A set-up for the faithfuls: The Da Vinci Code
Posted on May 17, 2006 - Filed Under Review |
IF Dan Brown's blockbuster book Da Vinci Code has any message or code at all, it is not about Jesus' affair with Mary Magdalene or the Opus Dei's supposedly murderous game to keep the Catholic faith's secret. By this time, thanks to the enormous publicity and reviews for the book and movie generated by the religious and sycophants themselves, that supposed faith-shaking revelation — even to those who have yet to see the movie or read the book –has grown stale. The suspense has practically ebbed; all one has to see now in the movie (which debuts today, Wednesday, in Cannes I think it is, prior to a worldwide release by Friday)is the chase, the dark shadowing, the hushed talks and the whodunit as acted out by Tom Hanks and company.
What the Da Vinci Code, as far as I'm concerned, is out to prove is this: That ages after Eve's curiosity in the Garden got the better of her and ate of the fruit against The Master's earlier warnings to her and Adam, Man still wants and looks for the Forbidden Fruit, wherever he may be.
All Dan Brown had to do to assure himself mega profits is not to be a Scriptures scholar or expert but to play on people's escapist yearning for mystery and drama in his works and injecting a full and deliberate dose of sacrilege to it to boot. He then counted on the gatekeepers' (the Church and all its faithfuls) very predictable reaction to his heresy for the needed controversy and — voila, a bestseller not unlike Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie's own blockbuster Satanic Verses, is born!
The Code was nothing but a ploy. There's nothing secret about Man's oldest passion and scourge –rumor mongering.
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