Great signature line, honeychile! The guy who runs the coffeehouse where my wife and I hang out has read it twice. I asked him why and he said it's because he's a painter (the coffeehouse is also a gallery with rotating shows), so the first time he read it as art history, the second time as a mystery. He hasn't decided yet if it's art history disguised as a mystery or vice versa, but he recommends it heavily. I'm on the local library's waiting list for it.
It's a very entertaining read. I would caution, however, that you shouldn't take a lot of the historical information as gospel (sorry for the bad pun). Many of the historical tidbits, art or otherwise, offered up as fact are actually still very much debated. Still, the book made me want to research those issues further and for that reason alone I would say that it's definitely worth reading.
Off topic a bit: hey Yo-yo, they're talking about you on a thread halfway down the page in this forum, on the Catch-22 thread
I just put myself on the waiting list at my library as well, and I was number 337. I think they have 25 or so copies between all the different branches, though, so hopefully it won't take too ridiculously long.
Its a little wierd when you pull up the pieces of art he talks about (espically the Last Supper) and you see what he says. It wierded me out a bit.
im around 300 pages into it now. so far the best book i have read. i plan on doing research myself too to see what is true and what at least has some factual backing to it. is angels and demons by the same author?
To expand on that it's the first book using the guy who is the main character in The DaVinci Code. They're both good books, but I definitely like Angels & Demons better.
I just saw that. (and I usually see everything twice wink/wink) Never received an invitation and frankly I'm hurt.
Funny, I was going to start a Dan Brown thread as I just finished Angels and Demons last week, but I wanted to wait until I finished the Da Vinci Code first; I'm on page 250 or so. They are both interesting, historically compelling novels. Very readeable "pop" literature, if you know what I mean. They are page turners in a way I haven't come across since I read some of the better Ludlum and Clancy novels. I read them on the train in the morning, and look forward more to reading them on the train on the way home than I do to going home at the end of the day, if that makes sense. I don't think either of them are as good as Cryptonomicon on the whole, but they are in the same range of books, blending fact and fiction to tell an interesting story. Both included some highly improbable events, Brown's books may include more fantastic strokes of luck than Stephenson's, but only a few were so ridiculous that they bothered me any. I think you have to agree to go with the flow and not worry if something seems as patently impossible as you know it to be. Being an amatuer art and history buff, as well as a fan of travel I found them pretty cool. To have been in the Castel Saint Angelo and the Vatican makes them more fun to read about. Hopefully his next book will deal with somewhere else I've been, because if he does a Prague book I'm hosed. One question, what is his axe to grind with the Masons? I had no idea the guy laying pavement in my driveway was such a historical co-conspiritor. Also, I was walking up West Broadway in NYC and I passed a treasury building that had "Novus Ordo Seclorum" (sp) on it, and I laughed out loud.
Funny. I read this book back in February from a recommendation from this very website. Have also read Angels and Demons and while it is as intellectually stimulating its not such a strong plot. Has anyone read 'Digital Fotress'?
##### News Flash #### ABC are showing a special show in response to The Da Vinci Code on monday. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Entertainment/ap20031030_2369.html
Re: ##### News Flash #### i saw a show on the history channel or discovery channel about the whole jesus - mary magdalene connection. it was very interesting.
Damn, I'm sorry I missed that show. I accept that Brown's relating of the tale is just one theory of how it all happened with some tenuous links to reality in it, but the thing that bothers me about Religion is that it is also just one theory of how it all happened, with some equally tenuous links to reality. Growing up as a kid, it was never presented as a theory it was- literally- gospel. Dan Brown putting a theory into a fictional book is one thing, and a relatively innocuous thing at that. Christianity isn't innocuous, but that's another forum.
I saw most of the show, as it was convienently on just before Monday Night Football. There was nothing jaw-dropping about it but they got some good interviews. The most interesting point they reinforced was how powerful the Church was from the first few centuries after Christ when they effectively choose which gospels to include and which not to - all the way up to 15th Century Rome where if you said something the Church didn't like you were in serious trouble.
I watched it. They mentioned what they called the "gnostic gospels." I'd heard of them, but was told they were called "The apocryphal writings." I'd looked for them for years, but never could find them. Maybe the apocryphal writings are something else. I hadn't read the book, though I had caught a documentary or two relating to the grail and the bloodline of christ or so. If you missed the show, you didn't miss much...about what you'd expect from a 1 hour minus 20 minutes of commercials feature on ABC.
Great book. Cranked it out in a couple of hours because I couldn't put it down. Gonna check out 'Angels and Demons' when I get a chance.
You'll occasionally see a Bible (say, the Oxford Study Bible) that says on the title page "The Oxford Study Bible (With Apocrypha)." In this case, it means that the Bible includes, in a separate section, books that are in Catholic bibles, but not Protestant ones. Obviously, from the Catholic perspective the books are canonical, not apocryphal. Other times, the word "Apocrypha" refers to any book not in the biblical canon. So there are Apocryphal gospels and epistles, as well as Old Testament/Hebrew Bible texts as well. Some of these are gnostic, some are not. http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/apocrypha.htm This site has links to NT apocrypha as well. ANd this doesn't even get us into the topic of pseudepigrapha! Don't even get me started on that
Actually, I heard the expression "the apocryphal writings" in a Catholic high school "religion" class taught by a Christian Brother. He said they included stories such as Jesus as a child striking dead a kid who was teasing him; I guess that was the teachers way of discrediting the whole collection, though he was a rather liberal and intellectually honest teacher (probably didn't last long in that school, I'm guessing). Later, from a former Pentacostal Minister-in-Training (its a long story), I heard about the "lost gospels" that mentioned Jesus being married and having kids. That was the first time (and pretty much the last time until recently) I'd heard such a thing.
I watched the ABC documentary on Monday, and stumble upon this thread on the book, I read the excerpts from the website, and it has the makings of a pretty fascinating book. Now I also saw on the website that Columbia pictures has acquired the rights to make a movie, actually several movies, one on the Da Vinci Code, another on Angles&Demons, and on any future works. Since in the book itself they make mention of "Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones)" will the movie be along those lines, my favorite Indy movie is "Indiana Jones and the quest for the Holy Grail," so anyway, glad I found this thread, and I will pick up the book as soon as possible.