Yeah, I don't mean to make any statement regarding to entertainment value of the book: I haven't yet read it. It's true that the ideas he uses for his book are not new and are things that have been debated. In fact, I'm sure it makes for interesting fictional reading. The only problem I have is that those ideas have been pretty strongly debunked in terms of what we know historically. I'm not a fan of ignorance of any sort, and so I do find it frustrating that he would claim such ideas as being based on fact, allowing for so many people to then take his word for it. Of course, I also know that comparative study between what we know historically and what is written in various religious scriptures is something I am particularly interested in, so misinformation in that realm of information is something I am particularly sensitive to. Not as someone who ascribes to any particular religious belief - while I consider myself "Christian," I don't think there's a single denomination active today that would take me if I explained exactly what I believe, especially since I don't believe the bible is a history book nor do I believe it is inerrant - but as someone who values knowledge and believes everyone should benefit from accurate knowledge and avoid the spread of misinformation. That's obviously a tall order to live up to, and no one could ever dream of being perfect in that regard, but when such established hoaxes as the Priory of Sion are claimed to be factual, or when an assertion is made that there is evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdaline were married or had a child, even though no evidence of it exists in *any* document we have, canonical scripture or otherwise, I do find it to be an egregious misuse of literary influence.
Even if I were to give Dan Brown the benefit of the doubt and say that his intention was to make people think more critically about what they believe in (as opposed to saying he's a poor author who can't even do the few weeks, at most, of research it would take to show that things he claims are true are actually not), I still find his methods to be insulting. There are a *ton* of ways to make people think critically about their beliefs that do not involve simultaneously forcing the issue with assertions that are not based in any scientific/historical research whatsoever.
Just for good measure, a little exerpt from Wikipedia:
Quote:
In a short preface, Brown lists a series of "facts" underlying the fiction of the novel. He declares that "the Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci."
If this is not a mere marketing trick, it would seem that Dan Brown takes the fantastic claims of the Secret Dossiers more or less at face value, as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail did before him. In the body of the novel itself (chapter 48), it is said that "the Dossiers Secrets had been authenticated by many specialists and incontrovertibly confirmed" that the famous people listed were indeed former Priory leaders—something "historians had suspected for a long time." It should be understood that this fictionalized treatment completely reverses the judgment of real-world researchers, who (with the exception of dedicated conspiracy theorists) have rather dismissed the Dossiers as obvious forgeries. Nor had any "historians" ever suspected that Newton, Botticelli etc. were members of any "Priory of Sion"; this claim first appeared in the Dossiers themselves.
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Oh, and btw, welcome to TFP Lady Sage
