it deepens
I feel like I am being chased.
Every time I look around, I see Da Vinci's eyes peering at me from the cover of Dan Brown's book. It's spooky. I have seen the book around the world for the last two years. Everywhere I go, there is a copy of that damn book floating around. It's in friend's houses, bookstores, waiting rooms, on the cover of magazines, in hostel lobbies and in the hands of bibliophiles while they eat their lunches alone.
If it wasn't haunting enough to see those eyes everywhere, now there are movie posters plastered everywhere to show us exactly what the rest of Da Vinci looked like - He looks like Tom Hanks.
The movie comes out today. I am going to see the movie next week. I read the book last year. Dan Brown wrote the book at 4 in the morning back in 2000 and Da Vinci did his thing over 600 years ago. And we are all STILL completely lost as to what all of this means. Is there a hidden message? Is this a great math equation or a complex series of numbers that reveal the truth about the Mormon church? Is this all a complex set up by the Masons to keep the rest of the world in the dark? Are we slaves? Is Jerrod from Subway, the anti-Christ? Help us Obi wan, you're our only hope!
Dan Brown stole the idea for his book and he knows it. He maintains that he is innocent of the charges but you can read Holy Grail, Holy Blood and see where the roots of Dan's Story came from. Dan doesn't like to talk about his book or any book, even though The Da Vinci Code is one of the greatest selling books of all time. That's pretty odd for a best selling author and it usually means... Scandal!!!! He also refuses to discuss the central themes of the book, which are at the core of the book's vitality. The book is so controversial that it makes people want to read it. I read it because it was on a ban list and I love to read banned books! I will admit, I was impressed. It's a great story and I was just as worked up about it's central theme as every other reader that has read it. (I always get that way when I read about old people fucking other old people in basements while other people watch.) I was so worked up and needing more that I picked up Dan Brown's other masterpiece, Angels and Demons, and read that too. Then all of my respect for Dan went flying out the window.
That's a shame. Dan was working an idea and he finally got it right. Angels and Demons came out before The Da Vinci Code and you can tell that Dan was trying to get the story right in his head and finally perfected it when he wrote The Da Vinci Code. Who am I to fault him for publishing some rough drafts? Angels and Demons was good in it's own right, but the story is almost exactly the same and that seems to suck the life out of Da Vinci Code. You feel like an elaborate cover story was being written and tested out. Those damn Elks and their sneaky little secret society!
Without fail, the literary community came to life and jumped on Dan and the book. The onslaught of naysayers, pessimists, skeptics, investigative reporters and the narrow minded religious freaks that loved "Passion of the Christ"(which did NOT make me want to visit Jerusalem at all) was brutal and a whole new writing market was created for wash-outs, never-were's and never-going-to-be's. The books came hard and fast; The Code Revealed, The Church Fraud, The Real Knights Templar, The Truth about the Priory, Priory Revealed, What the Church doesn't want you to know, The True Grail, etc. These books all came out to either support or denounce Dan's book and to do nothing more than just feed a readers need for more information after they finished The Da Vinci Code. The books contain absolutely no factual information and are actually FICTION designed to be NON-FICTION. The truth, it would seem was lost... hmmmm.
The number of books written in response to Angels and Demons; two. One is a step-by-step explanation of the book and one is about that strange writing style that Dan uses on his cover. Angels and Demons - two books. The Da Vinci Code - (by my count) 219 and that just at Borders books.
When ever the CIA wants to discredit something, they put out a lot of conflicting material to CONFUSE the populace. The idea being that if we are arguing the details of a fake issue, then we won't pay attention to the central one. The books that came out after The Da Vinci Code were on the streets only weeks after the debates started. That's pretty quick, eh? Angels and Demons was written in 1998(?), the two books about it came out in 2004. Some six plus years later.
Dan did something more than just write a good story. Dan created dialogue in a world that doesn't like dialogue. He raised questions that some people felt were poisonous and others felt were a light in the darkness. This is never a good thing to do to a people that are supposed to be believing whatever they are told.
But Dan had no idea what he was doing...
Dan stole the book, remember? He went to court with the authors of Holy Grail, Holy Blood and he settled out of court with them. In the court transcripts, it's apparent that he dodged a serious bullet by some random act of God. He does admit to having read Holy Grail, Holy Blood and he admits that he gives the authors a nod in his book by naming a few characters after them. Dan gave the authors shut up money and is sitting back waiting for the dough to roll in from the movie. The mystery about all the hush-hushness grows...
And will there be a sequel. To the book? No. To the movie? Yes. It seems what ever Dan does, people want to keep recreating it or get in on the financial action. And there are those that feel that they should have their opinion heard on the matter, whether we like it or not. This type of writer - not unlike some bloggers or a critics - is a vulture. They feed off the creations of others having never had to stick their own neck out.
Not Dan Brown.
Lost in all of this is Da Vinci himself, who, if I am not mistaken, is barely given any love by the world. Sure there are books and television shows about him, but his work (other than the paintings) are lost to our generation. Even with the bright lights of Hollywood shining down on him now, he is invisible in all of this and no schools are being named after him. Martin Luther King didn't design anything and he has schools, streets and a holiday. The last movie that even touched on the genius of Da Vinci in a mode other than painter, was "Hudson Hawk".
Dan wins the money, but loses all credibility. Dan will be known as the author of one of the most successful books of all time and he will forever be stuck in a world that only a very select few authors have ever known. Ayn Rand, Margeret Mitchell, Katherine Dunn, Truman Capote and Harper Lee - These writers were defined by one book that haunted their future work by casting a shadow so large that anything else they would have written would have been lost in it.
Unless Dan's next book exposes Hogwarts Academy as the devil worshiping society that is behind the Loch Ness mystery, he's all done. (He could call it, The Odd Nedrum Flummoxing... look him up...)
Every time I look around, I see Da Vinci's eyes peering at me from the cover of Dan Brown's book. It's spooky. I have seen the book around the world for the last two years. Everywhere I go, there is a copy of that damn book floating around. It's in friend's houses, bookstores, waiting rooms, on the cover of magazines, in hostel lobbies and in the hands of bibliophiles while they eat their lunches alone.
If it wasn't haunting enough to see those eyes everywhere, now there are movie posters plastered everywhere to show us exactly what the rest of Da Vinci looked like - He looks like Tom Hanks.
The movie comes out today. I am going to see the movie next week. I read the book last year. Dan Brown wrote the book at 4 in the morning back in 2000 and Da Vinci did his thing over 600 years ago. And we are all STILL completely lost as to what all of this means. Is there a hidden message? Is this a great math equation or a complex series of numbers that reveal the truth about the Mormon church? Is this all a complex set up by the Masons to keep the rest of the world in the dark? Are we slaves? Is Jerrod from Subway, the anti-Christ? Help us Obi wan, you're our only hope!
Dan Brown stole the idea for his book and he knows it. He maintains that he is innocent of the charges but you can read Holy Grail, Holy Blood and see where the roots of Dan's Story came from. Dan doesn't like to talk about his book or any book, even though The Da Vinci Code is one of the greatest selling books of all time. That's pretty odd for a best selling author and it usually means... Scandal!!!! He also refuses to discuss the central themes of the book, which are at the core of the book's vitality. The book is so controversial that it makes people want to read it. I read it because it was on a ban list and I love to read banned books! I will admit, I was impressed. It's a great story and I was just as worked up about it's central theme as every other reader that has read it. (I always get that way when I read about old people fucking other old people in basements while other people watch.) I was so worked up and needing more that I picked up Dan Brown's other masterpiece, Angels and Demons, and read that too. Then all of my respect for Dan went flying out the window.
That's a shame. Dan was working an idea and he finally got it right. Angels and Demons came out before The Da Vinci Code and you can tell that Dan was trying to get the story right in his head and finally perfected it when he wrote The Da Vinci Code. Who am I to fault him for publishing some rough drafts? Angels and Demons was good in it's own right, but the story is almost exactly the same and that seems to suck the life out of Da Vinci Code. You feel like an elaborate cover story was being written and tested out. Those damn Elks and their sneaky little secret society!
Without fail, the literary community came to life and jumped on Dan and the book. The onslaught of naysayers, pessimists, skeptics, investigative reporters and the narrow minded religious freaks that loved "Passion of the Christ"(which did NOT make me want to visit Jerusalem at all) was brutal and a whole new writing market was created for wash-outs, never-were's and never-going-to-be's. The books came hard and fast; The Code Revealed, The Church Fraud, The Real Knights Templar, The Truth about the Priory, Priory Revealed, What the Church doesn't want you to know, The True Grail, etc. These books all came out to either support or denounce Dan's book and to do nothing more than just feed a readers need for more information after they finished The Da Vinci Code. The books contain absolutely no factual information and are actually FICTION designed to be NON-FICTION. The truth, it would seem was lost... hmmmm.
The number of books written in response to Angels and Demons; two. One is a step-by-step explanation of the book and one is about that strange writing style that Dan uses on his cover. Angels and Demons - two books. The Da Vinci Code - (by my count) 219 and that just at Borders books.
When ever the CIA wants to discredit something, they put out a lot of conflicting material to CONFUSE the populace. The idea being that if we are arguing the details of a fake issue, then we won't pay attention to the central one. The books that came out after The Da Vinci Code were on the streets only weeks after the debates started. That's pretty quick, eh? Angels and Demons was written in 1998(?), the two books about it came out in 2004. Some six plus years later.
Dan did something more than just write a good story. Dan created dialogue in a world that doesn't like dialogue. He raised questions that some people felt were poisonous and others felt were a light in the darkness. This is never a good thing to do to a people that are supposed to be believing whatever they are told.
But Dan had no idea what he was doing...
Dan stole the book, remember? He went to court with the authors of Holy Grail, Holy Blood and he settled out of court with them. In the court transcripts, it's apparent that he dodged a serious bullet by some random act of God. He does admit to having read Holy Grail, Holy Blood and he admits that he gives the authors a nod in his book by naming a few characters after them. Dan gave the authors shut up money and is sitting back waiting for the dough to roll in from the movie. The mystery about all the hush-hushness grows...
And will there be a sequel. To the book? No. To the movie? Yes. It seems what ever Dan does, people want to keep recreating it or get in on the financial action. And there are those that feel that they should have their opinion heard on the matter, whether we like it or not. This type of writer - not unlike some bloggers or a critics - is a vulture. They feed off the creations of others having never had to stick their own neck out.
Not Dan Brown.
Lost in all of this is Da Vinci himself, who, if I am not mistaken, is barely given any love by the world. Sure there are books and television shows about him, but his work (other than the paintings) are lost to our generation. Even with the bright lights of Hollywood shining down on him now, he is invisible in all of this and no schools are being named after him. Martin Luther King didn't design anything and he has schools, streets and a holiday. The last movie that even touched on the genius of Da Vinci in a mode other than painter, was "Hudson Hawk".
Dan wins the money, but loses all credibility. Dan will be known as the author of one of the most successful books of all time and he will forever be stuck in a world that only a very select few authors have ever known. Ayn Rand, Margeret Mitchell, Katherine Dunn, Truman Capote and Harper Lee - These writers were defined by one book that haunted their future work by casting a shadow so large that anything else they would have written would have been lost in it.
Unless Dan's next book exposes Hogwarts Academy as the devil worshiping society that is behind the Loch Ness mystery, he's all done. (He could call it, The Odd Nedrum Flummoxing... look him up...)
posted by Daniel Loomis | 7:37 AM
<< Home