The Da Vinci Code
Written by Dan Brown, this is absolutely the most amazing book I ever read! An intricate web of historical intrigue woven with modern events to produce a thriller far better than any other I saw. The book's blurb may be found here. Anyone who hasn't yet read the book is advised to go straight to the market, buy the book, telephone Boss to say you will be late for office next morning, snuggle in bed and start on an unforgettable quest for an explosive ancient secret!
posted by Priyendra at 3:39 PM
4 Comments:
Da Vinci Code is surely a great piece of literary art! I enjoyed it a lot until later...Did you figure out how much is the truth and how much conjecture within the story....
http://priory-of-sion.com/psp/id80.html
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/davinci_nyt.htm
U'll be most certainly shocked to find out that while published as a book of fiction, Dan Brown has irresponsibly mentioned 2 facts to start with: that Opus Dei and Priory of Sion are/were 2 real organizations...In doing so he has not only re-hashed or played around with fact to create a bestseller but he has also played havoc with the belief of millions of Christians....
I guess I feel strongly about writers/directors not understanding their moral responsibility towards verifying the truth before presenting it to the international public...
Dan Brown is as much an irresponsible writer as Shekar Kapoor, distorting facts and releasing the movie Bandit Queen without meeting or showing the movie to Phoolan Devi despite legal notices..talk about freedom of expression....filming and releasing a biographical movie w/o even getting consent of the living person on whom its based....
bottom line: Dan Brown cud have still written the book w/o endorsing that the Priory existed (which is fact as proven legally) and he cud have made the content black and white rather than the grey shades the story leaves on the minds of readers....
5:49 AM
Hey!
I wasn't aware that you grace my blog with your presence :-)
Well about your comment - I have also come up against a number of sources on the internet which claim that much of the Da Vinci Code is a well-packaged lie. However, one must remember that the internet is hardly a medium one should trust to provide authentic information. As easy as it is for Dan Brown to lie in his book, it is easier for the Church/Priory/Opus Dei/whatever to plant false information on the internet. So I would wait before I come across a more authoritative source before I make my judgement on Dan Brown.
Also, I would not get too concerned about the sentiments of the millions of Christians who are hurt by the book. We are in the 21st century and it is high time all of us realize that religions of today grew out of political movements of yesterday. And politics has always involved a bit of foul play . So when Dan Brown publishes a book about foul play by the Church, I am not surprised. Maybe the events he has described are factually incorrect. Even then, I find it extremely improbable that in its 2000+ year history, the Church has not involved itself in any crime/misdeed.
In a broader setting, I feel that we should be moving away from giving religion the importance its given in our lives. True, religion guides millions of people to live their lives better. But it also inspires Hindu fundamentalists to vandalize any painting which shows our Gods in a bad light. It inspires Muslim extremists to pass fatwas against Rushdie. It inspires the Church to suppress anything which goes against its teachings. And it inspires countless wars fought over religious beliefs. In short, it inspires a number of people to behave immaturely because they sincerely believe in the divine history their religions teach them.
Although I was planning a post on this for quite some time, I shall give a preview of what I think here. I think that religions were born out of two main requirements:
(1) To exercise some sort of political power over people,
(2) To impose some sort of morality over marauding populations
Objective (1) has become irrelevant now. Mankind has invented far more effective ways of weilding political power. Religion is still used today as a political weapon, but right-thinking people generally frown when politics and religion are mixed.
Objective (2) still remains valid - though with improved law enforcement capabilities, its relevance has diminished. So I think, that it is high time that we reinvent religion for the modern ages into something that focusses not so much on divinity but on morality/spirituality alone.
8:14 AM
Hi Priyendra!
I just visited ur blog for the first time that nite...BTW on the bloggers list search by Stanford u r listed right after me...U have some interesting thoughts up :)
I have some strong ideas about the importance of religion in one's life with regard to the points that you have brought up but I will refrain from posting them 'coz:
a> I'm quite busy and I know once I start writing it will get long and take up like 30 mins and I have already spent like an hour blogging..
b> I'm not so sure whether they would serve the purpose of a discussion or be of interest to anyone but me...
9:31 PM
Thanks for stopping by! Would love to hear your views some other time.
10:01 PM
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