The DaVinci Code is exactly the kind of book that I have been trained to hate: plot-driven, contemporary, and—horror of horrors!—popular. Actually, though, it’s even worse than that. The DaVinci Code is the kind of book that I have been trained to disregard completely, which means that I wasn’t even allowed to hate it myself. I had to hate it from afar, casting judgment on those who held it in their common little hands, without actually reading a single word of it myself, which, I believe, shows up in Webster’s as the first entry for the word “scoff.”
I hold multiple degrees in the various English language arts, a few of them are even of the graduate variety, which means that I have read Tristram Shandy, Clarissa, and The Waves, but not a word by John Grisham, Mitch Albom, Stephanie Meyer, Wally Lamb, or Patricia Cornwall. Until recently, I didn’t consider this much of a loss. I held the standard academic view that any text worthy of my time was a text that rewarded multiple reads, and, judging by the pace at which people flew through the titles by these authors, these were single-serving books, to borrow a phrase from Chuck Palahniuk, another bestselling author whom I’ve never read. If I’m going to devote the time it takes to read a book—even a bad book—then I want to devote it to something that is ultimately worthwhile, and there’s something to be said for the vetting process of time.
Of course, what “reward[ing] multiple reads” really means is that they must be good fodder for research papers, but never mind about that.
My mood started to change with a piece that appeared in Playboy about a series of books that were being published by Hard Case Crime. The books were exactly what you would expect from a publishing house called “Hard Case Crime”: They were hardboiled tales about money, femme fatales, and ordinary Joes who get sucked into seedy situations. They had titles like Somebody Owes Me Money, Say It with Bullets, and The Corpse Wore Pasties, and their covers were of the throwback variety, with guns doubling as phallic symbols and breasts just, well, doubling. To intellectualize this would be to fall into the very trap I am trying to avoid, so let’s just say that the books provided something for me that I didn’t even know I was missing. I immediately ordered three, flew through them, and then ordered three more.
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| See what I mean. |
Some of them are contemporary potboilers, but the best of them are books that have been long out of print and that are being rescued by Hard Case for a new audience. Many of these authors are the Dean Koontzes of their day. Sadly, I’ve not read Koontz either, but I’ll give him the benefit of a doubt and say that, like Koontz, these authors are good at what they do. I would be proud to have written any of the numerous titles I have read. Sure, they are plot-driven, but to say that a story with a story is somehow inferior to a story that is instead a rich, brooding character piece is to unfairly preference the skill it takes to develop character rather than spin a yarn, when the truth is that both types of books take an inordinate amount of skill, neither one being inherently “better” than the other (whatever that means).
My appreciation of the Hard Case series made me realize what a snob I’ve been. I am absolutely guilty of equating “popular” with “inferior,” which meant that The DaVinci Code’s popularity has worked against it in my mind. However, when I saw a hardback copy at a church book sale on 181st Street, I knew that now was the time to put aside my prejudices and read the book for myself. The book costs five dollars. There is no dust jacket. It is the 15th printing. There are no notes of any kind in the margins of the text, though there was an interesting letter included, which will be the subject of a later post.
My idea is to basically keep a journal of the experience of reading The DaVinci Code and just jot down my thoughts as they emerg from page 1 on through page 454. Believe me, whoever inherits this copy from me is going to have some notes to sift through. You think deciphering The Last Supper is a chore, wait until they see my penmanship.
A final word before I dive in: The spoiler alert is that this whole entry is a spoiler. I am coy about nothing. If you haven’t read it yet and you don’t want anything spoiled for you, stop reading now.
OK, on to the book.
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| There's really no need to post these anymore, but I just like them so damn much. |
The first word of Dan Brown’s crowning achievement: “Fact.” As in, it is a fact that the Priory of Scion and Opus Dei actually exist and are not just products of the author’s imagination. I’ve never understood this. Who cares if a story is true or not? What matters a “based on real events” that precedes a book or a movie? I figure by the time that it makes it to its finished form, so much has been manipulated that the “factual” elements are dubious, at best. The most honest promise of “This is a true story” is the one that appears before Fargo, because the whole damn thing is made up. Well, it’s not entirely made up, but it is cobbled together from multiple sources and then reconfigured to suit the needs of the artists. Now that’s true. But OK, Dan Brown, “fact.” We can start there.
*****
I love first paragraphs. The best first paragraph establish a tone, introduce a character, or pose a question, and hopefully they pull off all three, which is really just to say that the best first paragraphs make you want to read the second. Here are a couple firsts that definitely nudged me on to seconds:
From The Big Sleep(1939), by Raymond Chandler: “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid-October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaven and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything a well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
And this, from Gilead (2004), by Marilynne Robinson: “I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don’t laugh! Because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsigned after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.”
Here is the first paragraph of The DaVinci Code: “Louvre Museum, Paris. 10:46 P.M. Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Sauniere collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.”
I like the bold gesture of the beginning and that it immediately establishes a character and a place, even if the description of the character settles for demographic information rather something richer. The introduction includes “staggering,” “lunging,” “grabbing,” “heaving,” and “collapsing,” which sets up an action-packed ride.
Still, if I’m browsing in a bookstore, I put this one back down. On our rather exclusive list of introduction here, I rank this one a distant third.
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| Oh, hell, why not? |
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