Taking It Way Too Seriously

The recent release of The DaVinci Code movie, based on the book by Dan Brown has the religious nuts tied up in knots one way or another.

The Catholic Church despises, some evangelicals love it, and the critics like Mark Steyn utterly miss the point.

I read the book a couple of years ago, and was somewhat underwhelmed by it. The premise was cute, but hardly particularly original. It dabbled lightly in topics related to Christian Mysticism from the Middle Ages - pulling on the legends around the Knights Templar, Opus Dei and other semi-secretive sects that have woven into the historical fabric of Christianity. Throw in for good measure a bunch of speculation based around the notion that the bible is some kind of cipher to be decoded mathematically, and Brown came up with a basis for a fast moving, but mediocre piece of fiction.

Steyn's critique in Macleans spends most of its time bitching about Dan Brown's literary style, but then gets into slagging him for his "lightweight research". Well, duh! The book is a work of fiction that was obviously intended to be turned into a screenplay at some point in the future. If I wanted something that was seriously researched, I'll go read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, or Foucault's Mindfuck - er Pendulum - both of which play with similar material, and are much, much better works from both literary and research standpoints.

Steyn goes on to criticize how Brown uses "footnotes" for dramatic effect in setting the tone. If you've ever read anything by Terry Pratchett, you'll quickly realize that in fiction, footnotes are great dramatic devices for an author to set the tone of a scene - the micro print at the bottom of the page draws the eye quite quickly, and then the reader has the "footnote in mind" while reading the page. If you take it seriously in a work of fiction, you've utterly missed the point. (Mind you, Steyn misses most points - but that's another topic)

With websites like Jesus Decoded set up to "debunk" the book, one can only sit back a laugh at the utter paranoia that is being reflected over a book that is a work of fiction. If churches can get themselves this worked up over a mere book, perhaps it's time for them to do a little "introspection" and start looking at their own reactions to events.