Friction over fiction
I’ve read “The Da Vinci Code.” But I don’t think I’ll bother to see the movie which opens May 19.
No, don’t get me wrong; that’s not to join the call for a boycott. Author Dan Brown spins a great story. The book weaves together Vatican “secrets,” Opus Dei, Biblical lore and a “relationship” between Jesus and Mary Magdalene that kept me reading. It was fast-paced, rich with detail and very suspenseful. “Code” plops contemporary events down in the middle of historical facts, mixing in real people and real situations.
It’s also fiction.
I have no doubt the movie will be successful. But it, too, is fiction, despite Brown’s very market-savvy avoidance of conceding it.
I’m reading a series of books right now by another mystery writer, Daniel Silva, who also plops contemporary events down in the middle of historical facts, mixing in real people and real situations. One plot draws on the story of the developing relationship between Catholics and Jews which grows out of the Holocaust. It includes Popes Pius XII and John Paul II and assorted cardinals, bishops and governmental officials both past and present and a series of likely, even possible, but quite undisguised fictional scenarios.
Another Silva book discusses former Israeli leaders Begin and Rabin, throws in Arafat with flashbacks about the violent history between Jews and Arabs beginning in the 1920s.
The history is real; the events in the book which Silva draws from that history are not. And Silva, true to a novelist’s code, never says they are. He’s content to make you think so along the way as the suspense builds toward a climax.
Whatever else you can say about “The Da Vinci Code”—and a lot of Christians are saying quite a lot on the eve of the movie’s release—Brown breaks faith with the novelists’ code for the crassest of reasons: marketing and sales.
It’s worked. The book made him a millionaire.
Brown picked up quickly that many people are eager to believe seemingly logical but wildly speculative tales about their faith. History it’s not.
Maybe, in part at least, that’s the fault of organized religion which has long used the rationale of “mystery” as a chief vehicle of faith. Such “mystery” doesn’t always fit in well with the information-age culture. It leaves people already shaky on their faith’s roots grasping for what they perceive is fact—even when it’s not.
Brown’s a novelist. A few of his other books—not about religion—have even taken on a science fiction twist. I’ve read them. I doubt anyone is mistaking them for science fact.
Because of Brown’s marketing and lack of forthrightness, his story is perceived to attack the image of faith. And certainly there are people who believe it. Elsewhere in this issue of The Catholic New World you can read some of what Christians are saying about the upcoming movie as well as offering resources designed to counter his very anti-Christian message.
The story in “The Da Vinci Code” is an exciting one. If you read the book you already know that. If you didn’t, see the movie as suspenseful, imaginative entertainment. Just don’t forget: it’s fiction.
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And speaking of “image,” Loyola University deserves applause for its recent marketing which put a great shine on the school’s public persona.
Examples of the effort to focus on what it called “Loyola Values,” include: “Learn to rely on your ethics as much as your Blackberry,” “Learn broadly, serve generously, lead courageously.” And my favorite, “90 percent of the brain is developed by age 5. The heart is another matter.”
Image works best when there’s truth behind the words.
Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager
