Da Vinci's Code - and What Came Before...

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A short film on Discovery caught my eye today, examining the possible facts and the mythology behind Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. It was definitely interesting, and I enjoyed it. Now, I haven't read the book myself, as I tend to have a bit of a hype aversion. However, as the film went and examined the history of Christ's possible descendants I started getting a kind of deja vu. I have not read any stories about that thing so far, but something was quite familiar. Eventually, I remembered what - a similar story was told in a game I played once, Gabriel Knight III. It is a bit hard to play, but the story seemed impressively told from what little I played of it - I would recommend it to everyone.

Now, I doubt Dan Brown plagiarized Jane Jensen's work, but this got me thinking. Doubtless, there were other books written on the topic. Now, they certainly didn't get the publicity the Code enjoys, but this movie got me interested on the topic and I'd like to read more about it. Do you know of any such books, and are they good read?

 

There are members of the Mormon Church that believe Christ could have been married (this is not official doctrine, but was the opinion of many church leaders in the early 1800's). So the idea was public in the early 1800's.

The DaVince Code was written in 2003. Dogma was released in 1999. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was written in 1982 (which is the book the copyright violation claims came from). The Last Temptation of Christ was written in 1960 (which had Jesus married -- the movie was good). Those are the only ones I know off the top of my head.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure that GK III and Da Vinci code are both based loosely on the same book T2 mentioned. Gabriel Knight games are certainly jewels of the adventuring games and I'd recommend all three of them for everyone. The thing that made GK III so good are that 3D makes wonders to certain scenes. I still think the wineyard scene with Grace as one of the most atmospheric scenes in gaming history.

To me the Da Vinci code never really delivered, I had played GK III through earlier and had been familiarized with the theme and other than that I did not think the book had much to offered. I got bored and never finished the book allthough I was quite close to the end.

 

IIRC The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail was itself based on a French book from the 50s or 60s, so the ideas presented in it were not entirely the authors' creation anyway.

 

If you haven't read any Dan Brown--don't.

 

The Code isn't a good book. It's something that you'd read on a plane to kill time.

 

Agree, don't!

 

Something you'd read on a plane to kill time. I usually read pretty good stuff during flights

 

Yeah but I like to sleep through long flights

 

I agree.

Don't get me started on Dan Brown.

I'm pretty sure the only time he was anywhere else than his own country, was at the lawsuit.

And that facts, culture and knowledge is foreign words for him.

All Brown's so called facts can be debunked using 5 minutes on the Internet, which according to Brown, CERN has invented...

But I'm disappointed that Brown didn't insist on Arnold Schwarzenegger as Robert Langdon in the movies, instead of Tom Hanks.

After all Robert Langdon survives things in the C-movie scripts Brown has published as books, that only Arnie could.

And it would be fitting to hear someone with heavy austrian accent presenting himself as "Professor in Symbology"

 

The character, Robert Langdon, may be based somewhat on this gentleman:

http://www.johnlangdon.net/background/

Brown writes fiction (I can't comment on the quality). What's interesting is that people confuse "fiction" with "facts." Writers have had fun with that for years.

The symbolism used in his work (which he has largely borrowed from other sources) is very powerful. It is based on the Jungian archetypes and they speak directly to the unconcious. If logic is just another way of manipulating language, and hence what we "think" or believe, the archetypes move us beyond language. In many ways they are more powerful than "mere" language; they are strongly emotive, latent, and affect us on levels on which we are not fully aware. They are surely prehistoric, and I believe they are divine in origin, although others believe they are the result of the process of evolution. Choose whichever argument manipulates you the most - that would be the "rational" thing to do.

 

I caught a bit of the film on TV last night while I was channel hopping. It's one of the few times I would say that the film is better than the book.

Saying that, the film sucked as well

 

Kind of like the Harry Potter books and movies, right?

/me waits to get destroyed

 

Uh, I've been waiting to say this:

What's Brown and rings like a bell?