Cardinal Francis Arinze, deeply offended by the Da Vinci Code’s purportedly blasphemous portrayal of his religion, is calling on Catholics to register their anger by rioting, burning down buildings, threatening beheadings and committing murderstaking legal action against the book and film.
Actually, I think it’s pretty stupid that he’s even calling for legal action. Boycotts, letter-writing campaigns and/or peaceful, non-threatening protests — in other words, counterspeech — would be much better, and much more in line with the concept of free speech, than trying to use the courts in a coercive fashion to suppress free expression and art. But still, it’s good to remember that there are worse things. It’s especially good to consider this before comparing violent radical Islamism with the run-of-the-mill fundamentalism of devout Catholics and Christians in this country (nowadays).
All fine and good to acknowledge that it’s fiction - but unfortunately, many people don’t think that way. The latest statistics from Canada show that 1/3 of Canadians who have read DVC believe that it gives factually/historically accurate portrayals of the Catholic Church and that Mary and Jesus were really married and that Mary Magdalene’s blood line still exists today.
I’m not saying I’d take legal action, but people have to understand that many readers don’t take this book as fiction. In fact, many think that Dan Brown has enlightened the whole world about the true nature of Catholicism and Jesus.
Max, you have an amazing talent for attempting to rebut my posts by raising points that I’ve already made. I said: “Boycotts, letter-writing campaigns and/or peaceful, non-threatening protests â€â€? in other words, counterspeech â€â€? would be much better, and much more in line with the concept of free speech, than trying to use the courts in a coercive fashion to suppress free expression and art.” You said: “It’s still an attempt to supress free speech.” What does that comment add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said?
Some devout Christians in this country are not so peaceful. Abortion clinic bombings, murdering of doctors, and hey, Rev. Pat calling for assassination come to mind. This pales in comparison to the mass riots and violence by Muslims over the Danish flag thing, but still — not all the Jesus types here are perfectly innocent.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Brian, but I don’t think I said that “all the Jesus types here are perfectly innocent.” I think I said that it is wrong to “compar[e] violent radical Islamism with the run-of-the-mill fundamentalism of devout Catholics and Christians in this country (nowadays).”
Note the use of the term “run-of-the-mill.” Obviously, someone who bombs an abortion clinic is a Christian terrorist. The Christian terrorist hardly represents “run-of-the-mill fundamentalism” in a country where 99.999% of Christian fundamentalists are peaceful. Anyway, if you want to call the abortion bomber a “Christianist,” and equate him to an Islamist, go right ahead. I’ll join you. That’s not what I’m attacking. I’m attacking the tendency of some of the Left to equate — as I said — “run-of-the-mill” fundamentalists, those who pursue their agenda through non-violent political means, with the violent radical Islamists who routinely do things like blow up buildings, behead soldiers and journalists, kill civilians (both Muslim and non-Muslim), etc.
Note also the use of the term “nowadays.” Once upon a time — like during the Crusades, or the European religious wars, say — it could well be argued that “run-of-the-mill fundamentalism” among Christians did indeed involve violence. That argument cannot plausibly be made today, at least not with regard to this country and the rest of the Western world. (I don’t know enough about the various conflicts in Africa and elsewhere in the third world to discuss them intelligently, or assess the role of Christians in them, but that isn’t relevant to my point anyway, since I’m not saying that Christians are somehow inherently better than Muslims — I’m just saying that modern-day Islamism is in no way equivalent to modern-day Western Christian fundamentalism… and violent third-world Christians are not who liberals are talking about when they call American “Jesusland” voters “Christianists” and compare them to the Islamists.) On the other hand, radical violent murderous terroristic fundamentalism is very much prevalent in the Muslim world. The tiny, tiny minority of Christians who commit such despicable crimes as abortion bombings — and are promptly condemned by their ideological fellow-travelers and prosecuted for their crimes by the governments of the countries where they live — absolutely “pales in comparison,” as you say, to the vast existential threat that is posed by radical violent Islamism.
ok. I didn’t click on this thread to talk about alleged radicalism, but Briadot, why do you have to beat that dead horse with abortionist assassinations and bombings as an indicia of Christian extremism ? Why don’t you list the amount of people hurt or killed by a Christian from a mainstream Church (i.e. not from some cousin Fred Phelps church) over abortion. People like you just love to paint the slightest gathering of christians with a broad brush of hatred and violence.
Arinze is a well respected guy and it seems like his comments were rather off the cuff. Still, I am at a loss to imagine which legal system he is imagining in which a religious adherent could bring some legal civil action against a publisher for libel, slander, whatever. In this country, notwithstanding speech protection, we have the standing issue. I couldn’t bring a libel suit against a book libeling the pope if I wanted to no matter how offensive the lie.
However, I think we should back off from dismissing Arinze’s veiled comparison to the Muslim riots. I don’t think he was comparing for the purposes of saying ‘hey, we could do a lot worse.’ He is a man of peace and would never speak like that. I think he is saying look at all the sympathy the muslims got over the cartoons, papers refusing to publish, etc., even though they were rioting etc (and even though the toons were’nt very offensive). Here in contrast, the publishers cant run the presses fast enough, and the content is not just offensive but libelous (if you want to make FICTION about a wicked religious order, why don’t you call it ‘the Breathren’ or ‘The Sicillian Order’ etc, instead of picking an orthodox group that you hate to defame). He’s pointing out the double standard. And you all know there is a double standard. A huge one.
Becky, it just shows that people are morons. This is true for christians as well. They don’t read their bible, so they don’t know what’s true and what’s false so their pastor has to save them from their own stupidity so to speak. And I’m a christian. I’m gonna see the movie; the book was awesome.
I got a few meditation books once that were written by Opus Dei founder, Blessed (on the way to sainthood) Jose Escriva.
These things were literally a combination of scripture passages, 19th and 20th century renowned theologians and reflections on how you can live out your Christianity in simple daily observance. The idea that Dan Brown picks this group to exploit, especially given that movie and book aficianados will encounter members as coworkers, fellow congregants, etc., is particularly sickening and ridiculous. Regardless, the Da Vinci Code will fade away and be just another Last Temptation, Stigmata, Dogma, Order, Catholic-I-can’t-do-anything-better-than-whine-about -a-religion-I-am-ALREADY-free-to-disagree-with-or-leave movie of the week. So Opus Dei is taking a good path so far to just avoid bringing attention to it.
Patrick, wow, you read the bible and figured it out for yourself; I’ll print up a certificate for you to hang on your wall, sticker-ribbon and everything. Again, the question remains, why do you care whether other Christians (who you seem to enjoy defaming as ignorant drones) take their instruction from a pastor ? If such arrogance could block the windpipe, we’d all be learning the Heimlich maneuver in Kindergarten.
I have to say, I think Patrick has a point, Becky. The novel is found in the fiction section of the bookstore/library where the reader finds it. It isn’t chock full of citations to scholarly texts. The fact that there are people who don’t grasp that it’s fiction doesn’t mean that it’s up to the sane world to take additional measures to try to get across such an obvious point. That begins to approach the level of the warning on airline peanuts of “Warning: may contain nuts”. Common sense may not be all that common these days, but I wonder how much of that is because we don’t expect people to be able to make basic judgments in their daily lives.
And it’s not like its the pastors telling everyone that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children. The people soaking up the Da Vinci code as truth are the ones who could care less about the Bible beyond how well it fills up a 365 day inspiration calendar with self-serving passages and go to church for some sort of status reason. I’ll agree with you THERE on the drone issue,.
The book being fiction is meaningless, IMHO. If I had the skill of a novelist, I could easily write a fictional book about a guy who, finding clues in post-war architecture and art work, discovers that the holocaust is actually a myth perpetuated by a zionist organization that is hell bent on dominating American policy and controlling the middle east. As background work for my novel, I would read every holocaust denier book, and then include their “scholarly insights” into my novel in such a way as to make the book feel factual.
Jews would be rightfully offended—and I don’t think that my defense: “but it’s fiction!” would go very far.
I think the Catholic Church only adds to the publicity/hype/interest of the book when they take action like this. They play right into the hands of Dan Brown and the producers of the movie.
But I do think it is a GOOD idea to expose the American media’s double standard. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it: expose their cowardice. They feel comfortable slandering people who won’t/can’t do anything, but they’re too afraid to slander those who threaten violence. That sounds like a bully to me—and bullys are almost by definition cowards
Well, 4-7, if people read their bible and then read DVC, then they would know it’s fiction and thus wouldn’t want to have their pastor tell them something they know. There would be some type of signal from a congregation to its pastor that this is not necessary.
Of course, the pastor doesn’t necessarily have to listen to the signal. He could be doing it for other reasons, i.e. to sell his own anti-DVC book, to get on christian tv, or to become a heavyweight in christian circles.
I don’t mind a congregation taking instruction from their pastor, in fact I would encourage it, except when the pastor is WRONG.
I don’t defame ignorant drones. All I do is point them out. Some christians actually believe there is persecution is this country because they hear it from their pastor and on tv from the religious right.
I’m a christian but I cannot stand the religious right.
I read the book, enjoyed it well enough as a work of fiction, but I think that thebeef brings up the only interesting point in this whole debate, and one that Cardinal Arinze alluded to, that a peaceful group gets ignored while the media world wide is caving to the preasure of a millitant one.
Everyone is aware that the book is found in the fiction section of the bookstore. The point is that there is a dangerous combination of making yourself out to be something credible and true + everyone wanting to believe that it’s true.
1) Making it out to be true. DVC has a source bibliography in the back (or front - can’t remember). Dan Brown lists all the books as if he’s using them for historical data. These books have also been selling millions of copies because people think that they’re historical sources. My roommate (a teacher), said that one of her kids listed the DVC as a source in a research paper on the history of Christianity.
2) The problem of wanting to believe it. The DVC has been so successfully played off as the truth because everyone wants to believe that the Catholic Church is this big, corrupt enterprise that has hidden the truth from the whole world for centuries. They want to believe that Opus Dei is evil. They want to believe that the Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene. In the end, they all desperately want to believe that the Catholic Church is a farce. So yeah - DVC is timely. It seems to confirm exactly what the media and popular culture want to hear, so it quickly becomes credible in modern eyes.
Meriting legal action? No. But legitimately worrisome to Catholics? Yes.
I actually think the Last Temptation of Christ is probably the best movie about the death of Jesus next to The Passion of the Christ. It explores the various ramifications and aspects of Jesus’s decision not to come down from the Cross and, in the end, He dies for humanity anyway. I actually thought it was very faith affirming. Unfortunately there are some people who are terrified to have their faith challenged in any way for fear that it might not stand up to the scrutiny.
I guess that depends on your definition of “Catholic.” If Catholics include those people that were born of parents who were Catholic but generally don’t believe much of what the Church teaches, then I guess Opus Dei doesn’t represent them very well. But besides the specific charism of Opus Dei, which is a focus on a certain way of living out the virtuous life and becoming holy, their “views” are basically the Catholic Church’s views.
I don’t belong to Opus Dei, because their charism isn’t what really feeds my relationship with Christ, but their “views” are representative of the Catholic Church worldwide, if not some of its dissident “members.”
I still disagree with you that he’s making himself out to be true. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail made themselves out to be true, which is what really destroyed their attempts at claiming copyright infringement against Dan Brown. He cited that the ideas underlying the events in his novel have been proposed by other, but that’s a far cry from making them out to be claims of truth. I don’t see this book as the cause of problems–I do see it as a symptom of a problem if people can’t recognize that it’s fiction, but that’s a larger problem than anything in this book.
Mike, c’mon. Obviously the guy isn’t overtly claiming that his book is an honest portrayal or an attempt to seriously discuss the origins of the Christian religion—but he purposefully writes in a style that DOES suggest he’s asserting historical fact. Indeed, he expressly claims that his book is a COMBINATION of true-events/facts and fiction.
If people are taking this book for truth, Dan Brown IS partly to blame. If an author writes a similar book, about a consipiracy to fabricate the holocaust, and people start believing that the holocuast never happened—the author of that book IS partly to blame….regardless of his disclaimers.
“If an author writes a similar book, about a consipiracy to fabricate the holocaust, and people start believing that the holocuast never happenedâ€â€?the author of that book IS partly to blame….regardless of his disclaimers.”
And here we have a fundamental disagreement. My view is that if your work is obviously a work of fiction–and being sold in the fiction section of the bookstore makes it meet the obviously fiction category for me, at least, then you are NOT responsible for people mistaking your work for reality. It’s the same way that the people who write astrological profiles are not responsible for crazy people people believing that the alingment of the planets controls their destiny. Or, for another example, if you read The Princess Bride and believe that there really is an unabridged version involve long passages about hats, it’s not the author’s fault that you couldn’t recognize it as a joke.
Beyond that, I had no impression on reading the Davinci Code that it was being portrayed as accurate. I admit to thinking certain parts of it were true–it seemed unlikely that he’d make up a church with an unsolved code carved into the ceiling–but I wouldn’t actually assert that such a church existed if I couldn’t find a reference to it outside of a fictional story. The characters certainly assert that things are true, but that’s really no different that Mulder on the X-Files going on and on about governmental coverups. I don’t feel that it’s Chris Carter’s fault that people are paranoid about military suppression of UFOs, and so I don’t see blame attaching to Dan Brown for people believing in the continuation of Jesus’ bloodline. It’s not like he’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place, nor like he’s arguing it in nonfiction.
“My view is that if your work is obviously a work of fiction–and being sold in the fiction section of the bookstore makes it meet the obviously fiction category for me, at least, then you are NOT responsible for people mistaking your work for reality.”
Seems to me the issue here is that Brown took steps to suggest that his work of fiction, sold in the fiction section, was nevertheless based on fact. Somebody above mentioned the “bibliography” page of the book, but neglected to point the most salient feature of the page: in big black letters at the very top, it says “FACT:” and hten proceeds to list a number of things that, according to Brown (and if you take this page at face value, which is certainly not a ridiculous thing to do), are factually accurate. On this page he mentions, among other things, that all descriptions of secret rituals and societies contained in the book are real, i.e. true.
And then you read the book and come across descriptions of a secret society devoted to preserving the secret about Jesus and Mary.
Now, that doesn’t justify people in believing that the actual Jesus/Mary thing is true, but it DOES justify people believing in the existence of the Priory of Sion, that da Vinci, Newton, Hugo, etc. were grand masters thereof, etc. (Brown’s “FACT” page also specifically mentions, IIRC, that da Vinci was a member of this society.)
Trouble is, as anyone who’s done a little googling knows, the Priory of Sion aspect of the story was a 20th century hoax cooked up by a couple cunning Frenchmen.
So it’s rather disingenuous for Brown to claim on page one that the existence and historical leadership of the Priory of Sion is FACT, when it appears to be anything but.
Again, none of this goes the distance toward making Brown fully culpable for the tendency of people to believe the Magdalene/Merovingian dimension of the story is historically accurate, but it DOES implicate Brown in the blurring of the line between fact and fiction in his book, which in turn leaves him on the hook, in my view, for any misunderstanding or confusion that results.
(But not in any way that rises to actual legal liability. Just as a matter of root causes.)
Mark Twain described best how I feel about the Da Vinci Code.
“Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it.” — Samuel Langhorne Clemens
I read both books (Angels and Demons is about the death of a Pope under mysterious circumstances and stars the same Langdon character) several years ago and basically remember them as very good reads. I also have a recollection of wondering which parts were fact and which were fiction. I didn’t think much of it then but that appears to be the point of dispute these days. Is the author and/or publisher and/or movie producer(s) representing more of the story’s content as fact than really is fact?
I have this bad habit of wanting to boil things down to numbers to try and make a point so forgive me if this is too simplistic. I think fiction books in a bookstore can range anywhere from 99% fact and 1% fiction to 0% fact and 100% fiction. I mean, how many fiction stories out there are hyped with the phrase, “Based on Real Life/Factual Events/a True Story/etc.”?
If Brown and associates are misrepresenting some of the fiction as facts then I could understand a lawsuit being brought to request they make a public announcement or add a disclaimer to the film. Arinze just suggested the lawsuit. He didn’t elaborate on it’s purpose. If it is to take the movie out of theaters then it would be an attempt to abridge Speech. If it is to add a disclaimer then there is already precedent in the the industry with the MPAA ratings.
That said, I wish it wouldn’t happen and I really think it won’t. A lawsuit would be mostly for the publicity and the mention of a lawsuit seems to have accomplished that. Besides, the movie is being released in a few days. If they really wanted to pursue a legal course of action they should have started long before now.
It’s frequently the case that in fiction, particularly science fiction and historical fiction, an author will provide a foreword/afterword describing the “true” science/history behind the fiction. For example, I think I remember rightly that Michael Crichton often does this (he’s kind of on the edge of “science fiction,” but I think the example works). A few pages describe the current actual state of science, research, etc., and then the book represents his “what if THIS happened” take on the issue. Arthur C. Clarke did the same thing, incorporating hard scientific data from the unmanned explorations of the moons of Jupiter and constructing a sci-fi plot for his book 2010, and then again using similar data from Halley’s Comet for his book 2061.
The same in historical fiction, especially alternative history — see Turtledove’s “How Few Remain,” where he takes a specific incident during the Civil War — a Confederate messenger loses a deployment message from General Lee, which falls into Union hands — and changes it so that the message gets through and the Union never learns of Lee’s plans. The result is an 1862 Confederate victory in the Civil War, and the alt-timeline is off and running.
All of which is to say, using historical or scientific fact as a jumping-off point for a clear work of fiction is nothing new, and when done competently, there’s no mistaking what is true and what is not.
But Brown didn’t do that here. He claimed as fact items that are not fact, and then further presented those so-called facts throughout his fictional work in such a way as to strongly imply that other elements of the story were ALSO fact, leaving only the specific characters and sequence of events in the novel itself as the clear fiction.
Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree. If a man writes a fictional novel that combines fantasy with holocaust denial, in which the main character discovers that the holocaust did not happen, I think it’s very reasonable for people to charge the author with anti-semitism and characterize the book as anti-semetic. The defense that the book is “fiction” is obviously just a thinly veiled attempt to distance the author from the book’s anti-semetic message. It’s just calling a spade a spade.
The same goes for Dan Brown and his novel that portrays the Catholic Church as an organization perpetuating lies in the name of power. It’s fiction with a message and he’s the author.
BTW, I enjoyed the book and I’m sure I’ll see the film
“Fact: The Priory of Sion–a European secret society founded in 1099–is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’s Biliotheque Nationale [my note: I don’t know how to put in accent marks. There’s a downward slanting one over the first e in Bibliotheque] discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leorando da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
There is also contains the statement, several pages earlier: “All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” And while he does acknowledge some books as sources, the fact that he does so in an acknowledgements page prior to the book, rather than in a bibliography at the end, makes a big difference in my mind.
Oh, and incidentally–I have no problem with people complaining about the negative portrayal of Opus Dei in this book, much as I don’t mind people complaining about the negative portrayal of political parties/religious groups/ethnic minorities/women/gays/rednecks/people named Fred/whatever in other works of fiction. What I have a problem with is the notion that Dan Brown is responsible for people mistaking his fiction for fact. I really do feel that if you base your views on massive religious conspiracies on a best-selling novel, you’re rather too dense to have your opinion count for much, since you clearly lack the ability to distinguish legitimate sources from illegitimate ones. Elitist and judgmental of me, I know, but my feeling nonetheless.
Does it make a difference to you, Mike, that he says “all descriptions of . . . documents . . . are accurate,” but he deceptively misquotes da Vinci?
Specifically, on page 231 of the US hardcover edition, he quotes da Vinci’s words (okay, to be precise, a character in the book quotes da Vinci’s words; but it nevertheless is a description of a document, and the accuracy of the character’s description of the document is never challenged in the book) and claims that the words are about Christianity, and (essentially) how mankind has been sold a bill of goods. But if go looking for the context, you learn that in fact, da Vinci’s words weren’t referring to Christianity, but rather to alchemy.
This is the sort of disingenuousness that makes Brown responsible. He’s promised the reader that his descriptions of documents are accurate. They are not.
(Not to mention the nearly-indisputable fact that the PRiory of Sion was NOT a real organization and thus never had all those luminaries as members. Nor, I believe, did the Bibliotheque Nationale discover the documents there in question; they were “discovered” by the con men who wrote them and passed them off as a legitimate find.)
I don’t consider myself dense, but upon reading DVC, including the fact page disclaimer, I was willing to accept the Priory’s existence and past leadership as true; and also the quotes from da Vinci’s writings; as well as the descriptions of the lost Gospels.
Now that I know the first two are fabrications / deceptions, I have am now extremely skeptical of the third. But I wouldn’t expect the average reader to have occasion to doubt the factual disclaimer once given. And it’s the giving of the disclaimer in the first place that, in my view, creates the issue and distinguishes this from the hypothetical Holocaust conspiracy novel.
In all honesty, Brian, no, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s still a work of fiction, and I therefore don’t take anything in it seriously until and unless I have some sort of non-fiction confirmation of it. With the disclaimer as written, I see nothing wrong with supposing that such documents and practices are artwork are plausible until confirmed/rejected, but I still wouldn’t operate under the idea that they are indeed accurate unless I had some sort of verification from a more reliable source.
The Catholic churchs protest about how the book is full of *hit just leads me to believe that there are some truths to what is being revealed in the book and they do not want any more digging. I find it completely possible that some of the issues of the book are true such as the Catholic church being broke and all of a sudden being flush with cash. where did that infusion of cash come from? and were there promises made and kept for that cash? The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because they fear the power of the sacred feminine, which they have demonized as Satanic.
Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was a slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille. She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of France.
This movie will be a huge disappointment because they cannot possibly address all of these key points and not offend those of the Catholic faith at the same time…And on this point I somewhat agree that it would be embarrasing but the truth will eventually come out and I’m afraid that we will see that these two books, da vinci code & holy blood holy grail, were not that far off at all. if you have not read holy blood holy grail I sugest that you do it is an excellent work.
On the surface, Opus Dei might appear to have much in common with the thinking of mainstream Catholics. However, most Catholics don’t practice corporal mortification, like Opus Dei members do. Here are some examples…
“Cilice: a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh for two hours each day, except for Church feast days, Sundays, and certain times of the year. This is perhaps the most shocking of the corporal mortifications, and generally Opus Dei members are extremely hesitant to admit that they use them. It is a painful mortification which leaves small prick holes in the flesh, and makes the Opus Dei members tentative about wearing swim suits wherever non-Opus Dei members may be.
Discipline: a cord-like whip which resembles macrame, used on the buttocks or back once a week. Opus Dei members must ask permission to use it more often, which many do. The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the discipline, he splattered the bathroom walls with streaks of blood.”
And I have to say that working in the ND dorms has given me a good bit of insight into the world of distinction between the writings of Escriva (which are quite inspiring) and the reality of how Opus Dei operates. Opus Dei operates two “communities” in town, one just south of campus (that’s the men’s house) and one farther away (that’s the women’s house). In fairness, I know many students who frequent events at the houses and find them very fulfilling; but for every one of them, I know another student who has had to seek counseling (whether professional psychiatric or spiritual) as the result of an encounter with Opus Dei. The corporal mortification is weird to me, but not nearly so damaging as the secrecy that pervades their operation. Students I know attempting to seperate themselves from Opus Dei harbor actual, legitimate, visible anxiety about the potential consequences of that seperation. The “coordinators” of the local community admit that there are certain materials that are unavailable for review until you’ve made certain “commitments” to the community. They liken this to the idea that there are things you don’t learn about a spouse unti after you marry them. Well, okay — but what happens if someone decides they are no longer fulfilled by their experience with Opus Dei? I honestly don’t know.
I agree with Mike — Dan Brown is no more responsible for people thinking his work is fact than William Goldman is responsible for people searching for the “original” version of S. Morgenstern’s The Princess Bride.
Points well taken, Mike and 3L, but I’m still not convinced, particularly by the Princess Bride comparison. I admit I’ve never read it, but I did just skim the (extensive) foreword where Goldman describes his father reading the unabridged version to him as a child, and all the assorted tangents.
I completely agree that Goldman’s not responsible for people believing the unabridged version actually exists. But I think Dan Brown did far more to claim, quite apart from the narrative of his fiction, that certain elements weaved into his fiction were factually true. I don’t see Goldman doing that here.
An author no one has ever heard of? From a country never known to exist? Claiming his father is also a native of that country?
These things are presented as “fact” *in the context of the narrative*, but Goldman doesn’t have a separate page saying “FACT: Florin was a real country, it was located approximately where Luxembourg is today, and S. Morgenstern was born in 1704 and wrote The Princess Bride in his 20s while working as a blacksmith in in a tiny village in Alsace-Lorraine.”
And even if he had done so, the very fact that all this stuff is brand-new to the reader, who has never heard of Morgenstern or Florin before, is a distinguishing factor from Brown’s statement, which does mention an organization that was probably new to most readers, but goes on to claim as fact that *actual historically known people* were leaders of the organization.
And finally, unlike Florin which is entirely fictitious, the real rub is that there actually *are* documents claiming to show what Brown says they show, but the documents are fake. So he didn’t just “make up” Priory of Sion out of wholecloth and “pretend” it was true for the sake of his story, like Goldman did with Florin. He took an actual hoax, and breathed new life into it by claiming it wasn’t a hoax. Or, alternatively, he was actually taken in by the hoax, missing the part where it had been pretty conclusively debunked. If the latter, it’s embarrassing; if the former, it’s culpable. Either way, he is not blameless.
“Or, alternatively, he was actually taken in by the hoax, missing the part where it had been pretty conclusively debunked.”
Who has debunked this information? Ugh, the people that do not want you to know about the papers in the 1st place. Am I supposed to take at face value that the Catholic church is telling the truth? Are you questioning those who are “debunking” Brown’s claim? I think you should because our government still will not tell us who shot Kennedy or who was invloved. do you really believe the Warren Commission also? if so let me show you my Brooklyn Bridge I’m selling for 1,000.00.
I thought Nebraska was a moron when he claimed Notre Dame’s pick-up of Jimmy Clausen wasn’t a big deal.
Now he’s confirmed it. Hey Nebraska, here’s a lesson for you: cynicism is not equivalent to intelligence. I suggest you put away the popcorn, turn off x-files, get off your lounger and open your curtains. Then, I suggest that the next time you read a “history” book written by people outside of the academy, you also choose to read an real history book on the same subject written by an actaul historian.
I mean, what’s next? Are you going to tell us that 9/11 was an inside job?
WOW - so many disparate threads, even for a Bloyg post !
OK …
Correct me if I’m wrong, Brendan, … “someone who bombs an abortion clinic is a Christian terrorist.” … actually, you can probably get away with calling such a person a “Christianist terrorist” but the phrasing you chose to use is as kosher as a bacon and shrimp cheeseburger …
Next - good fiction tends to be based upon various aspects within the experiences of the reader of said fiction - it saves a lot of time on communication of concepts to do it that way … good fiction depends upon a suspension of disbelief … without said suspension, people close the book and watch TV instead … the trick, for rational people, is that we unsuspend our disbelief after we close the book … and that applies to movies, to Michael Moore “documentaries”, and so on …
It’s a fairly recent trend to see books written complete with well-thought-out ‘bibliographies’ and ’sources’ what sound plausible … and many throw in the actual verifiable histories for the benefit of those who are capable of unsuspending their disbelief one they put the book down …
Herbert’s Dune did it in his references to the stuff written by Princess Irulan … Harry Turtledove refers us to actual historical references relating to the Civil War … look how many of the assorted Arthurian rewrites are “based upon” legends and histories …
I only know one priest who was with (in?) Opus Dei for a while … his stories aren’t too shocking, given the histories of other strongly-faithful religious groups … he left ‘em cuz the politics were too big a part of it, and the devotional kept losing out to the political … not as extreme as in DVC, and yet still on the samne spectrum …
DVC is a book, and soon (almost) a movie … if someone wants to believe it, that doesn’t force the rest of us to follow suit …
(I’d make a terrible lemming, cuz I *really* don’t like heights, and I have way too much fun exploring tangents!) …
Isn’t the Bible mostly fiction too? There is little evidence to support the claims of the Bible.
Can Dan Brown actually be sued for proposing an alternative view on a previous work of fiction? Dan Brown’s book is fiction, but it has as much evidence as the Bible’s version of Jesus’s story.
I’m more or less with thebeef on this one. DVC doesn’t bother me so much, and any Christian group would be foolish to attack it with lawsuits or anything else (Last Temptation would have never been seen by more than a handful of people if news stories of outraged Christians boycotting the movie didn’t hype the movie into the national psyche). However, as thebeef notes, there is a double standard here: If I did virtually the same mystery-adventure story that “reveals” the Holocaust was a plot by Zionist Jews in the media and banks to provide “moral cover” so they could take over the world economy, the media would be outraged and the studio, producer, director, actors, and so on would be blackballed. I do sometimes wonder if DVC may well become the 21st century’s Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Isn’t the Bible mostly fiction too? There is little evidence to support the claims of the Bible.
Can Dan Brown actually be sued for proposing an alternative view on a previous work of fiction? Dan Brown’s book is fiction, but it has as much evidence as the Bible’s version of Jesus’s story.
You say its fiction, but you state it as if thats a fact. Hmmm me thinks your argument is pretty weak, and if you think that thats all the problems people have with Dan Brown and DVC you obviously haven’t taken the time to read this thread.
In my view, DVC does not question Christian doctrine as much as it does the Catholic hierarchy, which, given its history, perhaps deserves a bit of cynicism. At bottom, I think DVC is comparable to something by, for example, Michael Crichton (sp?), in that it presents itself as a work of fiction, but contains many believable elements. That so many are drawn in by the story indicates that it is a well-told one, but it is still just a story. Anyone who accepts the content as fact is not likely to be swayed by any legal action the Catholic Church takes; in fact, they may see it as a matter of the Church’s protesting too much. I think the Church would be better served by some good P.R., which shouldn’t be too difficult to gather, given the extent of Catholic outreach going on in the world. Additionally, the Church should consider undertaking quiet, incremental reforms within its hierarchy. (O.K., this is not likely, but I like to dream.) This would not have to be an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, but rather an attempt to make the Church work more efficiently, in order to serve its members better and to be a stronger presence for good in the world.
Yes, I’d say Mother Teresa would be a pretty decent person to emulate :). (Although St. Ignatius wasn’t all bad, and I’ve met some really cool Jesuits in my time.)
the fourth one - I, too, have a lot of respect for a lot of Jesuits … and I find it sad how more than a few Jesuits were so integral to the Inquisition, for example … or were/are willing to be ‘useful idiots’ for “Liberation Theology” …
Brings to mind a line from “Hannah and Her Sisters”: “If Jesus came down and saw everything that was going on in His name, He’d never stop throwing up.”
Yes, the book is fiction (#1), but the novel begins with a “Factâ€? page that makes the false claim that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
That is slander, if untrue.
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May 7th, 2006 at 4:21:38 pm
It’s still an attempt to supress free speech. It’s also ridiculous, since the book is FICTION.
May 7th, 2006 at 4:27:09 pm
All fine and good to acknowledge that it’s fiction - but unfortunately, many people don’t think that way. The latest statistics from Canada show that 1/3 of Canadians who have read DVC believe that it gives factually/historically accurate portrayals of the Catholic Church and that Mary and Jesus were really married and that Mary Magdalene’s blood line still exists today.
I’m not saying I’d take legal action, but people have to understand that many readers don’t take this book as fiction. In fact, many think that Dan Brown has enlightened the whole world about the true nature of Catholicism and Jesus.
May 7th, 2006 at 4:48:47 pm
Max, you have an amazing talent for attempting to rebut my posts by raising points that I’ve already made. I said: “Boycotts, letter-writing campaigns and/or peaceful, non-threatening protests â€â€? in other words, counterspeech â€â€? would be much better, and much more in line with the concept of free speech, than trying to use the courts in a coercive fashion to suppress free expression and art.” You said: “It’s still an attempt to supress free speech.” What does that comment add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said?
May 7th, 2006 at 4:51:40 pm
it Adds His Eminence MM Esq’s Imprimatur, is what it adds, Fadduh Feeney. :>
May 7th, 2006 at 5:06:19 pm
Some devout Christians in this country are not so peaceful. Abortion clinic bombings, murdering of doctors, and hey, Rev. Pat calling for assassination come to mind. This pales in comparison to the mass riots and violence by Muslims over the Danish flag thing, but still — not all the Jesus types here are perfectly innocent.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:18:34 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, Brian, but I don’t think I said that “all the Jesus types here are perfectly innocent.” I think I said that it is wrong to “compar[e] violent radical Islamism with the run-of-the-mill fundamentalism of devout Catholics and Christians in this country (nowadays).”
Note the use of the term “run-of-the-mill.” Obviously, someone who bombs an abortion clinic is a Christian terrorist. The Christian terrorist hardly represents “run-of-the-mill fundamentalism” in a country where 99.999% of Christian fundamentalists are peaceful. Anyway, if you want to call the abortion bomber a “Christianist,” and equate him to an Islamist, go right ahead. I’ll join you. That’s not what I’m attacking. I’m attacking the tendency of some of the Left to equate — as I said — “run-of-the-mill” fundamentalists, those who pursue their agenda through non-violent political means, with the violent radical Islamists who routinely do things like blow up buildings, behead soldiers and journalists, kill civilians (both Muslim and non-Muslim), etc.
Note also the use of the term “nowadays.” Once upon a time — like during the Crusades, or the European religious wars, say — it could well be argued that “run-of-the-mill fundamentalism” among Christians did indeed involve violence. That argument cannot plausibly be made today, at least not with regard to this country and the rest of the Western world. (I don’t know enough about the various conflicts in Africa and elsewhere in the third world to discuss them intelligently, or assess the role of Christians in them, but that isn’t relevant to my point anyway, since I’m not saying that Christians are somehow inherently better than Muslims — I’m just saying that modern-day Islamism is in no way equivalent to modern-day Western Christian fundamentalism… and violent third-world Christians are not who liberals are talking about when they call American “Jesusland” voters “Christianists” and compare them to the Islamists.) On the other hand, radical violent murderous terroristic fundamentalism is very much prevalent in the Muslim world. The tiny, tiny minority of Christians who commit such despicable crimes as abortion bombings — and are promptly condemned by their ideological fellow-travelers and prosecuted for their crimes by the governments of the countries where they live — absolutely “pales in comparison,” as you say, to the vast existential threat that is posed by radical violent Islamism.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:26:03 pm
ok. I didn’t click on this thread to talk about alleged radicalism, but Briadot, why do you have to beat that dead horse with abortionist assassinations and bombings as an indicia of Christian extremism ? Why don’t you list the amount of people hurt or killed by a Christian from a mainstream Church (i.e. not from some cousin Fred Phelps church) over abortion. People like you just love to paint the slightest gathering of christians with a broad brush of hatred and violence.
Arinze is a well respected guy and it seems like his comments were rather off the cuff. Still, I am at a loss to imagine which legal system he is imagining in which a religious adherent could bring some legal civil action against a publisher for libel, slander, whatever. In this country, notwithstanding speech protection, we have the standing issue. I couldn’t bring a libel suit against a book libeling the pope if I wanted to no matter how offensive the lie.
However, I think we should back off from dismissing Arinze’s veiled comparison to the Muslim riots. I don’t think he was comparing for the purposes of saying ‘hey, we could do a lot worse.’ He is a man of peace and would never speak like that. I think he is saying look at all the sympathy the muslims got over the cartoons, papers refusing to publish, etc., even though they were rioting etc (and even though the toons were’nt very offensive). Here in contrast, the publishers cant run the presses fast enough, and the content is not just offensive but libelous (if you want to make FICTION about a wicked religious order, why don’t you call it ‘the Breathren’ or ‘The Sicillian Order’ etc, instead of picking an orthodox group that you hate to defame). He’s pointing out the double standard. And you all know there is a double standard. A huge one.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:36:34 pm
Becky, it just shows that people are morons. This is true for christians as well. They don’t read their bible, so they don’t know what’s true and what’s false so their pastor has to save them from their own stupidity so to speak. And I’m a christian. I’m gonna see the movie; the book was awesome.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:40:08 pm
I got a few meditation books once that were written by Opus Dei founder, Blessed (on the way to sainthood) Jose Escriva.
These things were literally a combination of scripture passages, 19th and 20th century renowned theologians and reflections on how you can live out your Christianity in simple daily observance. The idea that Dan Brown picks this group to exploit, especially given that movie and book aficianados will encounter members as coworkers, fellow congregants, etc., is particularly sickening and ridiculous. Regardless, the Da Vinci Code will fade away and be just another Last Temptation, Stigmata, Dogma, Order, Catholic-I-can’t-do-anything-better-than-whine-about -a-religion-I-am-ALREADY-free-to-disagree-with-or-leave movie of the week. So Opus Dei is taking a good path so far to just avoid bringing attention to it.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:43:55 pm
Patrick, wow, you read the bible and figured it out for yourself; I’ll print up a certificate for you to hang on your wall, sticker-ribbon and everything. Again, the question remains, why do you care whether other Christians (who you seem to enjoy defaming as ignorant drones) take their instruction from a pastor ? If such arrogance could block the windpipe, we’d all be learning the Heimlich maneuver in Kindergarten.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:44:21 pm
I have to say, I think Patrick has a point, Becky. The novel is found in the fiction section of the bookstore/library where the reader finds it. It isn’t chock full of citations to scholarly texts. The fact that there are people who don’t grasp that it’s fiction doesn’t mean that it’s up to the sane world to take additional measures to try to get across such an obvious point. That begins to approach the level of the warning on airline peanuts of “Warning: may contain nuts”. Common sense may not be all that common these days, but I wonder how much of that is because we don’t expect people to be able to make basic judgments in their daily lives.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:46:53 pm
And it’s not like its the pastors telling everyone that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children. The people soaking up the Da Vinci code as truth are the ones who could care less about the Bible beyond how well it fills up a 365 day inspiration calendar with self-serving passages and go to church for some sort of status reason. I’ll agree with you THERE on the drone issue,.
May 7th, 2006 at 6:30:28 pm
The book being fiction is meaningless, IMHO. If I had the skill of a novelist, I could easily write a fictional book about a guy who, finding clues in post-war architecture and art work, discovers that the holocaust is actually a myth perpetuated by a zionist organization that is hell bent on dominating American policy and controlling the middle east. As background work for my novel, I would read every holocaust denier book, and then include their “scholarly insights” into my novel in such a way as to make the book feel factual.
Jews would be rightfully offended—and I don’t think that my defense: “but it’s fiction!” would go very far.
I think the Catholic Church only adds to the publicity/hype/interest of the book when they take action like this. They play right into the hands of Dan Brown and the producers of the movie.
But I do think it is a GOOD idea to expose the American media’s double standard. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it: expose their cowardice. They feel comfortable slandering people who won’t/can’t do anything, but they’re too afraid to slander those who threaten violence. That sounds like a bully to me—and bullys are almost by definition cowards
May 7th, 2006 at 6:30:55 pm
Well, 4-7, if people read their bible and then read DVC, then they would know it’s fiction and thus wouldn’t want to have their pastor tell them something they know. There would be some type of signal from a congregation to its pastor that this is not necessary.
Of course, the pastor doesn’t necessarily have to listen to the signal. He could be doing it for other reasons, i.e. to sell his own anti-DVC book, to get on christian tv, or to become a heavyweight in christian circles.
I don’t mind a congregation taking instruction from their pastor, in fact I would encourage it, except when the pastor is WRONG.
I don’t defame ignorant drones. All I do is point them out. Some christians actually believe there is persecution is this country because they hear it from their pastor and on tv from the religious right.
I’m a christian but I cannot stand the religious right.
May 7th, 2006 at 6:39:04 pm
I read the book, enjoyed it well enough as a work of fiction, but I think that thebeef brings up the only interesting point in this whole debate, and one that Cardinal Arinze alluded to, that a peaceful group gets ignored while the media world wide is caving to the preasure of a millitant one.
May 7th, 2006 at 7:56:10 pm
Mike,
Everyone is aware that the book is found in the fiction section of the bookstore. The point is that there is a dangerous combination of making yourself out to be something credible and true + everyone wanting to believe that it’s true.
1) Making it out to be true. DVC has a source bibliography in the back (or front - can’t remember). Dan Brown lists all the books as if he’s using them for historical data. These books have also been selling millions of copies because people think that they’re historical sources. My roommate (a teacher), said that one of her kids listed the DVC as a source in a research paper on the history of Christianity.
2) The problem of wanting to believe it. The DVC has been so successfully played off as the truth because everyone wants to believe that the Catholic Church is this big, corrupt enterprise that has hidden the truth from the whole world for centuries. They want to believe that Opus Dei is evil. They want to believe that the Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene. In the end, they all desperately want to believe that the Catholic Church is a farce. So yeah - DVC is timely. It seems to confirm exactly what the media and popular culture want to hear, so it quickly becomes credible in modern eyes.
Meriting legal action? No. But legitimately worrisome to Catholics? Yes.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:17:23 pm
I actually think the Last Temptation of Christ is probably the best movie about the death of Jesus next to The Passion of the Christ. It explores the various ramifications and aspects of Jesus’s decision not to come down from the Cross and, in the end, He dies for humanity anyway. I actually thought it was very faith affirming. Unfortunately there are some people who are terrified to have their faith challenged in any way for fear that it might not stand up to the scrutiny.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:21:13 pm
I do agree that Opus Dei probably has a pretty good defamation suit here. But Opus Dei does not represent the views of the vast majority of Catholics.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:32:41 pm
Mad Max,
I guess that depends on your definition of “Catholic.” If Catholics include those people that were born of parents who were Catholic but generally don’t believe much of what the Church teaches, then I guess Opus Dei doesn’t represent them very well. But besides the specific charism of Opus Dei, which is a focus on a certain way of living out the virtuous life and becoming holy, their “views” are basically the Catholic Church’s views.
I don’t belong to Opus Dei, because their charism isn’t what really feeds my relationship with Christ, but their “views” are representative of the Catholic Church worldwide, if not some of its dissident “members.”
May 7th, 2006 at 10:26:47 pm
I still disagree with you that he’s making himself out to be true. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail made themselves out to be true, which is what really destroyed their attempts at claiming copyright infringement against Dan Brown. He cited that the ideas underlying the events in his novel have been proposed by other, but that’s a far cry from making them out to be claims of truth. I don’t see this book as the cause of problems–I do see it as a symptom of a problem if people can’t recognize that it’s fiction, but that’s a larger problem than anything in this book.
May 7th, 2006 at 11:09:04 pm
i read part of that book it was cribbed from (holy blood, holy grail). i sold it on ebay. it was crap.
May 7th, 2006 at 11:10:40 pm
Mike, c’mon. Obviously the guy isn’t overtly claiming that his book is an honest portrayal or an attempt to seriously discuss the origins of the Christian religion—but he purposefully writes in a style that DOES suggest he’s asserting historical fact. Indeed, he expressly claims that his book is a COMBINATION of true-events/facts and fiction.
If people are taking this book for truth, Dan Brown IS partly to blame. If an author writes a similar book, about a consipiracy to fabricate the holocaust, and people start believing that the holocuast never happened—the author of that book IS partly to blame….regardless of his disclaimers.
May 7th, 2006 at 11:25:51 pm
“If an author writes a similar book, about a consipiracy to fabricate the holocaust, and people start believing that the holocuast never happenedâ€â€?the author of that book IS partly to blame….regardless of his disclaimers.”
And here we have a fundamental disagreement. My view is that if your work is obviously a work of fiction–and being sold in the fiction section of the bookstore makes it meet the obviously fiction category for me, at least, then you are NOT responsible for people mistaking your work for reality. It’s the same way that the people who write astrological profiles are not responsible for crazy people people believing that the alingment of the planets controls their destiny. Or, for another example, if you read The Princess Bride and believe that there really is an unabridged version involve long passages about hats, it’s not the author’s fault that you couldn’t recognize it as a joke.
Beyond that, I had no impression on reading the Davinci Code that it was being portrayed as accurate. I admit to thinking certain parts of it were true–it seemed unlikely that he’d make up a church with an unsolved code carved into the ceiling–but I wouldn’t actually assert that such a church existed if I couldn’t find a reference to it outside of a fictional story. The characters certainly assert that things are true, but that’s really no different that Mulder on the X-Files going on and on about governmental coverups. I don’t feel that it’s Chris Carter’s fault that people are paranoid about military suppression of UFOs, and so I don’t see blame attaching to Dan Brown for people believing in the continuation of Jesus’ bloodline. It’s not like he’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place, nor like he’s arguing it in nonfiction.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:02:16 am
“My view is that if your work is obviously a work of fiction–and being sold in the fiction section of the bookstore makes it meet the obviously fiction category for me, at least, then you are NOT responsible for people mistaking your work for reality.”
Seems to me the issue here is that Brown took steps to suggest that his work of fiction, sold in the fiction section, was nevertheless based on fact. Somebody above mentioned the “bibliography” page of the book, but neglected to point the most salient feature of the page: in big black letters at the very top, it says “FACT:” and hten proceeds to list a number of things that, according to Brown (and if you take this page at face value, which is certainly not a ridiculous thing to do), are factually accurate. On this page he mentions, among other things, that all descriptions of secret rituals and societies contained in the book are real, i.e. true.
And then you read the book and come across descriptions of a secret society devoted to preserving the secret about Jesus and Mary.
Now, that doesn’t justify people in believing that the actual Jesus/Mary thing is true, but it DOES justify people believing in the existence of the Priory of Sion, that da Vinci, Newton, Hugo, etc. were grand masters thereof, etc. (Brown’s “FACT” page also specifically mentions, IIRC, that da Vinci was a member of this society.)
Trouble is, as anyone who’s done a little googling knows, the Priory of Sion aspect of the story was a 20th century hoax cooked up by a couple cunning Frenchmen.
So it’s rather disingenuous for Brown to claim on page one that the existence and historical leadership of the Priory of Sion is FACT, when it appears to be anything but.
Again, none of this goes the distance toward making Brown fully culpable for the tendency of people to believe the Magdalene/Merovingian dimension of the story is historically accurate, but it DOES implicate Brown in the blurring of the line between fact and fiction in his book, which in turn leaves him on the hook, in my view, for any misunderstanding or confusion that results.
(But not in any way that rises to actual legal liability. Just as a matter of root causes.)
May 8th, 2006 at 12:05:03 am
Mark Twain described best how I feel about the Da Vinci Code.
“Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it.” — Samuel Langhorne Clemens
I read both books (Angels and Demons is about the death of a Pope under mysterious circumstances and stars the same Langdon character) several years ago and basically remember them as very good reads. I also have a recollection of wondering which parts were fact and which were fiction. I didn’t think much of it then but that appears to be the point of dispute these days. Is the author and/or publisher and/or movie producer(s) representing more of the story’s content as fact than really is fact?
I have this bad habit of wanting to boil things down to numbers to try and make a point so forgive me if this is too simplistic. I think fiction books in a bookstore can range anywhere from 99% fact and 1% fiction to 0% fact and 100% fiction. I mean, how many fiction stories out there are hyped with the phrase, “Based on Real Life/Factual Events/a True Story/etc.”?
If Brown and associates are misrepresenting some of the fiction as facts then I could understand a lawsuit being brought to request they make a public announcement or add a disclaimer to the film. Arinze just suggested the lawsuit. He didn’t elaborate on it’s purpose. If it is to take the movie out of theaters then it would be an attempt to abridge Speech. If it is to add a disclaimer then there is already precedent in the the industry with the MPAA ratings.
That said, I wish it wouldn’t happen and I really think it won’t. A lawsuit would be mostly for the publicity and the mention of a lawsuit seems to have accomplished that. Besides, the movie is being released in a few days. If they really wanted to pursue a legal course of action they should have started long before now.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:10:09 am
I meant to include this in my last comment:
It’s frequently the case that in fiction, particularly science fiction and historical fiction, an author will provide a foreword/afterword describing the “true” science/history behind the fiction. For example, I think I remember rightly that Michael Crichton often does this (he’s kind of on the edge of “science fiction,” but I think the example works). A few pages describe the current actual state of science, research, etc., and then the book represents his “what if THIS happened” take on the issue. Arthur C. Clarke did the same thing, incorporating hard scientific data from the unmanned explorations of the moons of Jupiter and constructing a sci-fi plot for his book 2010, and then again using similar data from Halley’s Comet for his book 2061.
The same in historical fiction, especially alternative history — see Turtledove’s “How Few Remain,” where he takes a specific incident during the Civil War — a Confederate messenger loses a deployment message from General Lee, which falls into Union hands — and changes it so that the message gets through and the Union never learns of Lee’s plans. The result is an 1862 Confederate victory in the Civil War, and the alt-timeline is off and running.
All of which is to say, using historical or scientific fact as a jumping-off point for a clear work of fiction is nothing new, and when done competently, there’s no mistaking what is true and what is not.
But Brown didn’t do that here. He claimed as fact items that are not fact, and then further presented those so-called facts throughout his fictional work in such a way as to strongly imply that other elements of the story were ALSO fact, leaving only the specific characters and sequence of events in the novel itself as the clear fiction.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:10:42 am
Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree. If a man writes a fictional novel that combines fantasy with holocaust denial, in which the main character discovers that the holocaust did not happen, I think it’s very reasonable for people to charge the author with anti-semitism and characterize the book as anti-semetic. The defense that the book is “fiction” is obviously just a thinly veiled attempt to distance the author from the book’s anti-semetic message. It’s just calling a spade a spade.
The same goes for Dan Brown and his novel that portrays the Catholic Church as an organization perpetuating lies in the name of power. It’s fiction with a message and he’s the author.
BTW, I enjoyed the book and I’m sure I’ll see the film
May 8th, 2006 at 12:14:35 am
For completeness, the Fact page states:
“Fact: The Priory of Sion–a European secret society founded in 1099–is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’s Biliotheque Nationale [my note: I don’t know how to put in accent marks. There’s a downward slanting one over the first e in Bibliotheque] discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leorando da Vinci.
The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
There is also contains the statement, several pages earlier: “All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” And while he does acknowledge some books as sources, the fact that he does so in an acknowledgements page prior to the book, rather than in a bibliography at the end, makes a big difference in my mind.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:21:11 am
Oh, and incidentally–I have no problem with people complaining about the negative portrayal of Opus Dei in this book, much as I don’t mind people complaining about the negative portrayal of political parties/religious groups/ethnic minorities/women/gays/rednecks/people named Fred/whatever in other works of fiction. What I have a problem with is the notion that Dan Brown is responsible for people mistaking his fiction for fact. I really do feel that if you base your views on massive religious conspiracies on a best-selling novel, you’re rather too dense to have your opinion count for much, since you clearly lack the ability to distinguish legitimate sources from illegitimate ones. Elitist and judgmental of me, I know, but my feeling nonetheless.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:38:38 am
Does it make a difference to you, Mike, that he says “all descriptions of . . . documents . . . are accurate,” but he deceptively misquotes da Vinci?
Specifically, on page 231 of the US hardcover edition, he quotes da Vinci’s words (okay, to be precise, a character in the book quotes da Vinci’s words; but it nevertheless is a description of a document, and the accuracy of the character’s description of the document is never challenged in the book) and claims that the words are about Christianity, and (essentially) how mankind has been sold a bill of goods. But if go looking for the context, you learn that in fact, da Vinci’s words weren’t referring to Christianity, but rather to alchemy.
This is the sort of disingenuousness that makes Brown responsible. He’s promised the reader that his descriptions of documents are accurate. They are not.
(Not to mention the nearly-indisputable fact that the PRiory of Sion was NOT a real organization and thus never had all those luminaries as members. Nor, I believe, did the Bibliotheque Nationale discover the documents there in question; they were “discovered” by the con men who wrote them and passed them off as a legitimate find.)
I don’t consider myself dense, but upon reading DVC, including the fact page disclaimer, I was willing to accept the Priory’s existence and past leadership as true; and also the quotes from da Vinci’s writings; as well as the descriptions of the lost Gospels.
Now that I know the first two are fabrications / deceptions, I have am now extremely skeptical of the third. But I wouldn’t expect the average reader to have occasion to doubt the factual disclaimer once given. And it’s the giving of the disclaimer in the first place that, in my view, creates the issue and distinguishes this from the hypothetical Holocaust conspiracy novel.
May 8th, 2006 at 1:03:28 am
In all honesty, Brian, no, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s still a work of fiction, and I therefore don’t take anything in it seriously until and unless I have some sort of non-fiction confirmation of it. With the disclaimer as written, I see nothing wrong with supposing that such documents and practices are artwork are plausible until confirmed/rejected, but I still wouldn’t operate under the idea that they are indeed accurate unless I had some sort of verification from a more reliable source.
May 8th, 2006 at 6:42:55 am
The Catholic churchs protest about how the book is full of *hit just leads me to believe that there are some truths to what is being revealed in the book and they do not want any more digging. I find it completely possible that some of the issues of the book are true such as the Catholic church being broke and all of a sudden being flush with cash. where did that infusion of cash come from? and were there promises made and kept for that cash? The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because they fear the power of the sacred feminine, which they have demonized as Satanic.
Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was a slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille. She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of France.
This movie will be a huge disappointment because they cannot possibly address all of these key points and not offend those of the Catholic faith at the same time…And on this point I somewhat agree that it would be embarrasing but the truth will eventually come out and I’m afraid that we will see that these two books, da vinci code & holy blood holy grail, were not that far off at all. if you have not read holy blood holy grail I sugest that you do it is an excellent work.
May 8th, 2006 at 7:50:23 am
This is getting old. Let’s just go back to dissing scientology. Hope that doesn’t get you sued, Brendan
May 8th, 2006 at 8:22:29 am
Becky-
On the surface, Opus Dei might appear to have much in common with the thinking of mainstream Catholics. However, most Catholics don’t practice corporal mortification, like Opus Dei members do. Here are some examples…
“Cilice: a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh for two hours each day, except for Church feast days, Sundays, and certain times of the year. This is perhaps the most shocking of the corporal mortifications, and generally Opus Dei members are extremely hesitant to admit that they use them. It is a painful mortification which leaves small prick holes in the flesh, and makes the Opus Dei members tentative about wearing swim suits wherever non-Opus Dei members may be.
Discipline: a cord-like whip which resembles macrame, used on the buttocks or back once a week. Opus Dei members must ask permission to use it more often, which many do. The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the discipline, he splattered the bathroom walls with streaks of blood.”
May 8th, 2006 at 10:14:25 am
And I have to say that working in the ND dorms has given me a good bit of insight into the world of distinction between the writings of Escriva (which are quite inspiring) and the reality of how Opus Dei operates. Opus Dei operates two “communities” in town, one just south of campus (that’s the men’s house) and one farther away (that’s the women’s house). In fairness, I know many students who frequent events at the houses and find them very fulfilling; but for every one of them, I know another student who has had to seek counseling (whether professional psychiatric or spiritual) as the result of an encounter with Opus Dei. The corporal mortification is weird to me, but not nearly so damaging as the secrecy that pervades their operation. Students I know attempting to seperate themselves from Opus Dei harbor actual, legitimate, visible anxiety about the potential consequences of that seperation. The “coordinators” of the local community admit that there are certain materials that are unavailable for review until you’ve made certain “commitments” to the community. They liken this to the idea that there are things you don’t learn about a spouse unti after you marry them. Well, okay — but what happens if someone decides they are no longer fulfilled by their experience with Opus Dei? I honestly don’t know.
I agree with Mike — Dan Brown is no more responsible for people thinking his work is fact than William Goldman is responsible for people searching for the “original” version of S. Morgenstern’s The Princess Bride.
May 8th, 2006 at 10:50:59 am
Points well taken, Mike and 3L, but I’m still not convinced, particularly by the Princess Bride comparison. I admit I’ve never read it, but I did just skim the (extensive) foreword where Goldman describes his father reading the unabridged version to him as a child, and all the assorted tangents.
I completely agree that Goldman’s not responsible for people believing the unabridged version actually exists. But I think Dan Brown did far more to claim, quite apart from the narrative of his fiction, that certain elements weaved into his fiction were factually true. I don’t see Goldman doing that here.
An author no one has ever heard of? From a country never known to exist? Claiming his father is also a native of that country?
These things are presented as “fact” *in the context of the narrative*, but Goldman doesn’t have a separate page saying “FACT: Florin was a real country, it was located approximately where Luxembourg is today, and S. Morgenstern was born in 1704 and wrote The Princess Bride in his 20s while working as a blacksmith in in a tiny village in Alsace-Lorraine.”
And even if he had done so, the very fact that all this stuff is brand-new to the reader, who has never heard of Morgenstern or Florin before, is a distinguishing factor from Brown’s statement, which does mention an organization that was probably new to most readers, but goes on to claim as fact that *actual historically known people* were leaders of the organization.
And finally, unlike Florin which is entirely fictitious, the real rub is that there actually *are* documents claiming to show what Brown says they show, but the documents are fake. So he didn’t just “make up” Priory of Sion out of wholecloth and “pretend” it was true for the sake of his story, like Goldman did with Florin. He took an actual hoax, and breathed new life into it by claiming it wasn’t a hoax. Or, alternatively, he was actually taken in by the hoax, missing the part where it had been pretty conclusively debunked. If the latter, it’s embarrassing; if the former, it’s culpable. Either way, he is not blameless.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:09:08 am
I thought that S. Morgenstern did not exist…..ghost author.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:13:35 am
“Or, alternatively, he was actually taken in by the hoax, missing the part where it had been pretty conclusively debunked.”
Who has debunked this information? Ugh, the people that do not want you to know about the papers in the 1st place. Am I supposed to take at face value that the Catholic church is telling the truth? Are you questioning those who are “debunking” Brown’s claim? I think you should because our government still will not tell us who shot Kennedy or who was invloved. do you really believe the Warren Commission also? if so let me show you my Brooklyn Bridge I’m selling for 1,000.00.
May 8th, 2006 at 12:10:43 pm
I thought Nebraska was a moron when he claimed Notre Dame’s pick-up of Jimmy Clausen wasn’t a big deal.
Now he’s confirmed it. Hey Nebraska, here’s a lesson for you: cynicism is not equivalent to intelligence. I suggest you put away the popcorn, turn off x-files, get off your lounger and open your curtains. Then, I suggest that the next time you read a “history” book written by people outside of the academy, you also choose to read an real history book on the same subject written by an actaul historian.
I mean, what’s next? Are you going to tell us that 9/11 was an inside job?
May 8th, 2006 at 1:43:00 pm
WOW - so many disparate threads, even for a Bloyg post !
OK …
Correct me if I’m wrong, Brendan, … “someone who bombs an abortion clinic is a Christian terrorist.” … actually, you can probably get away with calling such a person a “Christianist terrorist” but the phrasing you chose to use is as kosher as a bacon and shrimp cheeseburger …
Next - good fiction tends to be based upon various aspects within the experiences of the reader of said fiction - it saves a lot of time on communication of concepts to do it that way … good fiction depends upon a suspension of disbelief … without said suspension, people close the book and watch TV instead … the trick, for rational people, is that we unsuspend our disbelief after we close the book … and that applies to movies, to Michael Moore “documentaries”, and so on …
It’s a fairly recent trend to see books written complete with well-thought-out ‘bibliographies’ and ’sources’ what sound plausible … and many throw in the actual verifiable histories for the benefit of those who are capable of unsuspending their disbelief one they put the book down …
Herbert’s Dune did it in his references to the stuff written by Princess Irulan … Harry Turtledove refers us to actual historical references relating to the Civil War … look how many of the assorted Arthurian rewrites are “based upon” legends and histories …
I only know one priest who was with (in?) Opus Dei for a while … his stories aren’t too shocking, given the histories of other strongly-faithful religious groups … he left ‘em cuz the politics were too big a part of it, and the devotional kept losing out to the political … not as extreme as in DVC, and yet still on the samne spectrum …
DVC is a book, and soon (almost) a movie … if someone wants to believe it, that doesn’t force the rest of us to follow suit …
(I’d make a terrible lemming, cuz I *really* don’t like heights, and I have way too much fun exploring tangents!) …
May 8th, 2006 at 3:35:22 pm
Isn’t the Bible mostly fiction too? There is little evidence to support the claims of the Bible.
Can Dan Brown actually be sued for proposing an alternative view on a previous work of fiction? Dan Brown’s book is fiction, but it has as much evidence as the Bible’s version of Jesus’s story.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:54:56 pm
I’m more or less with thebeef on this one. DVC doesn’t bother me so much, and any Christian group would be foolish to attack it with lawsuits or anything else (Last Temptation would have never been seen by more than a handful of people if news stories of outraged Christians boycotting the movie didn’t hype the movie into the national psyche). However, as thebeef notes, there is a double standard here: If I did virtually the same mystery-adventure story that “reveals” the Holocaust was a plot by Zionist Jews in the media and banks to provide “moral cover” so they could take over the world economy, the media would be outraged and the studio, producer, director, actors, and so on would be blackballed. I do sometimes wonder if DVC may well become the 21st century’s Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:38:22 am
Isn’t the Bible mostly fiction too? There is little evidence to support the claims of the Bible.
Can Dan Brown actually be sued for proposing an alternative view on a previous work of fiction? Dan Brown’s book is fiction, but it has as much evidence as the Bible’s version of Jesus’s story.
You say its fiction, but you state it as if thats a fact. Hmmm me thinks your argument is pretty weak, and if you think that thats all the problems people have with Dan Brown and DVC you obviously haven’t taken the time to read this thread.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:59:15 am
In my view, DVC does not question Christian doctrine as much as it does the Catholic hierarchy, which, given its history, perhaps deserves a bit of cynicism. At bottom, I think DVC is comparable to something by, for example, Michael Crichton (sp?), in that it presents itself as a work of fiction, but contains many believable elements. That so many are drawn in by the story indicates that it is a well-told one, but it is still just a story. Anyone who accepts the content as fact is not likely to be swayed by any legal action the Catholic Church takes; in fact, they may see it as a matter of the Church’s protesting too much. I think the Church would be better served by some good P.R., which shouldn’t be too difficult to gather, given the extent of Catholic outreach going on in the world. Additionally, the Church should consider undertaking quiet, incremental reforms within its hierarchy. (O.K., this is not likely, but I like to dream.) This would not have to be an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, but rather an attempt to make the Church work more efficiently, in order to serve its members better and to be a stronger presence for good in the world.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:11:44 pm
the fourth one - more Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu and less Ignatius of Loyola ?
May 11th, 2006 at 11:52:36 am
Alasdair -
Yes, I’d say Mother Teresa would be a pretty decent person to emulate :). (Although St. Ignatius wasn’t all bad, and I’ve met some really cool Jesuits in my time.)
May 11th, 2006 at 3:09:44 pm
the fourth one - I, too, have a lot of respect for a lot of Jesuits … and I find it sad how more than a few Jesuits were so integral to the Inquisition, for example … or were/are willing to be ‘useful idiots’ for “Liberation Theology” …
May 12th, 2006 at 12:11:52 pm
Definitely.
Brings to mind a line from “Hannah and Her Sisters”: “If Jesus came down and saw everything that was going on in His name, He’d never stop throwing up.”
May 12th, 2006 at 8:04:40 pm
Yes, the book is fiction (#1), but the novel begins with a “Factâ€? page that makes the false claim that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
That is slander, if untrue.