No need for introductions. The current subject is so debated, so loved and hated, so… hackneyed anymore. I’m sure that you detested me since you’d read the title. But still, I really have a burning desire to express my feelings concerning this argumentation. In fact, there is no argumentation when the contention is unequal.
Initially, the most obvious issue will be stated. Which is the huge success of Dan’s Brown Da Vinci Code. Firstly, we use numbers: just 60.5 million copies in print by May 2006 and translations into forty four languages. Not so bad, if we consider not only Brown’s commercial success, but also his huge influence on millions of readers. Many of these people, truly believed that a new horizon of scepticism has opened for them. A new perspective of confronting a specific religious belief. In my opinion, the real disturbing point in his states is not the alteration of the Christian history, but the adamant placements that are being released, just through an interesting adventure with lots of suspense. The point is not the beliefs. The real point is the way of indicating some specific aspects.
Now the background. A handsome, lettered and talented hero is crossed in a complex adventure with big doses of occultism, secrecy, danger and series of coincident facts, which facts always in the end favor him. In this adventure, the second protagonist is a young, smart, beautiful and cultivated woman. They overpass together all the obstacles. Oh, and in the end they result in a love affair. So touching. But I think that I’ve seen this screenplay before. Yes, in Angels and Demons, a book of the same writer with the same hero, and with the same pattern of story. And I found the difference. In his first book (Angels and Demons) the charming woman of the story is Italian. Da Vinci’s Code girl is French. Bingo.
After allocating the framework of the stories, we continue with the informational, or rather cultivating part. In these novels we encounter a lots of references concerning occultism, history, religion and art. But, every single piece of information is cut and formed in a specific way, just to serve the needs of the plot. And all these vast sectors of research are not made for customizations. Occultism, history and religion are so deep and dark subjects that when a writer wishes to use them, he must do it wisely and in a many-sided way. If not, disorientation and inexorability of many people follow. This fact turns to be more inconvenient, when a veil of a story_made_for_a_movie covers this well-cooked pattern.
Then, we make a flashback. Specifically, at 1988, when Umberto’s Eco Foucaut’s Pendulum was published. A story described by a real paroxysm of information, beliefs, theories and many religious and occult meanings. A huge map of facts and valuations. The plot is described by an ironic and also a kinda playful way. Profound, darksome and many-sided. Reading this book we encounter a huge number of references concerning occultism. A difficult reading, which fatigues even the most unwearied reader. Just for the records, every single piece of information that is mentioned in Da Vinci Code, is stated even with passing ways in Foucaults Pendulum. There is an obvious resemblance but also a broad chasm between these works. In the first book, the reader is obliged to confront a specific way of thinking. In the second, he is blasted by so much facts, that an interesting philosophical and thoughtful confusion is certain. Try to guess which books gives you the right of thinking and choosing.
I will close the chapter of my arguments with a short description of my personal reading experience. I’ve read Da Vinci’s Code in just a few hours, and when I finished the last chapter, I had no motives to think, and no speculations. It was a really interesting script, and I was feeling urged to read it quickly. But the outcome was poor. On the contrary, I was able to read Foucault’s Pendulum in 3 months. I needed many minutes, just to consolidate one single page. Not to mention the pleasure of enjoying such a stern and arduous reading. But I had many data to elaborate. And I still think that I lost many of them, because I feel a strong necessity of reading it again.
In order to close this tiring lodgement, I will use the answer of Umberto Eco to the wondering people about his opinion concerning Da Vinci’s Code. Please consider the whole project as only a personal placement, nothing less, nothing more. I have no intention of blackening any book’s fame. I don’t think that I can become a bad influence to a best seller, nor decrease it’s profit. The following lines are taken from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum#cite_note-2).
Asked whether he'd read the Brown novel, Eco replied:
I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel Foucault’s Pendulum, which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.
- But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel.
No. In Foucault’s Pendulum I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.
Wool – Wool (1969)
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