Re: "Da Vinci" Debunking

The story the New York Times missed is the one about the massive invasion
of pod people who have come to earth over the last year bearing copies of
this book, which they read and proclaim to be wonderful.  It has no
redeeming merits whatsoever, which is unusual even among bestsellers.  I
read with sober mien the words of a 22-year old "Jesuit-educated"
gentleman who averred of the book that it "made him think".

Jim O'Donnell

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, David Lupher wrote:

> Today's NYT has a front-page article entitled "Defenders of
> Christianity Rush to Debunk 'The Da Vinci Code'."  Now, I have
> not read this novel that has sold over 6 million copies and
> has perched on the NYT hardcover bestseller list for over a year,
> but I know enough of its drift to understand why "defenders
> of Christianity" would "rush to debunk" it.  But what I have
> heard from a list-member who, at a student's insistence, has
> read this book leads me to suspect that it might not only be
> devout Christians who could have a problem with it. I gather
> it also presents a very skewed picture of Greco-Roman paganism,
> offering it as a kind of Never-Never-Land of woman-friendly,
> tree-hugging values overthrown by the evil Constantine and his
> goons.  Have others noted this sort of thing in the book?  I
> don't seem to recall that this book has been discussed on this
> list yet, though surely at least *some* of you must have been
> induced by students, friends, or mere curiosity to peer into it.
>
> I'd try to elicit a posting from the list-member to whom I have
> alluded above, but as she explained in a long and elegant posting
> today she is *much* too busy to post anything to the Classics List
> right now!
>
> P.S.: The NYT is chock-full of Da Vinci news today.  Another
> article informs us that the "Mona Lisa" is fading at an alarmingly
> rapid rate.  Sigh.
>
> David Lupher
> Classics Dept.
> Univ. of Puget Sound
>
> --
>