quote:

---

If you check out Brown's geographical facts, such as riding on the London Underground from Temple Bar to King's College, when Temple is the nearest Underground station to King's College, you see the accuracy of Brown's research.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Gextvedde:
That's basic stuff that any author should expect to get right.

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quote:

---

the only thing that you can call Brown out on is that he has that stupid foreward that claims these details are correct.

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Agreed, but isn't that the point. I have no problem with fictional names places or artistic licence with past events but good old Mr Brown has tried to claim more than this. If someone tries to suggest that because he gets the geography of London right, then somehow this makes the historical claims of the book more plausable, I'd have to disagree.

As for the Maidstone/London thing, I was just being silly.

[ 03. April 2006, 10:03: Message edited by: Gextvedde ]
 

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Posted by Margaret (# 283) on 03 April, 2006 11:57 :
 
I don't really blame him for not knowing the geography of a foreign city, but one of the things that most annoys me is his use of Opus Dei. If he'd managed to spend even half an hour reading up a few basic facts about the organisation, he'd have discovered, for example, that it was founded to help lay and ordained people live a dedicated life in secular society, so It Just Doesn't Have Monks. Not even giant albino killer ones
 

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Posted by Teufelchen (# 10158) on 03 April, 2006 11:59 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Margaret:
I don't really blame him for not knowing the geography of a foreign city

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
It's not like he needs to tell us accurately where to find post offices in Novosibirsk.

T.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by A Lurker:
Just to be an absolute pedant, the claim at the front is that 'all details of art, architecture, documents and secret rituals are accurate'.

That suggests to me that all the buildings are accurately described, not that they're described as being in the right place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by A Lurker:
Just to be an absolute pedant, the claim at the front is that 'all details of art, architecture, documents and secret rituals are accurate'.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by the_raptor:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gextvedde:
That's basic stuff that any author should expect to get right.

---

Not if it is inconsequential to the plot, and given the audience* it is inconsequential. It is called artistic license, most authors do it, the only thing that you can call Brown out on is that he has that stupid foreward that claims these details are correct.

* Mostly americans who probably couldn't tell you if London was in the North or South of Britain.

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quote:

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Originally posted by universalist:
Those who look for authentic history in Dan Brown's book miss his point entirely. He is not attempting to prove anything. Story is story, and Brown uses fun fiction to make a very profound point: Thanks to the Imperial Church and it's influence on many peoples, we have lost the Sacred Feminine within our religions and cultures, resulting in obnoxious patriarchy and a one-down position for women most everywhere.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by universalist:
Those who look for authentic history in Dan Brown's book miss his point entirely. He is not attempting to prove anything. Story is story, and Brown uses fun fiction to make a very profound point: Thanks to the Imperial Church and it's influence on many peoples, we have lost the Sacred Feminine within our religions and cultures, resulting in obnoxious patriarchy and a one-down position for women most everywhere. THAT is the travesty, and Brown makes the point well. All the debate about historical accuracy is a smoke screen, obscuring the point of the book.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by universalist:
Those who look for authentic history in Dan Brown's book miss his point entirely. He is not attempting to prove anything. Story is story, and Brown uses fun fiction to make a very profound point: Thanks to the Imperial Church and it's influence on many peoples, we have lost the Sacred Feminine within our religions and cultures, resulting in obnoxious patriarchy and a one-down position for women most everywhere. THAT is the travesty, and Brown makes the point well. All the debate about historical accuracy is a smoke screen, obscuring the point of the book.

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quote:

---

I don't really blame him for not knowing the geography of a foreign city, but one of the things that most annoys me is his use of Opus Dei. If he'd managed to spend even half an hour reading up a few basic facts about the organisation, he'd have discovered, for example, that it was founded to help lay and ordained people live a dedicated life in secular society, so It Just Doesn't Have Monks. Not even giant albino killer ones

---

yes, but Ruth Kelly wouldn't be half as effective as a Scary Picture!
 

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Posted by Rex Monday (# 2569) on 08 April, 2006 17:36 :
 
Speaking as a journalist, it's well known within the profession that doing too much research kills a story.

Had to do it to one of my colleagues last week, who'd got something from usually reliable sources - it was impeccable in every respect, except it smelled funny (was about two Oriental researchers working at the junction of two highly technical fields, and the reportage from the other sources seemed to reach some peculiar conclusions). Took a bit of digging, but no, whatever the story was it wasn't as reported - and it wasn't important enough to spend the considerable amount of time needed to go to the original sources, sort out the language problems, find experts in both fields prepared to be quoted, and so on.

So I spiked it. This does not make a chap popular, does not fill a space on the page and makes it look as if we'd just missed the story (most of our competitors were running the original, dodgy story, which has by now silently drifted away in any case).

In the case of DVC, as reported, I've no doubt that if Brown had increased his level of research to the point where he did get gross details right he'd have had a hard time making the story hang together. Far better to forge ahead and just not bother with stuff that takes time and can only bite you on the backside - it is, after all, fiction with no particular plausible accuraacy (despite the author's claims).

It's interesting to compare this with Patrick O'Brian, whose meticulous attention to detail is famous, yet practically unremarked by the author himself. I know which style of fiction I enjoy more.

R
 

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Posted by Margaret (# 283) on 08 April, 2006 20:55 :
 
It must help to have just a little idea about the area you're researching, though. I was rather charmed to notice, as I scrolled through the DVC judgement, that there was a page in the Browns' copy of "Holy Blood and Holy Grail"

quote:

---

where a corner has been turned down and Blythe Brown has written “what is Grail?”

---

 

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Posted by andrewschmidt (# 10822) on 09 April, 2006 08:21 :
 
I read TDVC some time ago, and as an Ex-South African living in Australia who is totally uncouth, I assure you he could have had the lourve in Londin and I would have kept reading.

I was a little surprised at the fact that some-how Jesus and the Magdalene had somehow only managed to produce a bloodline that 1900 years later meant they only had 2 descendants. My parents are not yet 60, and have caught up. My grandparents have seriously overtaken that mark, and as we go back the numbers get even bigger.

Does he account for this in the book (and I just don't remember/didn't notice) or did the priory carfully insist that Jesus' descendants only ever had one child. If the latter this seems rather stupid of them.

Andrew
 

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Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on 09 April, 2006 08:58 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by universalist:
All the debate about historical accuracy is a smoke screen, obscuring the point of the book.

---

Which is to make money.
 

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Posted by Anselm (# 4499) on 10 April, 2006 06:20 :
 
I always assumed that his claim at the beginning of the book as the reality of the two groups, the paintings and the buildings, was his way of saying that everything else was made up.
 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on 10 April, 2006 10:00 :
 
I think that the significant point here is that Brown presents his book as being fiction, based on certain "facts". Now most readers of the book won't have the nous to appreciate that the things he presents as "facts" are actually hugely questionable conjecture.

If the book was clearly fantasy fiction, I wouldn't be bothered about it. But it tries to claim a veneer of authenticity. So it is only proper that he should be slapped down over all the ridiculous errors within it.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on 10 April, 2006 10:24 :
 
Noone has yet mentioned the enormous logical inconsistency at the heart of the book.

He spends a lot of time building up this picture of Mary Magdalene as the Holy Grail personified. The main justification for this is that 'she must have been a really special person, she was married to Jesus.'

Hang on a minute, Mr Brown. Setting aside the question of how you can claim to be a champion of the Sacred Feminine when her sacredness depends on her relationship with a man, you have also said that Jesus was not the Son of God. If he wasn't, then why should the woman he married be deserving of any special respect? You can't have it both ways.

Or maybe you can; he seems to have got away with it so far.

Jane R
 

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Posted by Rat (# 3373) on 10 April, 2006 11:18 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:

Hang on a minute, Mr Brown. Setting aside the question of how you can claim to be a champion of the Sacred Feminine when her sacredness depends on her relationship with a man, you have also said that Jesus was not the Son of God. If he wasn't, then why should the woman he married be deserving of any special respect? You can't have it both ways.

Or maybe you can; he seems to have got away with it so far.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Rex Monday:
Speaking as a journalist, it's well known within the profession that doing too much research kills a story.
....
In the case of DVC, as reported, I've no doubt that if Brown had increased his level of research to the point where he did get gross details right he'd have had a hard time making the story hang together. Far better to forge ahead and just not bother with stuff that takes time and can only bite you on the backside - it is, after all, fiction with no particular plausible accuraacy (despite the author's claims).

R

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Margaret:
It must help to have just a little idea about the area you're researching, though. I was rather charmed to notice, as I scrolled through the DVC judgement, that there was a page in the Browns' copy of "Holy Blood and Holy Grail"

quote:

---

where a corner has been turned down and Blythe Brown has written “what is Grail?”

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you):

quote:

---

Originally posted by Margaret:
It must help to have just a little idea about the area you're researching, though. I was rather charmed to notice, as I scrolled through the DVC judgement, that there was a page in the Browns' copy of "Holy Blood and Holy Grail"

quote:

---

where a corner has been turned down and Blythe Brown has written “what is Grail?”

---

---

Grail and Grail! What is Grail?

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...and thus it was that the Lady Trudy asked the Question, and the Quest for the Holy Grail was achieved.

T.
 

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Posted by ClaryQ (# 3737) on 12 April, 2006 10:22 :
 
hmmm, let me see (author thinks in study)

I'd like this book to really catch on, since my pension needs consolidating...

cult books seem to guarrantee quite a long term return. I need something that is going to get the obsessives going

Let's write something that gets the blood boiling, with some red herrings in that get people really involved in trying to extract the fiction from the fact.

In any case a global audience (may as well think big) aren't going to be too bovvered where biggin hill is anyway.

Wahay, Bingo! thanyou and roll on the Bahamas.
 

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Posted by jrrt01 (# 11264) on 12 April, 2006 12:02 :
 
A few church history 'facts' that perhaps deserve some attention, from chapter 55.

He claims that Constantine in the fourth century chose the four gospels out of 80 possibilities, implying that any of the others could have been chosen. Which ignores Irenaeus in the second century pointing out that there are only four authentic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

He claims that Constantine was a pagan, only baptised on his deathbed because he was too weak to protest. Almost certainly wrong - many Christians delayed baptism until their deathbed to avoid post-baptismal sin.

He claims Constantine shifted observance of the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday to honour the sun god. But this shift happened in the first century, and was (of course) to honour the resurrection.

He claims that until 325 and the Nicene council, Jesus had always been regarded as just a mortal prophet. Jesus' divinity was only established by a vote. But the opposite is more true: the main heresy of the second century was docetism, where people claimed that Jesus, divine, only appeared to be human. And no-one at Nicea would have thought that Jesus was just a mortal man - the question was whether he was equal or not (from the same being) to God the Father. But everyone agreed that he existed before all creation, that through him creation was made, etc etc. Brown also had Teabing claim that the vote was close - it wasn't. Only a handful of bishops didn't sign up, compared to about 300 who did. As someone else has pointed out, Brown has Teabing explaining that this established the Roman Catholic church as the only sacred channel - whereas it was mainly the eastern churches who were represented at Nicea, and who didn't and still don't recognise Rome as being over them in authority.

He also claims that those who chose the 'original' history of Christianity were the first heretics. This ignores the docetists, the adoptionists, the gnostics, who were all deemed heretics long before. Indeed, Irenaeus' book (second century) is called 'Against heresies'.

But the book is still a very good read.
 

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Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on 12 April, 2006 20:30 :
 
jrrt01

Welcome to SofF. And thanks for your very clear and accurate post. (I've been batting on a very similar wicket on the "Gospel of Judas" thread.)
 

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Posted by musician (# 4873) on 22 April, 2006 21:09 :
 
Bart Ehrman(this is he)'s book "Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code" here is good for Real Information which may - or may not - come across as distorted in the fictional book.
 

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Posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you) (# 5647) on 22 April, 2006 22:43 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrrt01:
He claims Constantine shifted observance of the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday to honour the sun god. But this shift happened in the first century, and was (of course) to honour the resurrection.
...
But the book is still a very good read.

---

quote:

---

Brown said he often uses a pair of gravity boots during writing, finding it easier to work out difficult plot points while dangling upside down.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you):

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrrt01:
He claims Constantine shifted observance of the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday to honour the sun god. But this shift happened in the first century, and was (of course) to honour the resurrection.
...
But the book is still a very good read.

---

jrrt, great post overall and I agree with all your points except the two quoted above ...

For the first, I have to come on like the tiresome Seventh-day Adventist that I am and point out that while Dan Brown is of course vastly oversimplifying, the Christian observance of the first day of the week can be more accurately traced to the second century than to the first, that it was by no means universal until mandated by Constantine, and that while it was of course intended to honour the resurrection, the fact that it was the day of sun-worship did make the spread of first-day worship more attractive and easier for newly converted pagans.

As to your point about it being "a good read," I just included it for a laugh ... that is, of course, purely subjective. I personally found it a page-turner, but not "a good read" by the standards of what I enjoy in a book, but its literary merit is not the subject of this particularly thread.

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quote:

---

Originally Posted by BalaamBoth near the beginning and end of the book, people enter the Louvre and after going through the entrance see an inverted glass pyramid, matching theone at the entrance. The inverted pyramid exists, but it is in the centre of a shopping mall built underground in the Louvre courtyard, but before you get to the museum entrance.

---

You can walk from one to the other, though not without walking through some subterreanean (sp?) passages first. It would be much easier to just enter the shopping arcade off the Rue Rivoli.

Also, like someone else said, the American embassy is within easy walking distance of the Louvre, at the top of the Champs Elysees. It would have taken all of two minutes to drive there at that time of night.

Having said all of that, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book, and I really liked it.

LMM

ps: Does anyone else think you can drive through the Tuileries? Because i'd have sworn you can't and there is a big set of steps where the Arc Du Carousel is at the end...
 

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Posted by ladyinred (# 10688) on 19 May, 2006 11:46 :
 
I've only read the beginning (on his website) but his version of Paris baffles me completely... Sheer morbid curiosity forced me to look at the map to try and work out WHATEVER route he'd managed to take from the Ritz to the Louvre - and I'm more confused than before

To get there should be about a two-minute drive down the rue St Honoré (without the need to speed - it's practically next door). Somehow they manage to take in the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower, which are in the opposite direction altogether, followed by the rue de Rivoli. Which is a one-way street. COnsequently the only way I can work it out is that they're driving up it the wrong way in the face of a LOT of oncoming traffic

I was also entertained by the image of an on-duty police officer wearing a religious symbol followed by a little reflection on how religion is practically a birth-right in France. Not in the France I live in, it isn't. In the France I live in, girls get sent home from school for wearing headscarves...

Red x
 

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Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on 22 May, 2006 12:54 :
 
When they arrive at the train station,they arrive at Gare St Lazare, and then the next chapter flips to someone else's view point. Next time we're back with Langdon & Niveau, they're in the Gare du Nord (which is the right location for a train to Lille).
 

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Posted by Chris Brann (# 11439) on 23 May, 2006 11:58 :
 

IN the end all of this discusion is pointless. No one can have there world view / faith changed by argument only reniforced.
If they are weak in faith/ worldview then they will shift around anyway.
Only an encounter with the real Christ will ever bring people to a life changing unswerving faith, which no amount of strange books and odd ideas will ever shake.
This is what happened to me.

All faiths organisations have been infulenved by
power and money we just have to acept that we are fallen people and will never get it all right.

 

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Posted by Teufelchen (# 10158) on 23 May, 2006 13:25 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chris Brann:
IN the end all of this discusion is pointless. No one can have there world view / faith changed by argument only reniforced.
If they are weak in faith/ worldview then they will shift around anyway.

---

quote:

---

I was a little surprised at the fact that some-how Jesus and the Magdalene had somehow only managed to produce a bloodline that 1900 years later meant they only had 2 descendants. My parents are not yet 60, and have caught up. My grandparents have seriously overtaken that mark, and as we go back the numbers get even bigger.

Does he account for this in the book (and I just don't remember/didn't notice) or did the priory carfully insist that Jesus' descendants only ever had one child. If the latter this seems rather stupid of them. Posted by andrewschmidt

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quote:

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9. Brown claims Leonardo’s Mona Lisa painting is an anagram for the pagan gods Amon and Isis. Leonardo, however, called his painting La Giaconda, after the subject, who was the wife a Florentine businessman, Francesco da Giacondo. (Mona is a contraction of Madonna, and Lisa was Francesco’s wife’s name.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Henry Troup:
More pointedly - all the anagrams and such like are in English. WTF? Leonardo spoke modern English?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Henry Troup:
Diocese of Brownsville lists 14 errors, of which my favorite is

quote:

---

9. Brown claims Leonardo’s Mona Lisa painting is an anagram for the pagan gods Amon and Isis. Leonardo, however, called his painting La Giaconda, after the subject, who was the wife a Florentine businessman, Francesco da Giacondo. (Mona is a contraction of Madonna, and Lisa was Francesco’s wife’s name.)

---

More pointedly - all the anagrams and such like are in English. WTF? Leonardo spoke modern English?

---

Good points, although I have to admit that the Diocese of Brownsville's particular method of "answering" the Da Vinci Code (similar to that being used in my own church at the moment) makes me want to rush out and buy the book and see the movie even though I think it's crap, just because I so hate it when the church tells us what to read and watch.
 

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Posted by Emma-Jean (# 7165) on 31 May, 2006 03:58 :
 
I was suspending my disbelieve and enjoying the story until my knowledge of French caught up with me. The Fleur-de-lis is not a lily at all. (Many people make this mistake since the French word for lily is lis.)

The "lis" in Fleur-de-Lis is short for Louis. It was Louis(the King of France)'s flower (not Lisa's which is the theoretical connection to the Mona Lisa in the book) and it's an Iris. In particular Louis' flower is a yellow Iris/Yellow flag.

If you look at the Fleur-de-lis, which being Canadian I have had a number of opportunities to do so (there are 4 on the flag of Quebec), you'll see it looks far more like an Iris than a lily.

[Incidently: The Iris is also said to be a symbol of the trinity with it's three petals facing up to heaven and three facing down to earth.]

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest maybe I can go back to suspending my disbelieve. If I can also get over the fact that Job 38:11 contains rather more than seven words
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on 31 May, 2006 04:23 :
 
Dumb question, but does the Louvre really have bars of soap? I haven't seen this in a public place for, oh, ages. They all have those useless liquid soap dispensers that leak everywhere.

Of course, it would have seriously screwed up the Escape if Sophie had had to wrap the tracking dot in a wad of wet toilet paper.

[ 31. May 2006, 03:24: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 

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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on 31 May, 2006 20:56 :
 
Yes the English anagrams were annoying weren't they ?

Surely it should have been pomme not apple if the codex was made by Sophie's grand master. Also how did it take them so long to work out the last clue for apple - it was extremely obvious.
 

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Posted by Pewgilist (# 3445) on 01 June, 2006 04:01 :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
Yes the English anagrams were annoying weren't they ?

Surely it should have been pomme not apple if the codex was made by Sophie's grand master. Also how did it take them so long to work out the last clue for apple - it was extremely obvious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Henry Troup:
Diocese of Brownsville lists 14 errors, of which my favorite is

quote:

---

9. Brown claims Leonardo’s Mona Lisa painting is an anagram for the pagan gods Amon and Isis. Leonardo, however, called his painting La Giaconda, after the subject, who was the wife a Florentine businessman, Francesco da Giacondo. (Mona is a contraction of Madonna, and Lisa was Francesco’s wife’s name.)

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Of course, it would have seriously screwed up the Escape if Sophie had had to wrap the tracking dot in a wad of wet toilet paper.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma-Jean:
The "lis" in Fleur-de-Lis is ... an Iris.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
Yes the English anagrams were annoying weren't they ?

Surely it should have been pomme not apple if the codex was made by Sophie's grand master. Also how did it take them so long to work out the last clue for apple - it was extremely obvious.

---

quote:

---

The Priory, like many European secret societies at odds with the Church, had considered English the only European pure language for centuries. Unlike French, Spanish and Italian, which were rooted in Latin -- the tongue of the Vatican English was linguistically removed from Rome's propaganda machine, and therefore became a sacred, secret tongue for those brotherhoods educated enough to learn it

(Bold mine, italics Brown's)

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quote:

---

Sir Isaac Newton's burial, attended by kings and nobles, was presided over by Alexander Pope, friend and colleague, who gave a stirring eulogy before sprinkling dirt on the tomb

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quote:

---

Originally posted by The Om:
Carys is half correct about the naming of Roslin - the 'ross' means 'promontory'. Interestingly it's named as "formerly St Matthew's Collegiate Church" on the 1854 map.

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quote:

---

Which, of course, rhymes with "Isis"..... coincidence?

---

Well, um, no, it doesn't. The final "s" of Isis is a Greek case ending; in her native language, so to speak, only the first "s" is present.

See why it pays to study Coptic?
 

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Posted by Jimbo the Rooster (# 8489) on 30 June, 2006 10:13 :
 
Is it just me or does Brown glibly refer to the Dead Sea Scrolls as historically backing up the non-divine nature of Christ? Despite the fact that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain exclusively OT scripture (possibly apocrypha stuff too, i'm not sure...).

It was painful to read it, you get the feeling that if the book had been about anything else, the copy editors would have thrown it at him. But it becomes essential reading when it works its way into secular canon and you hear these "facts" being spouted by your friends as if they had researched it themselves. That's why we have canon, for crying out loud!!

*stamps tiny foot*
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on 30 June, 2006 13:58 :
 
I vaguely recall something like that, but I think if I got the actual text out, we'd find it was one of those weaselly references where he didn't actually in so many words say so, just implied the hell out of it. You know, like this:

Policeman: Were you aware you were doing 90 in a 35 mph zone?

Driver: I'm sorry sir, my wife is having a baby [ in about two more months ].

ETA: Welcome to the Ship!

[ 30. June 2006, 12:59: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 

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Posted by Callan (# 525) on 30 June, 2006 17:00 :
 
A nice one is Godfrey de Bouillon instructing the Knights Templars to remove the evidence that he was descended from Mary Mag and J.C. from the Temple of Solomon (quite why it would be kept there when the descendants had been living in France, since the first century AD is a mystery). Unfortunately the Order of the Temple wasn't founded until 18 years after Godfrey's death.
 

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