Da Vinci
finally read The Da Vinci Code. yep, at a time when most ppl are talking about the movie, i decided that i should use my time better by picking a novel than sleeping away my time as i had been doing. besides, it's about time that i find about what it's all about since it's given rise to such a heated debate between Christians and non-Christians.the book wasn't too bad, although not as spellbounding as most ppl have made it to be. compared to it there're certainly many books that i really couldn't put down, and i am not even a great reader.
i fail to believe how some ppl could take the book to be more than pure fiction. some of the the riddles are just too bizarre and symbles have meaning that are just too far-fetched. you can always make ppl believe there's a link btw 2 things if you just try. For example, in the book, the chalice represents the feminine, because it "resembles a cup or vessel and, more importantly, the shape of a woman's womb." ok, i won't dispute with that cos it's probably in history books. but to say that in the painting The Last Supper, the contour formed by Jesus and the person he's leaning away from is the same shape as the chalice, and therefore Leonardo was trying to hide the "secret" that the Holy Grail is actually a woman, is just ridiculous. in many places throughout the book, the author will see 2 lines forming an angle and claim that it's a hidden chalice and thus making a link to the feminine. right, so the line "diamonds are a girl's best friend" has a lot of truth in it, cos the shape of a diamond's exactly that of the chalice?
sorry, i have a tendency to pick on little things but i find there're a lot of perhaps trivial things in the book that just annoy me. eg
1. the book keeps referring to the apple as the object that Adam and Eve partook that incurred God's wrath, when it's only named as a fruit in the Bible. Ok, there probably is a reason why most ppl mistook it to be an apple (and i can't recall the explanation) and maybe it was an apple, but does Dan Brown used the apple too liberally.
2. the key that opens a Swiss bank deposit box is an electronic one (that has complex series of laser-burned pockmarks examined by an electric eye) is believe in the early 21st (which is when the book is set), but was technology that good more than 10 yr ago the first time the heroine of the book saw the key?
3. Dan Brown said Jesus had to be married because all rabbi were required to. But Jesus wasn't officially a rabbi, so the rule didn't apply to him.
4. the reason that the Sister at Saint-Sulpice gave the albino for protecting the secret of the keystone and Holy Grail is that Opus Dei does not honour the "one true message that Jesus had" is not consistent with what's revealed in the rest of the book. She's not doing it to pretect the secret just from Opus Dei.
anyway, now that i've read the book, i can finally move onto reading material that debate The Da Vinci Code. eg http://www.challengingdavinci.com/ and from that i've learnt eg:
- the claim that Leonardo was flamboyantly gay is a gossipy speculation built on skerricks of information
- Art historians discovered that Mona Lisa was not named by its painter, but later by L's biographer.
i guess overall, the book's a more of a blessing than a vice. debating leads to quest for knowledge which leads to truth. the stubborn will always be stubborn, but the others will eventually be won over by truth with the work of the Holy Spirit.
posted by zhinger @ 10:19 pm
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