I guess that is not what most people would expect me to say about it. Actually, when I started reading it, I was fascinated. Then, it started to become philosophy fiction. Philosophy fiction is my way of describing large amounts of philosophy (or theology) disguised as fiction. In other words, philosophy made more palatable by making you think you are reading a story. Such other examples of philosophy fiction are Sophie's World (not horrible) and the crap-fest known as Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, a story about a talking gorilla that teaches a naive human. Usually, such books have extensive dialogue where the knowledgeable teacher instructs the eager and fascinated "student". The writer wants you to identify with the student. It's a lesson made easy through dialogue. My biggest problem with philosophy fiction is that there are better ways to get the point across. Dialogue is the easy way out. A good author can construct a fascinating story to make similar points and not make it be a lecture.
Dan Brown tries to put too much information in the book. A couple points are fine. I really don't think it was necessary to find symbols everywhere. He says that it is no mere coincidence that the "Little Mermaid" has flowing red hair. You know what, I think it is a coincidence. Not everything is about the "sacred feminine". I don't want to hear that phrase anymore. Not because I think it is a bad idea, but because he says it a million times to the point where I thought he was replacing the pronouns, "she" and "her". For example, it felt like this: He kissed the sacred feminine. The sacred feminine's cheeks blushed as the sacred feminine dropped the sacred feminine purse. Argh.
Some stuff he says is true and some stuff is not. That doesn't really bother me, but he presents both in the same way, through a lecture. Christians are up in arms about this book, why? To me, it is like arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin. In the end, it basically just making the point that women should be included in religion as equals and not villains. Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene? Who cares? Does it really change your religious beliefs? It really never says that Christianity is not the way. It criticizes the Opus Dei, but who doesn't? It criticizes earlier religious organizations, ie. the inquisition. Again, that's not new news, they were evil, how else were we to have the dark ages?
The stupidest thing though was the female character's reaction to finding her Grandfather having an orgy. 3/4 of the book is leading up to what happened, why did she disown him? You don't find out until, the male character (the teacher) asks if it was a sex ritual. She can barely bring herself to say "yes". The women were in white robes wearing white masks and the men were in black robes wearing black masks. The "teacher" explains that is was a sex ritual to better see god and then everything is OK. Oh well, if it was a sex ritual, then everything is OK with the woman, she was wrong to disown her grandfather. How stupid is she if she didn't recognize that as a sex ritual? And if it is sex to see god, then that makes it OK? On top of this, she is french. A french person that disowns someone for having sex, truly that's fiction.
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 | Unlike everyone else in the damn world, I've never read a word of Dan Brown. I figure I'd better read some Castaneda or some Plato even Zen and the Fucking Art of Motorcycle Maintenance first. I did read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, though. That was one smart seagull. He was questing. I really felt for him. You know who's good for putting philosophical discourse into fiction? Robert Anton Wilson. Of course, it's all hippie Eris-worship Discordian bullshit philosophical bullshit ... but it's interesting, anyway. M (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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| I'm over philosophy for the time being. I read Jonathan Living Seagull, too. For the life of me, I don't remember a thing about it. Doesn't he get caught and choked by plastic from a six-pack? Yeah, I don't remember. Obviously, it really changed my life. What we are looking at is McPhilosophy. Easy to swallow and digest. In the case of Dan Brown, McTheology (same diff really). |
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