The Da Vinci Code — What’s it All About?

by by Suzanne Poor

For the last 87 or so weeks, The Da Vinci Code has been moving up and down The New York Times Best Seller hardcover list. For the past 70 or so weeks, Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons has been on the paperback best-seller list. A friend of ours in the bookselling business says men are buying as many copies of The Code as women, but for different reasons. The men are looking for a page-turner, buying the book first published in April 2003 for the murder mystery. On the other hand, women are intrigued because of the sacred feminine aspects of the novel and its focus on ancient goddess worship, especially Venus. The novel, set in Paris, begins and ends in the Louvre, which, according to author Brown, has the largest collection of goddess art in the world. It’s easy to believe all that Dan Brown writes, because he authenticates the descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals and claims that two organizations, The Priory of Sion and Opus Dei, a deeply devout Catholic sect, are in fact real. Everything else is fiction.

What then is truth?
In reality, there are confirmed truths in the book. However, Mr. Brown makes so many mistakes about his details that a whole industry has arisen refuting his premises, his knowledge of religion and even his understanding of the streets of Paris. New books have been published, others republished, springing up like dragon’s teeth. Elaine Pagels, a tenured professor at Princeton, a respected scholar and the author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Faith, has gained a new credibility. Books Brown obviously relied on have come out of the woodwork. Many reflect New Age thinking, refuted out of hand by serious scholars.

Some of Brown’s detractors claim that the book isn’t well written; others rave. It does meet Aristotle’s criteria for a beginning, middle and end, and it does confine the action to 24 hours. There are, however, very few allusions as in Willa Cather’s novels, little poetic euphoric moments as in William Shakespeare’s plays, no hubris or fallen heroes, no compelling lessons. On the other hand, information about the early pagan practices, philosophy and mysteries spills from every page. One wants to believe it.

Nonetheless, in spite of all the critiques, the book is fabulous. Why? Because it addresses issues that religion, the church, misogynists and a multitude of patriarchal adherents are reluctant to acknowledge. On our earth, there is a history, although suppressed, of powerful feminine entities. And that’s where Dan Brown excels. Whether references to classic goddesses, ancient sexual rites, Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife, Da Vinci’s use of the Vitruvian Man to lead the police and Robert Langdon to the 15th-century artist and his reported worship of Nature’s divine order, the book is loaded with controversial topics. Was Mary Magdalene a powerful political person? Was she wealthy and a supporter of the new faith? What indeed is the Holy Grail?
Most people who have sped through the 454-page mystery race to the library or the bookstore to examine Da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” And what do they find? Exactly what Langdon and Sophia discover in their search to uncover the lead character’s killer. The figure history has described as John is, they maintain, Mary Magdalene. And we want to believe, even though it seems so unlikely.

What has occurred and developed is a whole cult around what Brown’s novel has dared to communicate. People are now reading The Da Vinci Code simply to be able to join in conversations — at cocktail and dinner parties, in church, even in the dentist’s chair. As one of the writers in one of the hundreds of books now on the market either extolling or condemning the premise put it, The Da Vinci Code may never be included in the world’s literary canon, but what will linger are the issues Dan Brown raises. One, of course, is the original church’s repression of women.

There is indeed a lesson for us as writers, communicators, poets, and novelists in the extraordinary success of this book. Although early acclaim for the work calls Brown a pure genius, the real brilliance is that Dan Brown found a way to communicate with a wide, wide audience using a subject that many of us have never thought about, a subject that has been taboo for others, and a theme that will remain fresh and vibrant. (Think of all the stories, tales and films about looking for the grail.)

May we all be so fortunate and find such a subject to uplift our spirits and our work.

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