I have just put down the Dan Brown bestseller The Da Vinci Code which I took pain to finish, having just borrowed it from an officemate who expected me to return it ASAP. I admit, even on my beading foray to Quiapo last weekend, I had the impetuosity to take the book with me and cram through the last few pages while waiting for my bus stop. Everyone I know, this blogger friend included, said it was superlative read. Sure, it was. Or maybe, I have missed the whole point.
Undeniably a fun read, replete with all the ingredients of a bestselling thriller, I devoured everything I saw . It was so easy to give way into one’s indiscretion and accept what the book said as gospel truth. Hell what do I know of the gospels, to pun that (since The Bible has just been put in a very damaging light here). I have been nowhere near criticizing the papal nuncio in the Vatican, although I absolutely feel the Catholic domain needs a lot of washing down to do to remedy the bad jinx they've recently ran into.
Undeniably a fun read, replete with all the ingredients of a bestselling thriller, I devoured everything I saw . It was so easy to give way into one’s indiscretion and accept what the book said as gospel truth. Hell what do I know of the gospels, to pun that (since The Bible has just been put in a very damaging light here). I have been nowhere near criticizing the papal nuncio in the Vatican, although I absolutely feel the Catholic domain needs a lot of washing down to do to remedy the bad jinx they've recently ran into.
Would you believe that one local broadsheet even ran a quarter-page commentary by a Catholic bishop, about the veracity of the author’s claims on the clandestine brotherhood and Jesus’ bloodline and the Vatican's real identity? Is everything real or theoretical in the first place? This book was eliciting both raves and rants, and I bet a lot of paranoia and defensiveness, from the four corners of the literary or literate world.
Who could not have wanted to read it?
Momentarily though I had to go back over my previous conclusions about the book, weed out those that I didn't find plausible. And, trusting my isms, this is what, an ordinary reader like me, have discerned:
It’s all just FICTION which, however too good, the writer simply fiddled with in his mind. And whatever historical congruence it may have to the past, I am loathe to leave it to the experts. It was nothing more than an odyssey for me that fell right smack to a category that I would call “highly entertaining”. I am Catholic, and given that I have issues myself, this one doesn’t make me rethink about my spiritual viewpoint, or the limits of it.
It’s great that I have seen the other side of the travesty, although that piece about the smiling Mona Lisa most certainly got me off. However storybound that part may appear, I think that my heart can rest well and not ever wonder why SHe’s forever smiling that beguiling half-mocking smile. What a secret she keeps...
Momentarily though I had to go back over my previous conclusions about the book, weed out those that I didn't find plausible. And, trusting my isms, this is what, an ordinary reader like me, have discerned:
It’s all just FICTION which, however too good, the writer simply fiddled with in his mind. And whatever historical congruence it may have to the past, I am loathe to leave it to the experts. It was nothing more than an odyssey for me that fell right smack to a category that I would call “highly entertaining”. I am Catholic, and given that I have issues myself, this one doesn’t make me rethink about my spiritual viewpoint, or the limits of it.
It’s great that I have seen the other side of the travesty, although that piece about the smiling Mona Lisa most certainly got me off. However storybound that part may appear, I think that my heart can rest well and not ever wonder why SHe’s forever smiling that beguiling half-mocking smile. What a secret she keeps...
Even Sappho would have acquiesced.
