Reading the DaVinci Code . . .
3/4 the way thru.
Read's like the "Left Behind" equivalent for the pagan set.
(I'm not a fan of the Left Behind Series)
(I am using pagan in it's literal, not derogitory sense)
posted by Jeff Cannell @ 3:23 PM
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Read's like the "Left Behind" equivalent for the pagan set.
(I'm not a fan of the Left Behind Series)
(I am using pagan in it's literal, not derogitory sense)
14 Comments:
Well, well, I read this one on Saturday. I call it "trash prose"--as I probably would call a lot of other thrillers I never read. Such sloppy writing. Such utter lack of character development (and a psychological backstory doesn't count).
I've got my own analysis of what it does to itself, structurally, as it ends, which I think relates to its effectiveness in convincing readers of the anti-Christian message it is pushing. But I'll save that until you finish.
Dan- I will have finished it by tommorrow. Reads kinda like a hardy-Boys Book. Complete Shit. I look forward to getting back to Bradbury.
I have also annotated it. I look forward to reading what Philip Jenkins has to say about it.
Heh. Hardy Boys is what I was thinking too! I haven't read one of those in 18 years.
I read it last year in book club. It is one of those books that is easy to keep reading. But it is HARDLY literature. You contrast it with the Bible and the writing contained there in and it looks like... gosh I can't even think of an appropriate comparison. But this is also looking at the book as someone who has relationship with God and knows the Word. I was in a group largely consisting of people that don't know God. A large number of non-devout or orthadox Catholics. It amazed me how quickly they were able to see the scenario as plausible. I do believe there is a certain "power" in that book. A same power that is all over the world trying to confuse and decieve. I'm not super happy to see the movie coming out after seeing the effect it had on my group. But prayer is powerful and effective. I think it is important that a lot of those who know the truth be familiar with the book and the complete heresy with in it. As the Bible cause us to be prepared with answers for our faith I think it would be good to be familiar with the questions the book has and now the movie will bring up.
by the way ray bradbury is one of my favorite authors. So imaginative. I have not read him for years though.
So which Ray Bradbury are you reading, Jeff? I'm currently reading "Stories," a sort of Greatest Hits collection of 100 of his best short stories, picked by Bradbury himself.
I haven't read Ray Bradbury for many years. I read everything I could get my hands on when I was in high school, and devoured a dozen or more of his novels and short story collections. So I'm coming back to him after more than a 30-year gap. It's odd to read the stories set in, say, 1999, which was still four decades away when he wrote the stories. Reality turned out to be a little different than he imagined.
Still, in reading him again I'm discovering some old favorites and finding new pleasure in his writing.
He's more schmaltzy and sentimental than I remembered, particularly in his idealized stories of his boyhood in Illinois. But that's okay. It's a nice change from the usual cynicism. And his science fiction stories are still wonderful, not so much because he was particularly prescient about the future, but because he understands the nature of the human heart, and that hasn't changed. I particularly love the stories that originally appeared in "The Martian Chronicles." They're quite poetic, and beautifully written. And very sad. Leave it to humans to turn pristine natural beauty into a commercialized industrial wasteland.
Elizabeth, you bring up a good point. To what extent should we, as Christians, feel responsible to digest and be knowledgeable about influential pop culture?
Personally, I have zero interest in reading The Da Vinci Code, but should I be reading it, because of its influence and impact? Do I have to listen to The Marshall Mathers LP, too? I'm not being facetious.
Yesterday evening, Rich Nathan at Vineyard good-naturedly (but pointedly) castigated those in the audience who don't know who basketball star Michael Redd is (and those who don't follow sports) because "sports is a part of culture." I'll admit I'd never heard of Michael Redd before, and couldn't care less about basketball (except to acknowledge and appreciate the skill and talent it takes to play it well). By the same token, as a cartoonist, I wish everyone on the street knew (and appreciated) who Jack Kirby was, but I don't expect them to - and surely Jack Kirby is just as much a part of culture as much as Michael Redd.
Popular culture is now (as opposed to forty years ago) so broad based and disparate that it's literally impossible for any one individual to "keep up" and be knowledgeable about every subject.
Still, like Rich, I'm sometimes appalled at ignorance, such as when I overheard a super-right-wing, Rush Limbaugh-listening Christian in my workplace talking about how a new movie called "The Lord of the Rings" was going to be coming out, and wondering if it was demonic (the irony, of course,
being that The Lord of the Rings was created by Tolkien, a Christian).
My original question stands: should we (just to pick an example) be reading The Da Vinci Code? Or is it enough to just know what it's about, the lies that it's spreading, and its impact?
Michael Neno!
The Pop Culture Czar reads my blog!
Holy Crap
Gus- check out his work at www.nenoworld.com
Awhile back I gave up on keeping up with the times, and pretty much specialized in what I enjoyed.
I have NEVER watched an athletic event in it's entirety, have never attended a footbal game-- and probably never will. (perhaps I am the poster child for american culture irrelevance.)
Between rock n' roll, sci-fi, comic books, and vespa scooters, and coffee , I don't feel like I'm lacking a common cultural mileu in which to connect with people. I have a hard time recommending any particular form of pop culture for a Christian to stay "relevant" to the culture.
But I do oppose any attemt to create a Christian Sub culture. That has more to do with platonic dualism than Biblical Christianity.
But regarding The DaVinci Code- what a pedantic piece of neopagan propagand garbage. It reads like Franklin W. Dixon hooked up with Caroline Keene, had a bad acid trip, while reading Jack Chick Comic books. a terrifying combination to be certain.
I look forward to reading neil Gaiman's "American God's" next. I really enjoyed pulling a sermon illustration out of Neverwhere two weeks ago.
Cheers.
Michael- this is the quote in my comment you are referring to...
"I think it is important that a lot of those who know the truth be familiar with the book and the complete heresy with in it. As the Bible cause us to be prepared with answers for our faith I think it would be good to be familiar with the questions the book has and now the movie will bring up."
The answer to your question is No. I don't believe EVERYONE has to read it :) I used the word "a lot". However if you are in book clubs like the one I was in that is largely mom's reading these sorts of things and getting sucked in... being that is your exposure- yes, it's a good idea. If you hang with a crowd that loves the "big release" movies or the typical press movies then, sure great idea to read the book and be familiar with the rediculous lies. If the crowd you run with could care less, by all means... don't even worry about it, it isn't well written and not worth the time.
I think most of us aren't God- Okay all of us, so we can't know everything. But God does place us in places according to the way he made us. I think it is important that every follower should have accquaintences that don't so they don't purely live in a "christian subculture" with no exposure to the outside world. My friends that didn't know Jesus at the time happened to be people that would be super vulnerable to a book like the divinci code. So keeping that all in prospective. It was and is important for me to keep up on those types of things, where as other things that would maybe be important for your world may not even come up in mine.
By the way, interesting comment on your friend you work with.
"such as when I overheard a super-right-wing, Rush Limbaugh-listening Christian in my workplace talking about how a new movie called "The Lord of the Rings" was going to be coming out,and wondering if it was demonic (the irony, of course,
being that The Lord of the Rings was created by Tolkien, a Christian)."
So am I to assume that you equivilate "super right wing Rush Limbaugh listening Christian" to a person ignorant to the fact that Tolkien, a Christian, wrote Lord of the Rings (which is completely chalked full of Christian symbolism).
Interesting. I would consider myself not completely ignorant. however, I would also consider myself Right wing... and on occasion I listen to Rush Limbaugh and enjoy it.
The DaVinci Code is a fictional rehash of the shoddy history in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent (pub. 1982,) which was itself mostly a work of fiction.
Another forgotten book gathering dust. Works of no real substance don't last.
Jeff and Elizabeth,
You both have good advice: concentrate on what you’re interested in, because it’s impossible to keep up with everything, but, at the same time, it’s good to be knowledgeable about harmful, influential culture (and the good stuff, too) likely to be popular with the people in your “world”
>I have NEVER watched an athletic event in it's entirety
I do watch the Buckeyes football games (when the team is disciplined and has a good coach). The truth is, in an infinite world, there are a lot of pursuits and subjects (like sports) which I might be more interested in if I had the time. But, this ain’t that world, and I have enough hedonistic tendencies already!
> But I do oppose any attemt to create a Christian Sub culture. That has more to do with platonic dualism than Biblical Christianity.
Agreed! Art by Christians should be popular culture (if it’s good art), and not exist in a sub culture.
>I look forward to reading neil Gaiman's "American God's"
Let me know if it’s good; someone else recommended it to me, too.
BTW, Jeff, I burned a CD for you with hundreds of pulp magazine covers, but haven’t seen you at the last two conventions. Will you be at the Buckeye Con next month?
>So am I to assume that you equivilate "super right wing Rush Limbaugh listening Christian" to a person ignorant to the fact that Tolkien, a Christian, wrote Lord of the Rings
Yikes! I meant no offense to you or anyone who listens to talk radio. I can only say that I'm familiar with a type of Christian (I work alongside several of them) who is stridently politically active, but who is, at the same time, willfully and proudly ignorant of any popular culture outside the realm of their Christian sub culture - and that the lady I referred to was a perfect example. I apologize if that sounds like a harsh description of my co-workers, but I see every day how their strident vision of life repels the lost away from Christ. At the same time, I feel like I've gone on too long about this because I'm far from perfect myself.
If I had to pick a "wing", I'd say I'm also right-wing, with this caveat: I search out and find truth where ever I can find it, and I don't think any one political party (or race, or gender, or any "ism", other than the word of God) has a stranglehold on truth. As Francis Schaeffer's son Frank Schaeffer said, if an atheist says rain is wet, and a Christian says rain is dry, who are you going to believe?
Best wishes,
Michael N.
Michael--
very well said on the politics :)
michael:
"...I see every day how their strident vision of life repels the lost away from Christ."
Having become a Christian only three years ago, I understand what you are saying.
Okay, Jeff, here’s that structural comment that I promised back in my first comment.
It struck me that the novel’s structure is completely pulled apart in its resolution--that, contrary to the bulk of the book, by the end it turns out that no character is actually evil, that no secret was in danger of being lost, that the brotherhood is doing just fine, that the villain couldn’t have found what he was looking for anyway, that the truth is not really secret but is actually all around us, and that no one really needs to be informed of the truth any more than they are already; and, likewise that, after hundreds of pages of the Catholic Church being evil at every turn, no Catholics today are really bad either. This isn’t a twist: it’s the entire novel falling in on itself like an imploding building, but with an overall effect designed to leave the reader with a warm, fuzzy feeling, as long as he doesn’t notice what’s going on.
So a reader who believes everything in the book will, through the bulk of the book, see all Christian teaching as plagiarized paganism, Jesus as a nice “sacred feminine” guy, Peter and the apostles as jealously trying to push out Mary Magdalene, all of this getting racheted way up with Constantine and after, centuries upon centuries of the Church as evil murderous powerful secretive lying and money-hungry, and all of this extended into a very twisted Opus Dei and secretive power plays by bishops. But the warm fuzzy ending then caps this by saying that Christianity is no more false than any other religion in approximating the pagan truth, that most Christians realize this anyway, that those who are too foolish to realize it are at least well-meaning people who are made better by their religion, and so why say anything to anyone? So the fully-believing reader gets a horrid picture of (especially Catholic) Christianity and is also persuaded to, condescendingly, say nothing to anyone about this.
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