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Points of View
Deciphering The Da Vinci CodeBook may make reader feel like Oliver Stone, but it does not make one a historian.It was inevitable, I suppose, that sooner or later I would have to read Dan Brown's latest literary endeavor -- The Da Vinci Code. A best seller, recommended by Oprah and Clive Cussler, the book has something for everyone: apocryphal gospels; Knights Templar and a quest for the Holy Grail; conspiratorial Masons and secret societies in the contemporary Catholic Church; a priest blackmailing the Vatican for 20 million euros; his dedicated servant, a monstrous albino, already responsible for four murders before the end of chapter one; the mysterious teacher whose goal it is to expose the secret that will destroy the Church of Rome; the kindly old director of the Louvre Museum in Paris, a victim of the albino, who spends the last hour of his life scratching coded messages on the backside of the priceless paintings; his beautiful granddaughter, who just happens to be a gifted cryptographer; a fortyish professor from Harvard, expert in every conceivable ancient culture and language, acknowledged as one of America's most attractive bachelors in tweed; a relentless French inspector, replete with Clouseau mustache, grunting his suspicion of everyone; and a handicapped English knight who wields a lethal crutch.This is the cast of characters who must keep the frenetic pace established by author Brown. Late one night, Jacques Sauniere, curator of the greatest museum in Paris, is shot dead in the Grand Gallery by the albino. Immediately after, Robert Langdon, on a speaking tour, is summoned to the Louvre by Captain Beau Fache of the Surete. Before his death, Sauniere, a man celebrated for his fondness for riddles, positioned himself on the floor like da Vinci's Vitruvian man leaving an inscription and numerical code in marker and his own blood. As the inspector and professor tilt with one another, they are joined by Sophie Neveau, a skilled police cryptographer, who just happens to be Sauniere's granddaughter.She assesses the situation, decides that Langdon is innocent, and plots his escape from the secure area. They lead the police on a merry chase through the main streets of Paris, on to the decadent Bois de Boulogne and into the French countryside. They make a required stop (to secure contents of Sauniere's safe deposit box) at a branch of the Bank of Zurich and then, after brassing their way past a police lockdown a second time, they arrive at the chateau of Leigh Teabing, an Englishman who has made pursuit of the Holy Grail his life's mission. Sealed off a third time by the French police, the heroes drive into the darkness in a Range Rover. One quick, illegal flight across the Channel and they arrive in Kent, where the English police prove to be as witless as the French. From there it's only a short jaunt to the old Temple Church, the Roslyn Chapel in Scotland, and Westminster Abbey before the puzzle is finally worked out. People who have read The Da Vinci Code are impressed with the amount of research Brown has done in writing this book. Not simply the detail he weaves in describing many locations, I mean his exposition of church societies, paganism and its symbology, the various interpretations of what truly constituted the Holy Grail, reforms introduced by Constantine the Great, and the alleged significance of a mathematical ratio known as phi. The latter is a hoax akin to pyramid power. Those who call for the restoration of the female principle in early religion should drop by any ancient-history class where votive objects from the Neolithic period are properly called Venuses, where Sumerians employed religious prostitutes known as sal-me priestesses, where the magna mater or Cybele Phrygia was venerated from Druid England to the land of the Khatti, and where the Persian Anahita and the Egyptian Isis enjoyed popularity in the Roman world.Picking up a few facts from a piece of fiction may make one feel like Oliver Stone, but it does not make one a historian. The Da Vinci Code is no gateway to hidden mysteries of Christianity. Nor are its vaunted self-tests a primer for Mensa. Once rendered in proper sequence, the numerical formula left on the floor of the Grand Gallery by Sauliere is easily understood by any middle-school student. When Professor Langdon pronounces the "Semitic" script that opens chapter 71 untranslatable, Sophie Neveau is perplexed. It took me less than a minute to grasp the nature of this inscription. It required about the same length of time to decipher the reference to an orb missing from Sir Isaac Newton's tomb, that was fleshy, sweet and red, and which could be spelled in five letters.Finally, with all the blurring of time and reality, fiction and history, there is something unfair about a book whose validity rests with a highly controversial interpretation of da Vinci's Last Supper. As Brown suggests, the figure who sits directly to the left of Jesus in that marvelous painting exudes a feminine quality. The figure wears a cloak and gown that mirror the garments of Jesus. Normally identified by art historians as Saint John, he even appears to have a bodice. But it is a quantum leap to suggest that he is not a man -- rather Mary Magdalene -- and that she is the 14th person to appear at the seder.There are 13 figures in the painting -- count them 13 -- Jesus and the 12 apostles.Miscounts are one thing. Brown's interpretation of what constitutes the Holy Grail and his characterization of efforts to locate the chalice are as laughable as the misadventures of the troupe from Monty Python. A more sensible (if unacceptable) view of Mary Magdalene was presented by Martin Scorsese more than a decade ago in The Last Temptation of Christ. Scorsese's film was based on a novel of the same name by Nicholas Kazantzakis. Brown alludes to Scorsese's film early in his own book. Although that earlier film provoked a storm of criticism from defenders of the faith, Brown was not deterred from plowing old fields anew. And so The Da Vinci Code, a weak book that will be a weaker movie, ends, unresolved, back in Paris where it started."