After church yesterday I went to lunch with a group of people from church, which included a non-Mennonite who lives near my boyfriend. The visitor asked a question that, surprisingly, I hadn’t received before: “So what do you all think of The Da Vinci Code?”
The conversation was pretty frustrating, and I was beginning to understand why the whole thing drives Christians bats. She started off by wondering why people would be so upset about a work of fiction — don’t they know what fiction is? — but then went on to ask, but what about x, y, and z, is that really true? It reminded me of a point I made here, that the popular American understanding of fantasy as something that has nothing to do with reality doesn’t really work. If fiction had nothing true in it, it would not be remotely interesting. Would Dickens be as compelling if he just made up the stuff about life in London’s underclass? Would children love the Harry Potter books as much if they didn’t recognize elements of their own lives in them? To say that a book is fiction is not to say it’s all untrue, it just means the truth is blended with the author’s inventions. The problem with DVC is that a lot of people evidently aren’t sure where the one ends and the other begins.
Anyway, later in the afternoon I went off and visited Wess and Emily, who are soon moving out of their apartment. I went to look at the place to see if I want to move in after they’re gone. The L.A. neigborhood they’re in, Highland Park, is in between Pasadena and where I live now, although definitely close to Pasadena. Since then I’ve been having a long debate with myself about it, which generally goes something like this:
Pro: Hey, think about how much closer you’ll be to church! To John! To huge national parks! You might actually have a life after work on weekdays, what with the Fuller events, the JPL lectures, the volunteer opportunities…
Con: Now, just hang on a second. Driving to work and back during rush hour would take an hour each way, at least. Do you really want to spend that much of your life on the road, subjecting yourself to physical danger and further polluting the already polluted air? Besides, have you noticed how much gasoline costs lately?
Pro: But you can make up for that by driving less the rest of the time. You’ll be living near the light rail, and you can take that around locally. Plus, the post office, the library, the drugstore and the grocery store are within walking distance. What do you walk to now, besides the dry cleaner?
Con: All right, but do you really want to go through all this hassle when you’re not even sure what the future will bring? You can’t even bring yourself to get baptized into this church, so why are you going to these lengths to get closer to it?
Pro: Well, maybe you do better taking your commitments in stages. You know, if you commit to an apartment maybe committing to baptism will not seem as daunting. Besides, this way you’ll get more involved in the church, and maybe even join a small group like everyone’s been pestering you to do, and then you’ll have a clearer idea of whether you want to belong to it or not.
Con: OK, you’re really itching to move to another apartment, but I don’t know about that apartment. It’s cute, but it’s too small for all your stuff. And you’ll have to provide all the appliances yourself, and you’ll certainly lose some amenities. The Danielses go to frigging South Pasadena to do their laundry!
Pro: Hey, it’s about time you downsized your stuff. And eventually you’re going to move into a house, and buy your own appliances anyway –
Con: Gah! Commitment again!
Pro: All right, stop hyperventilating. You probably wash your clothes more than they really need it anyway, and you can be more environmentally friendly using that clothesline in the yard instead of a dryer. And you might even hand-wash those clothes that say, “Hand Wash Only.”
Con: Boy, you really are turning into a Mennonite. What’s next, subsistence farming?
Well, you get the idea. I still haven’t decided yet.
Camassia, it was nice to have you over, I hope the best decision opens for you.
Comment by C. Wess Daniels — May 15, 2006 @ 3:11 pm
“Con: Boy, you really are turning into a Mennonite. What’s next, subsistence farming?”
Lol!
Comment by graham — May 15, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
Dan Brown seems to present The Davinci Code as HISTORICAL fiction, sort of like Gone with the Wind; that’s the problem. We all know that Scarletter Ohara and all that stuff is fiction, but the background of the story (The Civil War) is real history. Dan Brown seems to be saying that the characters and plot is fiction, but the background is historical.
It would be like someone writing a historical fiction with the Civil War in the background, and saying that the Civil War was not fought between the North and South, it was really fought between the East and the West. Only, there’s been a HUGE conspiracy to make us all think that it was between the North and the South. But that’s just cover-up. It was really between the East and the West. Then when the historians call them on that, the author just says, “oh, it’s only fiction any way.”
Comment by Jonathan Marlowe — May 16, 2006 @ 5:51 am
Yeah, it’s worth noting that not only does fiction blend truth and fantasy, but we expect certain cues from the author about what parts of it are true and what aren’t. A little a while ago I read some short mystery stories by Steven Saylor that were set in ancient Rome. It was basically light, escapist fiction, but it contained all sorts of details that all but announced, “Here are some cool little facts about ancient Rome!” By contrast, if you watch one of those old Sinbad movies it all but announces, “Hi, I’m an Orientalist fantasy, and I will provide you with no real historical or cultural information whatever.”
I think that’s how a work can be fictional without actually being dishonest. I haven’t read DVC, but Brown wouldn’t be the first one to deliberately muck with the rules in order to create more interest. Orson Welles’ infamous War of the Worlds broadcast springs to mind, as well as more recent horror movies that insinuated their stories were true, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Snuff, and The Blair With Project. Part of what bothers me is that it appeals to a kind of artistic snobbery — oh, those silly proles, who don’t get that “This is a true story” is part of the performance! We are such sophisticated artistes! But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to expect their art to follow certain rules of trustworthiness.
Comment by Camassia — May 16, 2006 @ 9:49 am
You’re right. DVC goes out of its way to mess with those cues, by, for example, having large chunks of exposition awkwardly shoehorned into the plot (either as lectures that Langdon remembers giving or by the time honored device of having Sophie turn very ignorant when an explanation needs to be given). If you’re going to use Basil Exposition, it kind of messes with readers’ expectations to have the “history” be largely fictional. In fact, the book works best if you can manage to just pretend that the entire history is some speculative fiction “what if” alternate reality. Which it pretty much is, except that it’s made, Blair Witch-style, to look “real.”
Comment by Lynn Gazis-Sax — May 17, 2006 @ 12:43 pm
Let me put in a vote for Highland Park. Close access to Senor Fish.
Comment by Hugo — May 18, 2006 @ 8:22 am
The Davinci Code (and Angels and Demons) are so badly written, so LAME. It’s as if an especially dull Tom Clancy tried to write Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. But I sometimes like pulp fiction, and who am I to judge taste?
But I am struck by the profound ignorance of history, theology/philosophy and lack critical reading skills (or a critical sense), that I have witnessed in conversations about the Davinci Code. Some of the people I have talked with have advanced degrees (in science, business), most but not all are Americans (others French, Mexican), almost all are post-Christian or wholly unchurched, and all seem utterly ignorant of western and church history, and more than willing to accept some of the claims-that-aren’t-really-claims in the Davinci Code. It’s embarassing, and it cannot bode well.
Comment by Troy — May 19, 2006 @ 9:55 am
Troy-
I’m not sure (as an erstwhile English Literature major) what you mean by saying the DVC is “so badly written” I read it, and it’s a page-turner. You wouldn’t have all those millions of copies sold, and read, by the kind of people you disparage as ignorant, if it didn’t flow. If it flows, it’s well-written. Literary fiction it is not. Historical scholarship it certainly is not. A decent thriller with a good deal of appeal to folks who like things occult and are titillated by conspiracy theories, it is. It was written to make money and very effectively promoted toward that end. The fuss over it as anything but an event in popular culture is silly, imo. And the level of Catholic hysteria is rather troubling.
Comment by Rob — May 19, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
Well, it’s certainly an event in pop culture, but I don’t agree with the implication that it is therefore unimportant. In fact, it’s precisely because pop books are easy to read and therefore read by millions of people that they have more impact on the popular mind than scholarly tomes. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is remembered these days as a middling Victorian melodrama but it was a big factor in the debate over slavery at the time. The fact that people who know better can read something and toss it aside as a bit of fluff doesn’t mean that people who don’t know better are doing that.
The distinction is further blurred by the fact that Brown apparently footnotes a lot of people who wrote this stuff as straight scholarship. If somebody wrote a novel where the Holocaust turned out to be a hoax perpetuated by world Zionism and cited people who are promoting that as fact, I don’t care how pulpy it is, it would still be a bad thing.
Comment by Camassia — May 19, 2006 @ 2:57 pm
Camassia–
There are differences between “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “DVC”, the most of obvious of which is that UTC was given to the public in the midst of an already hugely important and on-going controversy that directly affected the lives of nearly every American in very concrete ways. Moreover, UTC did not deal with speculative mysteries about the distant historical past, but with current events. One last difference would be the relative impact of books on society in the 19th century and before, when the written word was the sole mass medium, and today, when the written word, especially as published on paper, has become more of a still, quiet voice. Those of us who focus much of our non-work time on studying about religion probably over-estimate the impact of DVC on society. What I view as the “hysterical” over-reaction of the RCC, has gotten the controversy some TV time, but in the non-Catholic world, does the furor really even exist? People with a scholarly interest in religion know DVC for what it is: an entertainment. People whose faith is shaken by it obviously had faith that needed to be shaken and rebuilt into something stronger. But my guess would be that most people are either merely entertained by the book, or indifferent to it, or have never taken notice of its existence at all.
Comment by Rob — May 20, 2006 @ 8:06 am
There are differences between “Uncle Tom’s Cabin†and “DVCâ€, the most of obvious of which is that UTC was given to the public in the midst of an already hugely important and on-going controversy that directly affected the lives of nearly every American in very concrete ways. Moreover, UTC did not deal with speculative mysteries about the distant historical past, but with current events.
It does affect the present, because about 80% of America is at least nominally Christian, and the book’s claim is that Christianity is essentially a hoax. Christianity is a faith based upon historical events, so historical claims are highly relevant to it. It goes to claims about God himself (or herself) who is a matter of present concern as much as ever.
One last difference would be the relative impact of books on society in the 19th century and before, when the written word was the sole mass medium, and today, when the written word, especially as published on paper, has become more of a still, quiet voice.
Maybe, although fewer people were literate then so it may come out in the wash. At any rate, it’s a movie now.
What I view as the “hysterical†over-reaction of the RCC, has gotten the controversy some TV time, but in the non-Catholic world, does the furor really even exist?
Sure it does. Several of the anti-DVC books were written by non-Catholics, such as the aforementioned Bart Ehrman and Ben Witherington. In fact, in the debate between Ehrman and Richard Hays that I mentioned earlier — which was held at Duke, hardly a Catholic bastion — one of them says, if we’d advertised this as a debate about the historical validity of Scripture twenty people would have showed up, but we say it’s about the Da Vinci Code and look, there’s standing room only! The huge Episcopal church where Hugo works is also hosting some big discussion about it soon. Back when the book came out somebody accosted Telford about it. And of course, the woman at my lunch table brought it up totally unbidden. So yeah, I would say this has generated some debate outside of Catholicism.
People with a scholarly interest in religion know DVC for what it is: an entertainment. People whose faith is shaken by it obviously had faith that needed to be shaken and rebuilt into something stronger.
I think it is good that the public discussion seems to be educating people, but I would add that it’s only because of what you think is a hysterical overreaction that anybody actually is being educated. And yeah, it would have been nice if people already knew the history of their own religion well enough so this wouldn’t be a challenge, but on the other hand most of us lean on cultural consensus about a whole lot of subjects. I don’t think every generation needs to re-argue the case for heliocentrism, or discover again why Newton’s physics beat Aristotle’s, or debate the germ theory of disease. I don’t think that the fact that many Christians have leaned on cultural consensus a certain amount is really a problem with their faith, it just indicates that those arguments were thought to have been settled.
But my guess would be that most people are either merely entertained by the book, or indifferent to it, or have never taken notice of its existence at all.
Well, my experience is anecdotal, but it sounds like yours is largely guesswork, so this may not be an issue that can be settled here. However, the experience with the woman at lunch jives with a lot of my experience of Americans and pop culture, which is that nobody really wants to admit that it affects them, but it still plants things in their heads. I don’t know what the long-term effect of DVC will be, but the overall point I was getting at was that a culture’s stories are an important part of its collective consciousness, so I would never dismiss something out of hand as being “just” fiction.
Comment by Camassia — May 20, 2006 @ 6:20 pm
Camassia:
Perhaps you’re right. But my anecdotal evidence consists of the fact that where I work (a state university), nobody has ever brought the book up in my presence. Nobody has brought up the movie. Three of the five people in my immediate area, and several of the other people with whom I come in contact daily, are Catholics; none of them are talking about DVC in either genre. I contrast this with Mel Gibson’s movie, about which everybody was talking, and about which everybody had an opinion at the time it was playing.
The current New Yorker Magazine has an article about DVC in it, which purports to explain, at least in part, the various machinations behind the strength of the controversy, where the controversy rages. I can only report that it’s not raging among the folks with whom I interact in the real world.
There have been many books over the years that have questioned the divinity of Christ. I remember one non-fiction book that must have been published when I was in high school, entitled “The Passover Plot” that was a best-seller. I read that at the time, but I don’t remember it shaking my faith any more than DVC has. At any given time, there are dozens of books on the market that question the divinity of Christ. I really think that the fuss over DVC is a combination of good marketing and the ill-conceived over-reaction of the RCC which has given DVC more titillating publicity than it deserves.
Comment by Rob — May 20, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
It seems to me that the DVC may be more harmful to people outside of the faith than to those in the faith. People immersed in “new age” thinking may have their highly creative imaginations further activated to consider ever more bizarre scenarios as historical and religious “possibilities.”
The writers that are truly harmful to people of nascent faith are authors like Ehrman and Pagels, even as they may criticize the historical details of the DVC. They are the ones coming on as providing definitive historical and scholarly research to undermine the biblical and orthodox account of Jesus Christ and Christianity. We would do better to zero in on their misleading interpretations than focus too much on Dan Brown’s manifestly preposterous intimations. These will soon blow away even if he sells lots of entertaining books.
Comment by José Solano — May 20, 2006 @ 10:17 pm
“It seems to me that the DVC may be more harmful to people outside of the faith than to those in the faith.”
I don’t see it that way. It seems to me that if completely secular people–of which type there are many in our society, despite the nominal 80% theist poll number–develop an interest in the topic Jesus and Christian history because of reading this book, or seeing its film adaptation, some of them will be drawn into further reading. In the course of that further readin, they are almost certain to encounter the truth, along with all the rest of it. If the Spirit moves them, then, they may actually be brought by this route *into* the faith. If some only have their unbelief strengthened by DVC and its repercussions, those brought into the faith would still represent a net gain for the ranks of the faithful. I see it as an opporunity, rather than as a wholly negative phenomenon for the cause of Christianity.
Comment by Rob — May 21, 2006 @ 9:58 am
So Rob, with respect to what I’m actually saying, do you think that the DVC is more harmful to people in the faith or people outside of the faith? Or, is there no difference?
Your point is different from the one I’m making but don’t you think that the truth of Christ has been virtually hollered from the rooftops for a very long time? Isn’t it more a problem of rejecting the truth than not knowing it? Do not writings like the DVC provide them more suppositions and rationalizations to reject the truth? Shouldn’t we be trying to refute all rationalizations and justifications for denying Christ or does providing the “infidels” —speaking literally and not pejoratively— misinformation and outlandish claims about Christ help them come to Christ?
Should we encourage Dan Brown to write more fascinating misinformation because “those brought into the faith would still represent a net gain for the ranks of the faithful”? I suppose books on witchcraft, etc., would therefore also provide a “net gain” because they relate to the supernatural and negatively to God.
It would be interesting if your number count were right but I don’t think it works that way. More would come to the faith without Dan Brown’s book, or Pagels’ and Ehrman’s books. And without the latter two more would stay in the faith.
P.S. After writing the above I heard Elaine Pagels on Talk of the Nation. She affirmed what I am saying through her defense of the DVC. She is emphasizing “the truth” in the DVC to undermine the biblical and orthodox account of Christ and Christianity. It was acknowledge that Dan Brown relied on her book The Gnostic Gospels for much of the DVC. It is this kind of fiction, coupled with distorted scholarship, that will undermine the Word, the Truth, being transmitted to those outside of the faith. With her solid support of the DVC it will not be so simple for the ignorant to see through the Dan Brown myths and receive the faith.
For more of the truly harmful Pagels perspective see Pagels’ , “The truth at the heart of `The Da Vinci Code’” at http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/14633739.htm
For a sound expose of the Pagels tactics see Paul Mankowski, S.J of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome: “The Pagels Imposture” at http://www.cwnews.com/news/dossier/view.cfm?id=34
Comment by José Solano — May 22, 2006 @ 12:43 pm
Jose–
First of all, I don’t think that the Word *can* be undermined. You can set things up next to it, but you can’t touch its truth. The faith of an individual, therefore, if it is founded in Truth, will not be harmed by any of the books, whether fiction, or purported scholarship that you mention. If it is not founded in truth, it is not true faith. Even in true faith, doubt is inevitable, even healthy, since it leads to soul-searching, and, ultimately, to strengthened faith.
So, no, I don’t agree that DVC is a threat to faith. If it is a threat to anything, it is a threat on to statistics–that 80% figure that Camassia threw out above. If 80% of all Americans profess to be Christians, so what? What percentage of that 80% are true disciples of the Lord? And how likely is DVC to negatively affect their faith? I’m not interested in Christianity as a percentage of market share, but as a way of life, and a mode of being.
Comment by Rob — May 22, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
Here, clipped from the “Disputations” site, is a perfect example of what I’m talking about:
101 Questions & Answers on The Da Vinci Code and the Catholic Tradition, by Nancy de Flon and Fr. John Vidmar, OP. “De Flon and Vidmar not only show where Brown went wrong, but they also unlock the doors (that Brown ignored) to the treasure rooms of the Catholic tradition and they display for the reader the wealth of people, customs, and events that comprise Catholic identity. Far more than a mere Da Vinci Code ‘debunker,’ 101 Question and Answers on The Da Vinci Code and the Catholic Tradition serves as celebration of Catholic culture that uses The Da Vinci Code as its springboard.”
All of the general interest in things relating to Jesus Christ generated by DVC can be seen as an opportunity, and turned to the advantage of the Church. Or, DVC can be seen only as an unfair attack and shrilly decried from a fruitlessly defensive posture.
Comment by Rob — May 23, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
Yes Rob. Any attack on Jesus Christ can and should be turned into an “opportunity” to proclaim the truth of Christ. If you read over what I have said from the beginning you should see that I’m talking about something else.
Comment by José Solano — May 23, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
Jose:
What I am saying is that it’s not a numbers game. It doesn’t matter if DVC effects all the dire things that people fear it will cause. The truly faithful will remain faithful; they will be immune to the lies the book tells. The nominally faithful are not really in Christ to begin with; and some who are totally ignorant of Christ on a personal level will have their curiosity piqued by a phenomenon such as DVC, look into it more deeply, encounter the truth, and be brought into the faith.
If the nominally faithful fall away, the fall is only apparent, since what they are falling away from is false and lie they are telling themselves. But they can’t lie to God; DVC will only have moved them from one lie to another.
Comment by Rob — May 24, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Jose–
You mention those of “nascent” faith. Presumably, such people have been exposed to the Truth. We all have our portion of the Truth within our hearts. It is God’s will whether or not that interior Truth will resonate with Truth encountered in the world and faith thus cemented. If what resonates with the world is that which is false within us, that, too, is God’s will. He chooses to close some ears; He chooses to blind some eyes; He chooses to harden some hearts. Many are called, but few are chosen. God’s will be done.
Comment by Rob — May 24, 2006 @ 10:18 am