The Da Vinci Code……
I’m re-reading the book before I see the movie…… I found that the thing that interests me most about the book isn’t the plot, but all of the historical trivia spread throughout the book….. It’s packed with Anon-isms like the origin of Friday the 13th, the wind rose which is the symbol on maps that indicate direction, and The Divine Proportion ratio called PHI – One-point-six-one-eight to one – 1.618, which is a measurement ratio found in all living things on Earth…… Interesting to say the least…… I looked to see if Anon was the co-writer, but, alas, didn’t find any credits….. I wonder whether the movie will come anywhere close to the book?…… Guess I’ll find out this week-end…..
May 18th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
I’ve read a couple of places that “The Da Vinci Code” is to some extent a dumbed-down version of “Foucault’s Pendulum,” by Umberto Eco. “FC” is a challenge but really something special; I’ve never read “Da Vinci.” Has anyone here read both and care to comment?
May 18th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
I read them both. FC was a challenge but a better written book. Da V. was entertaining but improbable. I enjoyed Da V. for a refresher course in some of the symbols, stories, and the addition of others. The wind rose is cool. If you like that kind of stuff I would suggest the “White Goddess” by Robert Graves…..not a novel…about a lot of stuff to do with the history of religion and symbols. ( I think there will be a quiz on men in high heels ) Graves also wrote “I Claudius”, as seen on PBS. I tried reading “The Golden Bough” once but couldn’t make it, kind of the main source of myths, symbols and their origins. Graves also wrote a book called “King Jesus” another take on the Jesus story. In fact, I thought I noticed a few things lifted from the White Goddess and King Jesus in the Da Vincia Code.
MRambler, didn’t you get the divine proportions back in art classes???????
May 19th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Yeah, Anon, but that was many years ago and I had forgotten the religious overtones that go with it…..
May 20th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Being a card-carrying humanist ( AHA ! ), and since the holier-than-thou crowd DOESN’T want me to see
this film, it’s almost mandatory. When The Last Temptation Of Christ was banned in Oklahoma, I HAD to
have a copy of my own as soon as it was released on video. I doubt if TDVC will be as good as TLTOC,
but it will surely be better than The Celestine Prophecy. I’m not a believer, but I’m fascinated by
all this cosmic debris—from L. Ron Hoover’s Church of Appliantology to moose-lem suicide bombers.
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
The Fibonacci sequence for MRambler.
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,….etc.
Add first two terms together, next add the next two terms together, and the next two……..etc. You can start with any term.
The Fibonacci sequence and 1.618 is found all through nature….the study of which is called “philotaxis”. Remember. It might come up in a quiz.
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:31 pm
The Fibonacci sequence is in the book…. I’m fairly sure it made it into the movie, although I’m not positive since I didn’t make the movie this week-end and decided to wait until next week-end when it should be a bit less crowded…..
May 24th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Let us know about the movie.
May 27th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I saw the movie this morning and it’s a big “Catch 22” and a big disappointment….. The “Catch 22” is that they made it so choppy that you need to read the book to fully understand what is going on, but, once you have read the book you immediately see that they’ve turned it into “The Da Vinci Code for Dummies”….. They changed stuff from the book for no apparent reason and they just blurt-out an explanation of what just happened at regular intervals taking away any mystery from the plot and making it so the viewer doesn’t have to use their brain any at all, hence the “for Dummies” reference….. All-in-all, it’s a poor showing for Tom Hanks and Ron Howard and a slow movie if you’ve read the book, unless you count the time you spend figuring out all the screw-ups they made between the book and movie….. I recommend the book, but I doubt that I will see the movie again…..
May 27th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
1st of all we have to remember this a work of Fiction, using certain historical facts to build the story. Not unlike Tom Clancy or the romance novels that my wife reads. So the persons who want to ban this book and movie need to realise that it is fiction not the truth and the general public needs to realise that the author is not trying to change history (or one version of it) but just to tell an interesting story and sell this story and make some money. As for the movie, I have no plans to pay to see it, not because I disagree with the plot or the story, but just simply because the story does not appeal to me for entertainments sake. As for the movie differing from the books path, I submit the aforementioned Tom Clancy. I have been a fan since MR and I saw The hunt for Red October ( I still have the Red VHS Tape BTW) I then started reading his novels and at first was disappointed by the movies, but when I realised that the screenplays were made to try to fit the 800 page story into a 2.5 hr. time frame I started to enjoy the movies more. But I still get the same feeling that MR got with DaV. Whenever I see Red October, Patriot Games or any of the Clancy novel/Movies. Cliff Notes for the Novel.
May 28th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Oh, Crap! MRambler,thanks. The family is going to see it today. Think I’ll take another book and a flashlight. I only saw two movies I thought lived up to the book…….”Slaughter House 5″ and the PBS “Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy”.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:21 am
Back from the movie………Oh well.
May 29th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I take the “Oh well” as you agree with my assessment of the movie?….. I agree on “Slaughter House 5” and I didn’t know there was a book on the PBS “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”…. That should make for interesting reading….. Thanks, Anon….
May 29th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
I thought it was just another movie from Hoolywood.
“Tinker, Tailor,Solder, Spy” was written by La Carrie (sp?). Best spy book I’ve read. It was fallowed by “Smiley’s People”…..Both made into a mini series on PBS. I think a mini series is the best way to get everything in a book on film.
May 29th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
You misspelled “Hoolywood” – It should be “Loobywood”…… Yeah, I like the mini-series from a book idea…. It made “Band of Brothers” complete with all the details…..
May 31st, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Sacrifices usually have to be made for adaptations. Books that have lots of inner thought are particularly tough; some certainly shouldn’t make the transition at all. Usually very descriptive books make good movies. A recent good example is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Princess Bride is also in this category. In fact, the book kind of reads like a screenplay, which is no surprise since it is written by William Goldman, big time screenplay writer. At the time, he had completed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The movie skips some passages of the book, but otherwise is pretty faithful. Never Cry Wolf on the other hand takes an altogether different approach to telling the book’s story. Both experiences get a similar point across, both are very different in the story telling, and both are entertaining. People who do adaptations have to deal with a lot of choices and sometimes the answer should be not to make a movie at all.
June 1st, 2006 at 1:22 am
Yeah, but most of us ‘Merkins don’t have the attention span for anything over 90 minutes. And Billy Pilgrim can’t even watch his own life story—being unstuck in time and all. Another pretty good adaptation of a Vonnegut story is Mother Night, featuring Nick Nolte and Kirsten Dunst. I also enjoyed Bruce Willis’ Breakfast Of Champions, but I don’t know why they changed the ending. Kurt was on the set part of the time, they could have easily had him convince Kilgore Trout that he (K.V.) was his creator.
June 1st, 2006 at 7:08 am
There’s a movie of “Breakfast of Champions”?…. That’s one of my favorite books…. Man, I guess I’ve lost my edge on video releases….
June 1st, 2006 at 9:35 am
Ah, adaptations! We could spend hours and hours on the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (why was Faramir’s character so different from the books? Why was so much time spent on Helm’s Deep, the details of which aren’t terribly important to the plot?)
“The Princess Bride” — I seem to be the only person alive that cannot stand this movie.
My own favorite adaptation is “Andromeda Strain” (1971!). A total nerdfest… I love it!
June 1st, 2006 at 9:36 am
Sorry, it’s “The Andromeda Strain.”
June 27th, 2007 at 1:54 am
The first edition of the DA Vinci code said that it was a work of fiction ..then suddenly it becomes a best seller and it changes to ..”it’s all true”
bushwah