DA Vinci Code

[mathinspiration]

Dan Brown said it was a work of fiction yet his readers take it a true history saying that church lied about Jesus. What are your views on the book series?

 

[Albion]

I read it and identified at least 60 errors of fact in only about half of the book. It's fiction made plausible to the reader only because Dan Brown bent the known facts rather extensively.

 

[Doug Melven]

There are many works of fiction which use some historical facts and then the author adds there own facts to make it a good story.magination.
For instance some authors will use one of the World wars as a setting, but everything else they say comes from there own i
The Da Vinci code is such a work of fiction.
It can be enjoyed if one remembers that it is a work of fiction.

 

[Albion]

Yes...but Dan Brown is not simply using a certain setting. He is promoting an historical theory by having the main character discover a series of supposed facts.

The author thereby preserves the idea that he was simply writing a work of fiction, while he salted the escapades of the main characters with "facts" that the reader is supposed to think are genuine even if the events and the characters in the book are understood to be fictional.

 

[redleghunter]

Yes...but Dan Brown is not simply using a certain setting. He is promoting an historical theory by having the main character discover a series of supposed facts.

The author thereby preserves the idea that he was simply writing a work of fiction, while he salted the escapades of the main characters with "facts" that the reader is supposed to think are genuine even if the events and the characters in the book are understood to be fictional.

You mean the self flagellating Albino Monk was not real!?

 

[JackRT]

I was listening to a radio interview with Dan Brown just a few days ago re his new book "Origins". He insists, as he always has, that his books are fiction and nothing more. However, his books are meticulously researched and, as far as I am aware, the factual basis of his fictions is quite solid. I am looking forward to his new book.

 

[Albion]

You mean the self flagellating Albino Monk was not real!?

Well, Opus Dei is real, but the idea of Christ having married Mary Magdelene and sired children whose lineage matters for one reason or another, plus the mystery of various chapels and symbols etc etc. is what he wants you to think is vital information that the 'powers that be' in the church and society have contrived to cover up for centuries....well, you know.

 

[Doug Melven]

I was listening to a radio interview with Dan Brown just a few days ago re his new book "Origins". He insists, as he always has, that his books are fiction and nothing more. However, his books are meticulously researched and, as far as I am aware, the factual basis of his fictions is quite solid. I am looking forward to his new book.

Are you saying that Dan Brown actually believes that stuff he wrote in the Da Vinci Code is real?
If so, he has been seriously deceived.

 

[Albion]

I was listening to a radio interview with Dan Brown just a few days ago re his new book "Origins". He insists, as he always has, that his books are fiction and nothing more. However, his books are meticulously researched and, as far as I am aware, the factual basis of his fictions is quite solid. I am looking forward to his new book.

So you see first hand how Dan Brown's system works. He's protected from criticism about specious history by insisting that it's fiction, yet you were persuaded that "there must be something to this" even as you apparently accepted that the book is a work of fiction.

 

[JackRT]

Christ having married Mary Magdelene and sired children

The marriage part I do not consider that far fetched at all.

 

[Albion]

Not even if you consider that you'd have throw out critical parts of the New Testament to make it even possible?

 

[Hank77]

Dan Brown said it was a work of fiction yet his readers take it a true history saying that church lied about Jesus. What are your views on the book series?

I read it and enjoyed it as a fictitious, mystery type book.

Yes...but Dan Brown is not simply using a certain setting. He is promoting an historical theory by having the main character discover a series of supposed facts.

The author thereby preserves the idea that he was simply writing a work of fiction, while he salted the escapades of the main characters with "facts" that the reader is supposed to think are genuine even if the events and the characters in the book are understood to be fictional.

That is what makes it so good. He included some conspiracy theories, some Bible, some myth, etc. It is written for adults, not children.
You seem to think he was trying to deceive someone.

 

[Albion]

You seem to think he was trying to deceive someone.

Oh, I wouldn't put it that way. Yes, he seems to be insulating himself against criticism over his historical revisionism by insisting that it's just fiction...all the while he's promoting the storyline as factual. You can see that it works on many people. Note also that he will say that the story of the main character played in the movie by Tom Hanks is fiction but he doesn't say that about the supposed 'finds' that the guy makes in the course of the story.

But there are all sorts of writers out there who push one new idea or another based upon a new look at old information, and it may be that Dan Brown actually believes his "facts," just like a researcher who has concluded that Hitler escaped to South America. I do assure you, though, that the book is simply full of historical falsehoods. It's not the juicy stuff about a royal bloodline that's completely speculative but the more or less ordinary history involving the Kings of France, for example, that most readers would probably not catch because what he has written there doesn't seem controversial.

 

[JackRT]

So you see first hand how Dan Brown's system works. He's protected from criticism about specious history by insisting that it's fiction, yet you were persuaded that "there must be something to this" even as you apparently accepted that the book is a work of fiction.

Ironically, when his "DaVinci Code" came out I realized that he and I had researched the same information at much the same time. If I had the same sort of creative imagination I could have written that book.

Historical fiction is a favourite literary genre of mine --- military history in particular. A particularly able author can almost make you believe that the novel is history even though you know full well that s/he has inserted a fictional character and narrative into the actual history. That is part of the enjoyment. If I actually believed it was history, that would be my fault not the author's.

 

[Doug Melven]

The marriage part I do not consider that far fetched at all.

I find it quite far fetched.
We Christians are the Bride of Christ.

 

[Radagast]

Yes...but Dan Brown is not simply using a certain setting. He is promoting an historical theory by having the main character discover a series of supposed facts.

The author thereby preserves the idea that he was simply writing a work of fiction, while he salted the escapades of the main characters with "facts" that the reader is supposed to think are genuine even if the events and the characters in the book are understood to be fictional.

Exactly. And these supposed "facts" are almost all false.

In "Angels and Demons" he does the same butchery to the history of science.

 

[inquiring mind]

Dan Brown said it was a work of fiction yet his readers take it a true history saying that church lied about Jesus. What are your views on the book series?

The Da Vinci Code presented a series of well-placed “what if” questions that set imaginations on fire. I really enjoyed it, and even considered possibilities at times, but it didn't alter my faith or anything like that.

 

[Hank77]

all the while he's promoting the storyline as factual.

I haven't heard or read anything where he is promoting the story line as factual.

 

[Radagast]

Dan Brown borrowed heavily from Holy Blood, Holy Grail and at least suggests that the nonsense in that book is factual.

 

[Hank77]

Exactly. And these supposed "facts" are almost all false.

In "Angels and Demons" he does the same butchery to the history of science.

Of coarse they are, it's Fiction.
If one wants facts you don't expect fiction to be facts you read non-fiction.