[the_old_crowd] Re: Hoy!

[susiequsie23]

Eileen:
>>> I think the reason people get worked up on the subject is that Dan Brown
*does* claim the book's propositions are true. He allows that his story
is made up but insists that pretty much everything else in the book is
factual. 

The book includes an infamous page of FACTs, apart from the the fiction.
Particularly dubious is the assertion that the Priory of Sion is a real
organization dating back to the eleventh century, instead of the 1950s
invention of a royalist French crank. Though this disclaimer takes the
cake, imho: 

"FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret
rituals in this novel are accurate."

They are demonstrably wrong in almost every possible way. 

Secondly, an annoyingly high proportion of his fans treat his fiction as
FACT. If the general population treated the Da Vinci Code as fiction,
there wouldn't be the big debate there is about it. Instead, it's
difficult to take a step these days without running into someone who
will inform you that they've learnt "interesting things" from the Da
Vinci Code. Some of it's just *headdesky*. <<<


SSSusan:
This reflects my major annoyance with DVC as well.  I thought it was an *interesting* read; it did raise a lot of questions for me about church history (and I had a very helpful talk with a clergy member about those).  OTOH, I find it "unfair" and irresponsible of Brown to both paste the subtitle "A Novel" across the front of his book and to then include this list of "Facts," which is, as you point out, an incredibly questionable list.  But does the average reader *know* that it is?

To me it's similar to Oliver Stone's film "JFK."  [Try typing "JFK" now. It's very hard after so much "JKR"!]  He doesn't come out and say, "My movie is ALL TRUE."  Yet he intermingles fact w/ fiction, he makes *new* film to match old footage, and the "splices" aren't readily apparent to the audience.  Same thing with intermingling fact/evidence and theory.  As a high school history teacher, it was brought home to me that the kids I was teaching had no *idea* how to evaluate that movie.  DVC has a similar problem, imo.

Siriusly Snapey Susan


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