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| Before the Da Vinci Code By Antonio C. Abaya Written Jan. 31, 2006 For the Standard Today, February 02 and 07 issues Dan Brown�s fast-paced novel, The Da Vinci Code, is easily the most talked-about novel ever written in any language, the most widely circulated book ever published (save, perhaps, the Bible and the Qur�an), and possibly the most controversial literary creation in the modern (Western) era since D. H. Lawrence�s Lady Chatterley�s Lover. Even the article I wrote on it, �Da Vinci�s Code� (Aug. 19, 2004), was one of the most viewed columns in my website www.tapatt.org in 2004-2005, and will undoubtedly draw even more viewers when the film version of the book comes to a theatre near you this May. Efforts of the Opus Dei to have the film banned will just make the film and the book, and articles commenting on them, even more irresistible to millions of people. Unknown perhaps to most Da Vinci watchers is the fact that about four or five months ago, Dan Brown was sued by three British writers who claimed that Brown had filched their intellectual property to use in his novel, without permission or acknowledgment, and asked for damages amounting to, if memory serves, a cool $200 million. Brown may have to settle out of court, if he hasn�t done so yet. The three � Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln � are authors of a book titled �Holy Blood Holy Grail� which was published in 1982, or 21 years before Brown�s The Da Vinci Code. For the sake of brevity, I will from now on refer to the three as BLL and their book as HBHG, and to Dan Brown as Brown and his book as DVC. I am currently reading HBHG in a Dell paperback edition which I purchased from amazon.com last year. It is not a work of fiction but a minutely detailed product of painstaking historical research and investigative journalism. It is 438 pages long, with the margin less than one centimeter wide on each page, and in addition has ten pages of bibliography in English, French and German, 29 pages of numbered footnotes and references in eye-straining fine print, and an 11-page index. But since the authors are not professional historians, their opus is not regarded as serious history. Baigent is a psychology graduate doing research on the Knights Templar for a film project. Leigh is identified as a novelist with a postgraduate degree in comparative literature. Lincoln, the team leader, is a filmmaker who, among other things, did three documentaries for the BBC in the 1970s, precisely on the subject that became the starting point of HBHG and, by extension, Brown�s DVC: a mystery that Lincoln stumbled upon in 1969 (when Brown was probably still in kindergarten) in the Pyrenees village of Rennes-le-Chateau in the south of France. While reading HBHG, I am also re-reading The Da Vinci Code. And at the same time I peek into two books critiquing Brown�s novel. One, Fact and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code, is a �page-by-page analysis� of DVC by Steven Kellmeyer. The other is The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction, by Hank Hanegraaff and Paul L. Maier. The first has an arrogant Roman Catholic view; the other an Evangelical Christian (meaning, born-again Protestant).one. In addition, there are two lengthy anti-DVC articles in the Reference Material archives of www.tapatt.org, written by Roman Catholic writers. Finally, I have a DVD titled Da Vinci Code Decoded, which defends DVC and includes interviews with several writers, including Dan Brown himself and Henry Lincoln, one of the three authors of HBHG who have since sued Brown. Another interviewee is Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, which I plan to read at the appropriate time. All books and the DVD were acquired from amazon.com early in 2005. I do not know if any of them is/are available here.. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can proceed. Anyone who has read The Da Vinci Code and then picks up Holy Blood Holy Grail will be struck by the similarity in contents: the Cathars and the Albigensian heresy and the crusade launched against them, the Knights Templar in Jerusalem and then in Europe, the Priory of Sion, the Merovingian dynasty in medieval France, the legend of the Holy Grail, the Gnostic Gospels and the sacred feminine, Constantine the Great and the Council of Nicaea, the marital status of Jesus, the role of Mary Magdalen, cryptic codes in paintings and church buildings, mysterious parchment documents discovered in ancient churches. The list of common topics is too long to be coincidental. The difference, of course, is that DVC is a novel (written in 2003), while HBHG is a non-fiction journalistic opus (written in 1982). The appeal of Brown�s novel, aside from its fast-moving mystery plot, is the interweaving of much historical data into the fictive storyline, data which some find inimical to and subversive of traditional Christian beliefs. Where and how did Brown accumulate so much arcane historical details about early-to- medieval Christianity? In his Acknowledgments page, Brown thanks 33 individuals and 15 institutions and organizations. But none of the individuals seem to be authorities on any of the many historical events or phenomena inserted into the novel. Certainly none of the 33 appear in the extensive bibliography in HBHG as authors of any of the books consulted by BLL in their research. DVC, being a novel, has no bibliography at all. The conclusion that Brown lifted substantial historical data and conclusions from HBHG without asking the permission of BLL, as BLL claim in their lawsuit, is hard to avoid. As I write this, I am only on page 96 of HBHG and there are already several telltale signs that Brown avidly read HBHG before and while he wrote DVC, so much so that some of the real names in HBHG rubbed off into his subconscious and influenced his choice of names for his fictional characters. This is a minor point, of course. But since both books deal with the same, widely written- about historical events, though from different perspectives, it is inevitable that they mention the same persons, the same dates and the same places, and Brown can claim that he researched his information from sources other than HBHG. It is in the minor points where his plagiaristic slip is showing. For example, Brown�s fictional curator of the Louvre, whose murder is the starting point of the novel, is named Jacques Sauniere. In the non-fiction HBHG, written 21 years before DVC, the authors write that their interest in their subject matter was first aroused when one of them stumbled in 1969 on a book LeTresor Maudit (The Accursed Treasure) by Gerard de Sede, about some ancient manuscripts unearthed in 1885 by a parish priest while he was doing some restoration work in his church in the Pyrenees village of Rennes-le-Chateau. This real-life parish priest was named Berenger Sauniere. Coincidence? There�s more. On page 32 of the non-fiction HBHG, the authors mention that a mountain peak southeast of Rennes-le-Chateau, on which stand the ruins of a perceptory or lookout of the Knights Templar, is called Bezu. When I read this last week, a bell rang in my mind that the name of Brown�s fictional police captain was something like that, so I started re-reading the novel. And, bingo, on page 19 enters Bezu Fache, captain in the judicial police, come to investigate the Louvre murder. (Bezu the peak would figure prominently later in the HBHG narrative.) Bezu is a very unusual name. The fact that Brown chose it for one of his major characters suggests that HBHG was very much in his mind when he wrote DVC. One of the documents that parish priest Sauniere unearthed, in a hollow column that dated back to Visigoth times (6th century), was in code that could not be decoded without the key. (Which would sound familiar to readers of DVC.) On the advice of the bishop of nearby Carcassone, Sauniere brought his documents to Paris, in particular to the director general of the seminary at Saint Sulpice church. In Brown�s DVC novel (page 13), the assassin sent by the Opus Dei to kill the Louvre curator Sauniere (and three others) reports to his handler that the keystone to the secret that they are protecting (not yet divulged at this early stage) is hidden at a precise location inside Saint Sulpice church. But enough of nitpicking. Let the lawyers argue over the plagiarism angle. As BLL narrated in HBHG, after he brought his documents to ecclesiastical authorities in Paris, the parish priest Sauniere, who had lived for years on a modest income the equivalent of six pounds sterling a year, suddenly became wealthy and famous. In Paris, the parish priest Sauniere apparently had an affair with the reigning opera diva of the time, Emma Calv�, who later visited him in his remote village, Rennes-le-Chateau (pop. 200). So did the French minister of state for culture. The German composer Richard Wagner also came to visit, before composing his last opera Parsifal, which is based on the legend of the Holy Grail. This suggests that Sauniere and his tiny village had achieved some notoriety in 1890s Europe, specifically in relation to the Holy Grail legend, which had been percolating throughout Christendom since medieval times.. Most significantly, Sauniere was visited by Archduke Johann von Hapsburg, a cousin of Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria. (The would-be successor to Franz Joseph, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, would be assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, triggering the First World War.) BLL claim that bank statements show that Archduke Johann and Sauniere opened consecutive bank accounts on the same day and that a �substantial sum� was transferred from the former to the latter. But why? BLL speculate � and they are honest enough to admit when they are speculating � that Sauniere was paid by ecclesiastical authorities, not so much for the intrinsic monetary value of the documents that he had unearthed, but to buy his silence about the secret that those documents revealed, and that the �substantial sum� from the archduke of Austria may have come from the Pope himself. According to BLL, when Sauniere was dying in January 1917, the priest who heard his final confession refused to administer extreme unction. Why, BLL do not explain or speculate. When his will was read after his death, he was found to be penniless. He had transferred all his money to Marie Denarnaud, his housemaid and confidante for 32 years, since she was 18. Marie lived in comfort for several more decades. In 1946, the postwar French government demonetized the old francs to introduce a new currency. To weed out war profiteers, collaborators and tax evaders, the government required substantial holders of old francs to explain where they had gotten their money. Rather than face questioning, Marie burned most of her old francs.. According to BLL, Marie was said to have promised a prospective buyer of her house that she would reveal to him a secret that would make him, not only rich, but also powerful. But, like Sauniere before her, Marie suffered a sudden stroke and died, in 1953, taking her secret with her to the grave. As far as I can recall, no part of this vignette appears in Brown�s DVC. But it is tied up with what happened in the Languedoc region (in which Rennes-le-Chateau is located) after the Knights Templar and the other Crusaders were driven out by Saladin�s Saracens from Jerusalem in 1187 and from their last stronghold in Palestine, Acre (in present-day Lebanon), in 1291. It is also tied up with the Cathars or Albigensians (literally, the people of Albi, one of the main towns in the Languedoc) and their resident Templar allies who were declared heretics by Pope Clement V in Rome and were massacred � men, women and children - in their tens of thousands in 1307 by knights from northern France and Germany. Meanwhile, on page 5 of their booklet, The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction, Hank Hanegraft and Paul L. Maier, both of the Christian Research Institute (almost certainly a born-again Protestant organization) pooh-pooh Brown�s DVC �whose central premise, in fact, is just a copy of Holy Blood Holy Grail.� And the two make the clever deduction (on page 10) that the name of one of Brown�s main fictional characters, the scholarly aristocrat �Leigh Teabing� is actually a combination of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, two of the three authors of HBHG, Teabing being an anagram of Baigent. Touch�, my dear Watsons. Since DVC is peppered with brain-teasing anagrams, Brown is embarrassingly hoisted with his own petard. Brown�s goose is cooked and he will likely lose several tens of millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement with BLL. ***** (To be continued) Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �Before the Da Vinci Code� Dear Tony, Dan Brown must be inspired of the devil or the Anti-Christ when he wrote The Da Vinci Code� which you described as "most widely circulated book ever published (save, perhaps the Bible, and the Qu'ran)."Christians believe that all the books in the Holy Bible were written by the authors while inspired of the Holy Spirit. That explains why the Bible is also called the Word of God. "By their fruits you shall know them" runs a passage in the Bible. You already enumerated the evil "fruits" that Dan Brown expect to reap out of pure lust for money: lying, cheating, and stealing and at worst is death. I will try to sum up the holy "fruits" that the Bible produces: FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY (LOVE). Let the true Christians or the history of Christianity explain its meaning. Gonzalo "Jun" Policarpio, New York City, Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Interestingly, many critics of the Da Vinci Code have not read the novel before commenting (like the gentlemen above)...It's fiction with historical merits...Check it out. Gunshy, [email protected] Feb. 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The book purports to be history, but easily the genre is historical fiction. The Vatican reads it as the former, hence they are in high dunder. Ross Tipon, [email protected] Baguio City, Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Interesting article. This whole Da Vinci Code business (for this is what it is) really gets one involved in so many arcane and complicated theories. Am not into all this but am reading a new booki �The Da Vinci Hoax� by Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel (available at National Book Store for P300) which Cardinal George of Chicago calls �the definitive debunking�. It is also quite heavy with detail and references but quite entertaining. Best regards. Poch Robles, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, I admire your extensive research on this issue. I'm positive this will be another well-read column. The strong similarities in Brown's novel and in the trio's nonfiction work are too much of a coincidence. Brown's novels are often wrought with controversies. I find his first novel "Angels and Demons" even more compelling because it revolves around the papacy. The way to read him is with a consciousness that it's just fiction, which some people take too seriously. The case filed by the Opus Dei to stop the printing of DVC was a no-winner from the start, but then plagiarism is a different story. Yett Montalvan, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Very interesting, Tony. It makes me enthusiastic to monitor the developments in the lawsuit against Brown. BTW, kung hei fat choy! And thanks for copying me in . Carlo G. Baniqued, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony Are you sure that Dan Brown's message is not even more cryptic than has so far been suggested and it is in fact he who is who is presenting us with his own code in the Title of his book? The title is the DA VINCI code. If the name VINCI is itself analyzed, then using the 'reflectional substitution cipher' (or foldover) of the Roman alphabet. written thus:- A B C D E F G H I J K L M Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N and converting the consonants only, we get VINCI becoming EIMXI If this was now written in ancient Hebrew the vowels would be omitted. Thus EIMXI becomes -M-X- In ancient Hebrew there is no X, but the equivalent is the Sh, thus -M-X- should be written as -M-Sh- So if we now use the 'reflectional substitution cipher 'as set out by Sophie Neveu in the book thus: A B G D H V Z Ch T Y K Th Sh R Q Tz P O S N M L Then the -M-Sh- becomes -Y-B-, which with vowels added for each - could become AYABA. But as Teabing says in the book "Remember, of course, that Hebrew is normally written in the opposite direction" so we should write AYABA as ABAYA. I think that we may have cracked the code, Tony!!! D. John .Adams, [email protected] United Kingdom, Feb. 03, 2006 MY REPLY. Hahahaha. Very clever, John. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Have you read The Da Vinci Hoax? "Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code" Authors are Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel and published in 2005 by Jesuit Communications Foundation, Inc., Sonolux Bldg., Ateneo de Manila University. Paperback copies are sold at Powerbooks for P300 each. .. Aida Sevilla Mendoza, [email protected] Philippine Daily Inquirer, Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Just when I was getting bored with your recent columns on the political development in our country, you come out with this superb literary analysis. Mabuhay ka, Tony! More, please. Rene Tababa, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Interesting profound observation, ACA, I think you will make a better and modern Sherlock Holmes. Thanks Cesar M. de los Reyes, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear ACA, Reading your article is like watching CSI Las Vegas. You are an investigator par excellence! I hope you are watching CS, which I watch all over again. The main character, Grisom looks like me, according to my daughter and students. AL Jose Leonidas, [email protected] Faculty Member, Miriam College, Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Thank you for sending me the article exposing Dan Brown. Sabi ko na nga ba! You know, I have not read the Da Vinci Code because I had this gut feel that someone named Dan Brown could not have possibly written the stuff. Call it feminine intuition but he is not credible, not to me anyway. Besides, authors like Umberto Eco have been at it for the longest time. Matilde Asensi's works are also heavy on historical research and detail. I'm looking forward to part two of the article and if you could trust me with the HBHG, I would love to go through it with a suyod. Thanks for climbing four flights of stairs to "Krus na daan". I think we clarified a lot of things for the listeners. Gemma Cruz Araneta, [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I enjoyed eading your piece on the De Vinci Code. For your information Holy Blood, Holy Grail is anchored on pseudo history, Though it purports to be nonfiction.. Thanks. Vic del Fierro, Jr., [email protected] Feb. 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Once again I write to thank you for sending me the copy of your articles in the Standard. The one dated January 31st was of particular interest as I had missed buying that paper. I only recently read the Da Vinci Code and as a Mason for over 50 years was intrigued by the book. It would appear through your research that indeed Brown plagiarized some of his material from others. I was finally able to see you on some of the TV programs, so keep up the good work. Jack E. Gesner, [email protected] Baguio City, Feb. 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Hi. I read both books and they were good. Dan Brown does mention that he did research all these authors� books and that's how I found out about HBHG. The thing is, BLL just wants to get a cut out of the profits since DVC made so much money on the book, the movie and other publications. But from what I gathered, THEY themselves gave all the information to DB and DB used this information for a book. DB does credit their information in his website. (But not in DVC. ACA) BLL even had a special on the History Channel. BLL should be thankful that BLL is back on the map so to speak, because of DB. Who knows, if it wasn't for DVC, who would know about HBHG or BLL? Louie Eguaras, [email protected] Valencia, California, Feb. 04, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww There is also an allegation that Mr. Dan Brown plagiarized the 1983 novel "Da Vinci's Legacy". The authors who sued Brown should be rejoicing that their books are getting more attention because of the controversial bestseller. Mong Palatino, [email protected] Feb. 09, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
| Dear Mr. Abaya, I would just like to share these very interesting links regarding the 'Da VInci Code" movie. http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/060216 http://tfp.org/what_we_do/index/d_v_c_launching_rochester.htm I'm due to receive copies of the book by the American TFp called "Rejecting the Da Vinci Code" and I would like to send you a copy. To which address may I send it? Jose Maria P. Alcasid, [email protected] Feb. 18, 2006 MY REPLY. In this secular day and age, calling for a boycott of a book or a film, especially for religious reasons, will just drive more people to read that book or watch that film. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |