Da Vinci
I suppose I should mention something about the Da Vinci Code, as everyone else seems to be getting drawn in, so here I go.
It’s a well-written thriller, in general, but the historical research is amazingly shoddy. As fiction, I’d give it a B, but if he submitted the “research” behind it as a term paper, it’d get an “F” at most, and we might even have to invent a lower grade for it. He begins with a page stating “facts”, virtually none of which is actually true in the strictest sense, though a few items you could “spin” into being acceptably true, in the sense that claims made in TV commercials are “true.”
You see, I’ve been down this “historical” road a few decades ago, when I read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, but it seems Dan Brown lacks the critical skills required to be a researcher or historian. He seems to believe everything he reads (’it’s in a book, therefore it must be true”) which is a fatal flaw when doing research, though quite essential, if only in a temporary sense, when reading fiction.
(more…)