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The Da Vinci Code - were the numerous mistakes deliberate?

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Leoba
Post subject: The Da Vinci Code - were the numerous mistakes deliberate?
Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 7:26 pm
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I know there are a few people here who've read Dan Brown's best seller, and I was rather hoping to find out what the B77 collective thought of it?


I just finished reading it this afternoon. By the second half, I was going mad with frustration. I don't think I've ever come across something so badly edited. Really obvious things that leapt out at me:

- Elizabeth I is not buried in a private apsidal chapel. She's buried with her sister in an aisle of the Lady Chapel.

- Since when have Londoners picniced beneath the willows in St James' Park, when the willows are on the water's edge and therefore fenced off. And tourists don't feed the pelicans - it's prohibited and the likes of me yell at anyone too thick to understand the notice. Also, you cannot see the Palace of Westminster from there. ;)

- Why did Langton make such a big deal out of being suprised by the Temple Church - anyone who even vaguely studies this sort of stuff would know that there are 13th century knights' effigies there - there are even casts of some of them in the V&A!

- As for "Biggin Hill Executive Airport". LOL

- And I was irked by the fact that a so-called expert in codes and religion, who had evidently visited monastic churches before, didn't realise that the Westminster Chapter House had only one door. It doesn't take that much brain power to figure out that that's the usual cloister design!

Those are just the bits that are still haunting me. :P There are plenty more! http://www.lisashea.com/hobbies/art/davincicode.html Yet the author has the temerity to state in his preface that "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.". :LMAO:

I dread to think what the French made of his interpretation of Paris?


Aside from that, I felt it read like a whistle-stop unsubstantiated tour through books I have already read. Aside from the basic thriller-chase plot, there's not a lot to keep you interested if you know "The Templar Revelation" or "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" or any of the other Grail conspiracy books that have hit the mass market in the past 15-20 years. There's something that irritates me about an author who can do so well out of basically ripping off someone else's work, and still makes elementary errors.

I shouldn't get started on the style (there are reasons I don't read this sort of book ordinarily... chapter openings like... "The Hawker 731's twin Garrett TFE-731 engines thundered, powering the plane skyward with gut-wrenching force".. is one of them ;) ).

But above all, how can a book which purports to be revealing a goddess-worship cult, have a central female character who is dumb as a stump? Sophie is simply used as an object on which to project chunks of background text, whilst she sits there and goes "oh yes, I never thought of that".

Last edited by Leoba on Tue 16 May , 2006 10:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Berhael
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 7:38 pm
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The bit that made me hit my head against the wall with frustration was the backwards writing. How could they be so THICK not to realise that it was written BACKWARDS??? Especially since a) they were supposed to be academics and professionals, and b) THE DA VINCI CONNECTION. The world and its mother know that Leonardo wrote most of his diaries backwards (as any self-respecting ambidextrous person will do, just to show off ;)).

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Leoba
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 7:43 pm
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They weren't the most convincing of code-breakers were they really. ;)

And are you telling me that a character allegedly into codes and secrets had never even heard of Mary Magdalene being the spouse of Jesus and ending up in France. My Mum tought me that when I was a kid, as part of general religeous upbringing stuff.



I found this list from someone who does know Paris better than I:
Quote:
- There's no way to enter the Tuileries Gardens by car, especially not where Brown locates the Northern entrance.

- You can't park your car next to the Pyramid; the height difference from the street to the Louvre paved courtyard is about 40 cm - too much for any car.

- It is impossible to see the Centre Pompidou from the Pyramid (you would have to tear down the Richelieu wing).

- The Joconde (Mona Lisa) is not in a separate room, it's in the Grande Galerie.

- You can't buy a ticket for Lille at Saint-Lazare station. Saint-Lazare is the station where trains leave for Caen, Cherbourg, or Rouen. Trains bound for Lille leave at North Station (Gare du Nord).

- If Teabing's Château de Villette is close to Versailles, it cannot be northwest, but only southwest of Paris city center. (I haven't been able to locate such a château.)

- Admitting rue Haxo is close to Roland Garros (which it isn't) you can't find any highway that passes through woods in the time Langdon and Neveu do so after they fled from the Zurich Depositary (which is a bankhouse I couldn't find either).

Apparently many of the mistakes have been corrected in the French version. And others are being picked up as new editions come out. :mrgreen::mrgreen:

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Rodia
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 8:03 pm
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LMAO!

I haven't read the book, precisely because of the hubbub around it... I'm not capable of fully enjoying a book that's on top lists everywhere. It just makes me feel uncomfortable. As someone once described a book by a fairly unknown author "This is a good bit of literature which you can safely read while commuting, in tram or bus, without the fear of some accidental fan sitting behind you excitedly breathing whole chapters into your ear."

;)Dan Brown is too popular right now for me to read him.

And now that I've seen your comments, LOL, I might never try his books. The Paris comments made me laugh. My experiences with Paris are two weeks of sightseeing, and I find all of these errors pretty darn obvious...so it doesn't seem like the man deserves my money. :P

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Lidless
Post subject: Re: The Da Vinci Code - were the numerous mistakes deliberat
Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 8:06 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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Leoba wrote:
But above all, how can a book...have a central female character who is dump as a stump? Sophie is simply used as an object on which to project chunks of background text, whilst she sits there and goes "oh yes, I never thought of that".
Don't bemoan the one fact he got right, eh satch?

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Jaeniver
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 9:01 pm
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:oops: :oops: Will i be stoned to death if i say despite all mistakes i quite liked the book?

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Leoba
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 9:03 pm
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No. Although getting stoned to death doesn't sound like such a terrible way to go really.

What you have to do is explain why you liked it? :P Go on, substantiate that throw-away post. :P

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Jaeniver
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 9:20 pm
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pffff why i liked it.hard question asking :P and i mean the throwing rock thing in case i screwed up there :roll:


well it had alot of interesting facts i didn't even know. Da Vinci not being just a painter etc etc. more interesting facts about religion and the holy grail. and i began to look at paintings differently and indeed began to see differences in them.

the end was a major let down though but nevertheless made a nice easy read.

sorry not very elaborate but it's *late*

Last edited by Jaeniver on Sun 06 Feb , 2005 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Berhael
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Posted: Sun 06 Feb , 2005 9:28 pm
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Hey, I liked it. :D It was entertaining, and well-written in a trashy way; enough to get me hooked until the end, which is all I demand from holiday books anyway... ;)

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enchantress
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 12:54 am
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I read this just recently... mom popped it into my hands after she read it. It was a fun and quick read but despicably written... :P The kind of book you certainly do not even remotely read for the "pleasure of the language" experience. I usually dont tend to love books like that...

Very few facts in it that I didnt know before... Ive always been profoundly interested in the Sacred Feminine... and being a Pagan with a Catholic upbringing thats no surprise really :P

Leoba and Ber, you are so right... some of the dumb moments of the so called "code breakers" had me groaning. The backwards writing was one such moment... and not being able to guess what "Newton's orb" was was another....dear Gods! :P :Q
Im known for being horrible with mystery novels and movies because Im always wrong in guessing things ahead of time... but here even I found some things extremely predictable and couldnt believe that scholarly codebreakers were so uninspired sometimes...

The ending was too cheesy for my tastes, and again, predictable :P

I enjoyed it because I like the themes its associated with... it read fast, and offered some groaner chuckles... but not mightly literature...not at all :P

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 4:00 am
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Leoba wrote: I felt it read like a whistle-stop unsubstantiated tour through books I have already read.

That's exactly how I felt about it. I don't know why the public gloms on to books like this, really. It must be the publisher's advertising ... and then most Americans have no idea of what's in Europe, or what happened in history, and we all love conspiracy theories -Voila!

My daughter did go through online galleries to look at the DaVinci paintings described in the book and she told me that the descriptions are not accurate. Ber, you should know whether the horizon behind the Mona Lisa is interrupted or not without having to look it up. Did DaVinci paint the things that Brown attributes to him?

Jn

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peeg
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 6:29 am
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Well, i've had a look at "The Last Supper" again online, and i suppose the things Brown points out, like the V that Jesus and Mary Magdalene appear to be making, and how they're holding hands, ect. When he wrote about that whole Christ-divinity conspiracy, i suppose, Brown did have somthing going there, since i believe that it's TRUE Christ was not actually God, or the son of God, or anything like that, but a prophet of God. But i'm saying that because i'm a Muslim, and that's a totally different thing entirely.

The point i'm trying to make is that, while Borwn story wasn't too bad- it was, how shall i put it, digestable- the style of his writing killed it. He wrote like he wanted to shove his beliefs and conspiracies down the reader's throat, and there's no saying no.

But perhaps we should consider this. Brown wrote The Da Vinci Code for the average, american popualtion to read. And when you think of it as being a blockbuster, quick-read, holiday book, i suppose it has achieved its purpose there. I doubt Brown was going for the all-time Tolkien award to great writing style and prose.

Despite that, we can't ignore some of his horribly attrocious mistakes, and after he claimed that everything was accurate too, so i'm going with the general inclination here: STONE HIM, STONE HIM!!!! :LMAO: :LMAO:

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Berhael
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 8:18 am
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Jny, yes, the descriptions of paintings at least *are* accurate (it's true that the background in the Mona Lisa has a disjointed horizon). It's also true that the role of Mary Magdalene and St John in paintings up to the 18th century is quite prominent if you regard them as second-rank "celebrities". Whereas, if you view them as another Apostle, much loved by Jesus, and His real life brother, things make much more sense.

I think Dan Brown took bits of here and there (okay, chunks in some cases :P) and wove a thriller with popular ingredients: crime, religion, conspiracy theories. In many cases the sources were wrong, in others they're open to discussion, in others they're just... plain b*ll*cks. ;)

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Dindraug
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 8:31 am
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Dan Brown appears to have done a google search on Grail conspiracies and tacked them onto a barly plausable story. :rage:

Having said that, I like this book, but I like Grail conspiracies and Templer conspiracies and I love pulp. I would compare this to Harrt turtledoves books where Aliens invade in mid WWII. Fab stuff, full of holes and a fabulous read.

I am convinced however that Brown never wanted to portray the truth (TM) but is playing games. He must be deliberatley leaving plot holes, misquotes, bad information. The book has too many, I am sure he is taking the piss big style.

I also made the mistake of reading 'Deception Point', where NASA finds an asteroid containg life from another world buried in an iceburg :Q

It also has plot holes, like how this 190 million year old asteroid got to Earth which nobody questions, or the plauasability of it being a fake by NASA who managed to pick this ton of rock off the floor of the marianas trench and rather than capitalise and say 'we have the equipment to go anywhere on earth' (not possible to this point, certainly not to lift such a large rock), but decided to fake the asteroid thing.

Oh, and it makes the US population look really really stupid. I am not saying they are perfect, but this makes them look like a schole of mackrel.

Not even going to comment on using F14 Tomcats as ferry planes to land on a glacier after a 2500 mile flight, then taking off again without refuleing (I know, plane geek :roll: ).

It is funny, but torture to read. Like Eagle riders of Gondolin (still my fave TORC RP...ever ;) )

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 5:29 pm
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I just (literally so, 15 mins) finished "Illuminati" which I read all day (front to cover, admittedly it is a page-turner). This is the profoundest collection of Mumpitz I ever came across, but it seems it has a good sequel in Da Vinci Code.

Btw. I read it in German, it is possible "Illuminati" has a different title in the original American.

Btbw: It is my opinion the author wrote it for half-educated people like me who just love to correct or anticipate him ("bugger! Go to the rivers fountain at once, you half-wit! It's the only way to drown somebody bernini-style in Rome").

Btbbtw: No offense, but I think Julius Caear's Bello Civilis will still be read when Ben Dayle? Dan Brown? Bryan Doyle? Whoever - will be forgotten.

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Berhael
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Posted: Mon 07 Feb , 2005 6:26 pm
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In English it's Angels and Demons - and I've just started reading it. :mrgreen:

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peeg
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Posted: Tue 08 Feb , 2005 12:07 pm
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DaVinci sucked but you're still reading Angels and Demons, Ber? Very persistent ;)

Let me know if it's worth it.

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Guruthostirn
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Posted: Tue 08 Feb , 2005 4:23 pm
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There's a sequel?

:sick:

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Berhael
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Posted: Tue 08 Feb , 2005 4:49 pm
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It's a prequel, actually, I believe...

Oh, Da Vinci Code was trashy, but a page-turner and good mindless fun; I was given Angels and Demons for my birthday. Very rarely I leave books around unread... ;)

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peeg
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Posted: Wed 09 Feb , 2005 6:13 am
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Bet there's a sequel coming. :sick:

ahh, well, it's a different story when you're practically forced to read it. Don't think i'd be able to stomach it though.......that's one cruel gift-giver you got there :LMAO:

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