A waste of time and money....
Well, I finally broke down and read The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. I have finished the novel, and am wondering what so attracts people to this book. (actually, the cynical side of me has a reason, but I'm ignoring that) In the front of the book, Dan Brown states that "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." That's nice. Too bad the same can't be said for his historical "facts".
Before this goes any further: yes, it's fiction. Yes, that means that it's not going to totally match with the real world. I have no problem with that. I have no issue with some new secret society being created or with an existing one being given a totally different message/intent/mission. (I loved National Treasure, and I enjoyed From Hell, despite, or perhaps because, of my own status as a Freemason) But if you do that, it still has to fit in with existing history. It's okay to add another layer to what already happened (see National Treasure), but in order for your book to go onto the "fiction/literature" shelf as opposed to the "science fiction/fantasy" shelf, you have to stay true to history. No making up groups that have supposedly been influential unless there's a reason they've never been heard of. No changing historical fact to fit your plot.
A few days ago (As I write this, more likely be a week before it's posted) I was having a discussion with a friend about a Women's Studies class she was taking, in which she ranted about the apparent need for some authors to give historical momentum to their message by inventing "pre-Christian matriarchal societies".
That's right, invent. They never happened. While in Egypt you could argue (successfully) about gender egalitarian societies, the same can't be said about the Greeks, Romans, or even unrelated societies like the Chinese and Japanese (where in one creation story, IIRC, the birth dark/evil/malformed spirits/gods was explained by the woman speaking first in a marriage ceremony).
A note from page 158: how the Templars got their money and wealth is no mystery, people. It goes like this: then as today, you had people donating great wealth to the Catholic Church. In those days, it was in the idea that you could buy your way into heaven. Some kings and lords donated to the Templars in particular instead of the Church as a whole, seeing as it would be a nice way to sponsor the Crusades without having to actually fight. Since the Templars individually swore vows of poverty (everything that they had or used, even their arms and armor, belonged to the order) any money or land donated to one knight or the whole went to the whole. Since they didn't use that kind of wealth in their endeavors, that lead to a great surplus. Over a couple hundred years that became a wealth that kings envied.
A note from page 256: Ah yes, quoting a historical figure in an attempt to get a point across. In this case "What is history, but a fable agreed upon" from Napoleon. Great. That's up there with "one death is a tragedy, one million a statistic" from "Uncle Joe" Stalin. So basically instead of trying to make the book's plot compatible with historical fact, Mr. Brown decides pursues the angle that historical fact is not fact at all, and instead history is a work of fiction that people believe is fact. This is usually the last resort of an idiot who’s arguments have all been proven wrong (another such last resort is the claim that the idiot in question was "only playing the devil's advocate!").
I was planning on putting a few more specific notes in here, but I ended up so disgusted by the writing (both style and content) that I could not bring myself to care enough to do so.
I would love to know from what parallel Earth does Dan Brown come where this book would not land on the Fantasy shelf. My review can really be summed up by the words I uttered upon completing the novel: "Good Lord, this piece of shit was on the best sellers lists for how long?"