyed the book, though frankly much of it is so clunky that it’s likeable just for how cobbled together the whole project is. To begin with, protagonist Robert Langdon is a Harvard symbologist. The best I can make out about this imaginary discipline is that it must be one part art history, one part religion, one part debased semiotics – somebody forgot to tell them that semiotics is debased linguistics as it is.
Then, save for Sophie and her grandfather (and, in a eensy bit of back story, the albino monk Silas) none of the characters has any family. It’s not that they’re single, it’s that they’re utterly devoid of context outside of the narrative machine. This is particularly odd in that much of the story’s meaning comes from Sophie’s quest to find the truth out about her family, but the whole idea is something that has been so devalued by the rest of the novel that it feels like an afterthought when it finally shows up in Scotland, a bit of wrap-up needed at the end to get the whole shebang under a shiny bow.
What’s true of the characters’ families is true of their personalities – only the eccentric millionaire historian/knight, Leigh Teabing, has any hint of one (and it’s so sketchy here that you know Ian McKellan has free reign to chew on all the scenic curtains in this role). You don’t need a personality if you have a puzzle to solve. As an author, Brown is an architect rather than a writer, so consumed with getting his clues all lined-up that he can commit a howler like the comment about the left-brain in the following:
Not even the feminine association with the left-hand side could escape the Church's defamation. In
In fact, it is the right brain that is alleged to be creative, associative, improvisational; the left is said to be analytical & logical, the antithesis of irrational. But it doesn’t fit Brown’s thesis, so he simply reverses the facts.
This book is an easy target for any game of Gotcha, precisely because it has to weave so many details together in what it’s author hopes will be a credible net of connections. The material here on the Fibonacci series, in particular, made me cringe. So did this passage on iambic pentameter:
Before Langdon could even ponder what ancient password the verse was trying to reveal, he felt something far more fundamental resonate within him—the meter of the poem. Iambic pentameter.
Langdon had come across this meter often over the years while researching secret societies across
Iambs. Two syllables with opposite emphasis. Stressed and unstressed. Yin yang. A balanced pair. Arranged in strings of five. Pentameter. Five for the pentacle of Venus and the sacred feminine.
"It's pentameter!" Teabing blurted, turning to Langdon. "And the verse is in English! La lingua pura!"
This is a level of subtlety that one associates maybe with My Name is Earl. But if it did show on American TV, you could almost count on it being lampooned within the week on Talk Soup. This actually is a critical juncture in the plot.
Nothing quite reveals Brown as a clumsy carpenter so much as the way he likes to contextualize the opening of a chapter, giving way too much detail before turning to the character at hand, as in :
The Hawker 731's twin Garrett TFE-731 engines thundered, powering the plane skyward with gut-wrenching force. Outside the window, Le Bourget Airfield dropped away with startling speed.
I'm fleeing the country, Sophie thought, her body forced back into the leather seat.
There is no way for Sophie, for example, to know what model aircraft she is in, nor the name of the field. No matter – it’s a way of showing us that Dan Brown, guy novelist, knows his machines. Or, another example:
The Depository Bank of
Or:
The Sprawling 185-acre estate of Château Villette was located twenty-five minutes northwest of
Langdon brought the armored truck to a shuddering stop at the foot of the mile-long driveway.
Or:
The Range Rover was Java Black Pearl, four-wheel drive, standard transmission, with high-strength polypropylene lamps, rear light cluster fittings, and the steering wheel on the right.
Langdon was pleased he was not driving.
This kind of awkward, creative-writing class prose is almost a twitch for Brown. Sometimes the details are plot driven, as when two police officers note that a minor character once skipped out on a hospital bill after having been treated for anaphylactic shock. It sets you up from that point forward to be on the watch for peanuts. And, wouldn’t you know, he doesn’t have his Epipen when he needs it forty chapters later. But in virtually every passage cited above, Brown is just setting the scene in the most wooden way imaginable. We do not need to know about
What gets readers beyond this sort of overly built Rube Goldberg-esque kind of language is the degree to which Brown can build plot upon plot. Virtually everyone in this novel, save for our symbologist protagonist and his cryptologist companion, has an agenda that is not quite what it seems. Even the minor characters – the French cops, for example – have separate plot lines & motives, both in terms of what they tell other characters and how they then do (or don’t) follow through. Between the Swiss banker, the cops, the monk, the Cardinal, the knighted historian & his butler & a malevolent Teacher, always capitalized & never revealed until the final scenes, the plotline of the two protagonists (who relate quite differently to their quest) is situated into at least eight other active narratives, all of which are doled out piecemeal, as tho every tale was a mystery here. Then there is the less active but more powerful quest set up by Sophie’s dead grandfather.
For all the excess detail at the start of chapters, Brown’s favorite word in this novel is actually rather vague: something. As in “You and your brethren possess something that is not yours." Brown’s formal problem, chapter after chapter, is how to advance the narrative without giving away key details – in this sense, the book resembles nothing so much as the old Flash Gordon serials from the movies of the 1930s & ‘40s, with their brief episodes lurching from cliff hanger to cliff hanger. And, indeed, the Indiana Jones movies are a kind of homage to those same movies.
Intellectually, The Da Vinci Code makes the Harry Potter series look like Sartre, real novels of ideas. This poses as intellectual fair in that Robert is a symbologist & Leigh a historian & both are constantly having to explain the history of this or that clue to the wide-eyed cryptologist Sophie. But Robert is a symbologist about as seriously as Harrison Ford’s Jones is an anthropology professor. The result is a great romp through the scenery of ideas, but virtually absent ideas as such. As an author, Dan Brown is closer in spirit to Mike Hammer than to Umberto Eco. Indeed, closer to Mike Hammer than to Stephen King or Elmore Leonard or Walter Mosley. If Robert Parker had an interest in history & weren’t so damn lazy with his plots, The Da Vinci Code could have been a Spencer novel. But Parker’s characters have a lot more depth.
Labels: Film
Still, it's better than The Rule of Four, which actually had a character unzipping his pea coat.
The appropriation of Xtian mythology at the forefront of popular consciousness--in the form of an over-plotted "thriller" (which has set new publishing records as the hardcover goes into its 90th+ giant printing!)--says something about the preoccupations of our culture at this point in history.
Rather than the mystique of science and the implication of advanced research, we're focused on magic formulas and ancient codes of behavior and meaning.
This is a dangerous trend. Theology over reason. Artificial design over empiricism. Entertainment instead of imagination. Marketing over curiosity. Laws instead of hope.
Anyway, my latest blog post is about an exhibit of experimental video installation art, using a sort of video cut-up program that the artist designed: thickspace:06
A lot of eople don't go to churches any longer and so this kind of thing seems sublime to them. As Twinkies do to people who have never tasted pastry made by a pastry chef.
Even a saints like Zuk & Stein & Creeley couldn't scratch this surface.
See what happens when you dis my lady Elaine Pagels!
i am off to Paris
and have planned to read the
"code" on the flight over
at least part of the success
of the novel has been
an intensification of "doubt"
concerning the moral authority
of Roman Catholicism
anything that can give a
cultural middle digit
to Rome is sweet fodder
for ahmehrikuh
but i will read it
though i reacted with a stern "no"
(for the very reasons described by ron here)
to anyone who has asked me
over the past few years
murder sex High Church art
maybe i'll wait for the movie
or should i go back to the
the -red and the black-
stendahl
going with a catholic pilgrimage group
to a place called
Taize
known to us through
their music
i'd like to weigh in
with a few of the
presuppositions posted here
but i will digress
to the energy of
my pending travels
keep on streamin in the blog world
j
Anyway, I posted a couple of quotes from this on my facebook wall for my friends to enjoy.
The thing I HATE to do is agree with you though Spicergirl Superhero. Your points about what is missed on the book make sense. But you left out homophobia. Before the christians, homosexuality was either accepted, or at least tolerated.
And I also have to agree with you OH MASKED HERO that misogyny was NOT created by christians. You don't have to look too far before the christian rule to see this. But you may have to look very far back in British pagan history to see where it shifted from women having more of a say over the spiritual well being of a clan. Stonehenge that everyone's so fucking fond of was erected by Druids, who took the power of the priestesses long before Jesus's bastard soldiers stepped foot on the island. In fact, even when the Romans came to town they would reconsecrate a holy well, NOT destroy it as was the case later with chrisitans. Drive the snakes out means kill passions, means destroy those who believe in their bodies and senses, who believe in the planet, in the plants and the animals, and how the web is delicate which holds all of us in place together.
This book is hopeful in that it might take away that ridiculous power of Jesus, just a little. Make Jesus someone, rather than some-Divine-thing. If what we have TODAY is the result of 2,000 years of His gifts, then for fuck sake, PLEASE don't give us another 2,000 years of it!
Although I haven't read Dan Brown's book (I hate novels and do not intend to read it), from what I hear of the basic message, it's a good thing. ANYTHING AT ALL that can break through the hard crust of this christian dominated world can't be all bad.
CAConrad
DEVIANT PROPULSION
Creeley was a Baptist from the ground up, or so he once told me.
He is presently on an angel locomotive headed toward heaven, a more advanced version of the Polar Express. He's got wings, according to a recent dream-letter he sent.
As for homosexuality, their peak of acceptance came with Nero and Caligula, and only recently resurfaced with Ginsberg and Burroughs and Nambla. Will we return to that as a whole culture? Where Tiberius forced his minnows to blow him?
I'm sure we're on the way. As soon as we turn back to "nature," as the sublime teacher, and if it feels good, do it, then Nero and Caligula and acceptance of the body are going to be deciding faction.
And this whole matriarchy/patriarchy issue is a lot murkier than the popular press makes it. There have been some interesting finds in Malta and Crete lately that show how complex it can be (see Archaeology last few issues). And there have been some widely-reported new theories about the gender dynamics of Stonehenge and Woodhenge (all of which by the way likely explain my Druid crack above).
Bagging on Spicergirl’s handle’s a cheap trick. I think it’s called the ad yahoo phallusy.
And Kirby, your phallusy seems to be reductio ad jeezum.
I had a professor in one of my English classes (1980's) who told us to avoid using the word "thing" in our writing, that it was awkward, replacement for a real word/idea, and just plain bad writing. I've tried to keep this in mind, and when I feel I have to use "thing" I think it over a second time, and usually I'm not disappointed in the final result. I've applied this rule on my own to "something," and imagine it would be quite tedious and disappointing to encounter it so often in a book I was reading.
Seriously, I remember him instructing me to hand the book over, all the while flinching at the very idea of what that kind of bad writing might do to a young person who had recently embarked on a career in literature.
But you know, I can get behind Stephen King. Okay, so I admit, I went to UMaine and thus must support the man who almost singlehandedly funded my department. Here, though, I think that anyone that committed to young readers and writers can't be all bad... but I digress. I meant to thank you, Ron, for helping me to never have to read the DaVinci Code but to still be able to talk shit about it at cocktail parties.
-----------
Something about something
When Rilke wrote his thing poems
he used the word advisedly
there's something in the way she moves
now muzaks high society
is something wrong with this picture?
could be a thing to ponder --
when drunk on objectless awareness
something brings sobriety
Where something wicked this way comes
is something less than sure?
there's something about Mary
or there's something in the fleur
when don't just sit there / do something!
meets teeter-totter time
the Something Generation band
will make its Something Tour
d.i.
JPCraig. First, as far as Spicergirl Superhero, you don't realize the history. First of all, she, or he, is an anonymous crank caller to this blog. In other words, a coward. This Superhero has claimed to be saving the working classes at one point, teaching the working classes like myself the way to Truth. Or some such bullshit Messiah complex.
Anyway, as far as Stonehenge, as a matter of fact I've spent time in Cornwall where some folks who take very seriously their Witchcraft Museum, as well as their studies behind the WHY of such monoliths as the Henge in the first place. The Druids were instrumental at destroying the ways from the Greenman myth, and demoting women from carrying on the more important roles of spiritual practice. My point being really that christians were late in misogyny, but of course murdered millions of women later, as we all know. And, as it turns out, mostly for the sake of profiting off accumulated properties for mostly single women.
Don't you worry about Spicergirl Superhero, she/he has a razor tongue that needs no help from you.
And I say it again, poor Jack Spicer, cover his ears!
CAConrad
DEVIANT PROPULSION
Woo, Twinkies. That stuff carries some heavy connotations around here. Remember Harvey Milk and the Mayor of San Francisco? The "Twinkie Defense" got Dan White off, but he later committed suicide anyway.
I remember when I got hooked on rose-cream filled puff pastries as a kid. I used to chase the "bread truck" on my bike to buy them. Heavenly.
These days I like crumbly, whole wheat stuff. I was raised on white bread--'Fifties generation--but I don't think I ever really liked it. That's something the Industrial Revolution gave us: Bad food!
One of the attractions of all these thousands of mystery novels is the low level of schlock. They're like junk food, fun to eat once in a while, but not as a steady diet. Mystery freaks are like overweight junkies--can't get enough. Bring on those fries!
Go on a diet and read thin books of prickly poetry.
Actually, those are perfect examples of the kind of prose that's held up for ridicule in CW classes. They provide great examples of how NOT to write creatively.
Lumbering toward the candy machine with change in hand.
Imagine how happy the cavemen and women would be to have food so easily available!
If Robert is a symbologist in this Da Vinci Code, what would he make of Twinkies?
Perhaps it varies by region.
It's still exciting that a good painting is at the center of thirty million minds. I like it, but it's crumbling due to the poor paint mixture he used I once read. What did he use?
Something that supposedly dried quickly, I think it was egg tempura. Not lasting.
And today I was in Barnes & Nobles and a whole table of thirty books ABOUT the darned book.
And the whole mess as tasteless and as addictive as Twinkies.
Not that I've read the book (and I won't, ever), but as for Ron's GENERAL critique of rube goldberg details:
(a) it doesn't matter if the character knows what kind of plane she's in b/c 3rd person realism isn't inside the character's head;
(b) I don't find it excessive, but cool, and it's a standard device of thrillers as well as some interesting, non-cliched writing: most recently by the likes of Craig Clevenger and Craig Davidson. . .but more 'literarily': David Foster Wallace and William Gibson off the top of my head.
(c) I've been in quite a few writing workshops, and I would say details like that (and the associated genre-ism) are the exception rather than the rule. More often, these days, teachers push their students in the direction of formalism and abstract lyricism, and students more or less comply with experiments ranging from the brilliant to moronic.
i ain't even on the plane yet
and
i think it's a pretty good story
the grail will find us
why no commentary about the sacred feminine
how does the goddess cult play itself out in american culture?
did the church suppress those girls
of old
well i'd like to do some reconciliation
y'all come on over to my dungeon next spring equinox
i know a few priests and nuns who
would love to join in
a liturgical note of interest:
during the easter vigil
there is a moment
if the rite is carried out appropriately
which admittedly it is not always
whereby the celebrant
plunges a very tall
and thick lit candle
three times into the baptismal font
water
thereby sanctifiying
the waters for baptism
and the holy fecundity
which we long so much
to know and play out
ancient liturgical theologians referred to the moment as
nymphogogy
and made ample correspondence
to the surge of life in nature
during the spring
and there is a theme
in theology if one would care to
read along those lines far enough
which bears the title
divine eros
and it links the love of god
a la the song of songs
to the desire of the human heart
brown's story cleverly feeds off the contemporary gender conflict
very much at work in modern
christianity...the tragedy there is that most of the women have forsaken real femininity for some newly articulated halfassed idea about gender justice...and they end up looking a lot like...well.. for lack of a better term...men
the theological underpinnings of
feminism
it is full of arrogant pretense
and half-witted suppositions
but earnest in the desire
to grab hold
of romulus' penis
it does also the book that is and perhaps it must
for the sake of being a blockbuster
ignore a very basic common sensical
middle of the road way of thinking
which has been at the heart of the best of christian thought:
god made people good
people tend to screw things up
god does not seperate his love from those people
i'd like to think it possible
that sexual orgasm had with it
the power to link us to god
only perhaps by understanding the
gift of human love as a gift of god
and our ability to enter into such
as something requiring great humility can we know the abiding wisdom given only to us
the flesh is problematic not because of suspicion from christianity or the roman church
but because we tend to want to
manage the most sublime pleasure
to our own purposes
i know st augustine of hippo understood human eroticism and came
to know that there is something in us that desires beyond even that
and
i think leonardo da vinci was
a woman by god
could it be
i'll see the movie
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