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The Code? What Code? 

For months I have observed as people write, speak, talk of and review The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The views range from it being purely fiction, a huge laugh, a badly written book, one the reader could not put down, good fun, fascinating, to so much more. I must say, I’ve enjoyed reading the responses to this book and the movie even more than I enjoyed reading the book itself.

Nothing, though, made me laugh more than the recent article entitled Decoding ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in the New Sunday Times (9^th of July, 2006). Let me show you why by highlighting some paragraphs in particular:

Interestingly, students Ammie Khoo Suu Yeen, Bennie Ooi, Ong Li Teng and Rebecca Sigamoney were no affected by the hype and chose not to read the book or see the film [emphasis added].

Then come the hilarious parts:

Ammie Khoo … says: “When my friends talk about The Da Vinci Code, I have the opportunity to share alternative views because I have read the Discovery Series …”

Bennie Ooi … adds: “What annoys me is that despite … distortions from the truth of Christianity, it is still widely viewed around the world…”

Ong Li Teng … received many warnings about The Da Vinci Code’s blashphemous nature and decided to stay away from the film while Rebecca Sigamoney … thought the film was in bad taste.

I think I’ve never laughed so hard in a long time because all these four young adults, who have got such strong convictions about the story, never, by their own admission, read the book or watched the movie!

I would hazard a guess that all over the world, this scenario is being played out over and over again - a situation where people are willing to state their opinion in strong terms but have absolutely no clue what it is their opinion is based on.

Now, I have read the book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and watched the movie based on this book. I’ve also read the popular Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln. In addition, years ago, I read Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed by Laurence Gardner. The point I’m trying to make here is that what Dan Brown writes in nothing new. There are countless other ‘non-fiction’ books that state the very same facts Dan Brown writes. Academic studies have been conducted into these very issues and hours have been spent documenting these events. People debate it, argue it, study it and come to their own conclusions. The result of all these is that everyone who’s chosen to delve into these topics knows that this ‘huge cover up’ has been public knowledge for centuries. What Dan Brown did was to take this ‘huge cover up’, put it into simple words and set it the background of a thriller.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is not classified as a literary novel but a thriller. To go on about the lack of sophistication in the English is to engage in the wrong exercise altogether. The fact is that all the people I know who’ve said they think it’s a bad book have read it to the very last page. Even though they complain that it’s the worst book they’ve read, they still read it to the end. And that, to me, is the sole determinant of a great thriller; as thrillers go, it is my opinion that The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is one fantastic thriller

Moving on to the ‘intellectual debate’, yet again, scores of people have missed the point completely. They go on about the fact that, in the words of Mok Tze-en from the same article above, “The author is trying to create a controversy by concocting something like that [‘that’ being the assertion that there was an alleged marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene] without scientific evidence [emphasis added] so as to increase his book sales, popularity and royalty income.”

Now, the assertion of a marriage is but one assertion. What about the fact that there was an ecumenical gathering known as the Council of Nicaea and many aspects of Christianity were debated, including the divinity of Jesus? There is no need for scientific proof that this Council existed. There is actual proof – the building which housed the Council, though in ruins, is situated in the modern city Istanbul (formerly, Constantinople). What of the debate that there were actually more than 80 different gospels and only a selection has been included in the modern Bible? The gospel of Mary Magdalene does indeed exist. Wouldn’t you want to know what is in this work … even if it the work of a harlot, as the Roman Catholic Church claims her to be? It is my view that these other assertions and convictions are merely red herrings to lead the masses away from the single most important question of them all – did Jesus actually die on the Cross? Imagine if it can be proved that he did not. In fact, what if the man, Jesus Christ, survived the Crucifixion and escaped with his family altogether? What then, would the basis of Christianity be? Now, there’s food for thought.

Perhaps, I might be permitted to offer a little advice to potential readers of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown or any of the other books mentioned above: if you are a Christian, and you're comfortable with the interpretations of the Bible you’ve been taught, then I would recommend that you do not read this books and indeed refrain from commenting about them. If, however, you’re Christian and a lot of what you've been taught just never seemed to make much sense, then it might be worth your while to invest in these books.

I must say that I watched the movie primarily because I wanted to know why the people at the Cannes Film Festival laughed at the end. After watching the movie, I still don’t know why. Instead, I appreciate what Tom Hanks. I can’t recall his words verbatim but it was something to this effect: what does it matter if Christ was divine or man? It all happened 2,000 years ago. Even if Jesus’s bloodline can be traced, of what benefit would that be to mankind? Jesus was a good man and what he taught, said and did was all for the benefit of man and that is important. To take the book like the Holy Bible and tear it to bits to see if there’s truth in the words, whether Christ was divine or not is but a singular waste of time. Like the scriptures of all religions - for example, the Zend Avesta, the Guru Granth Sahib, the teachings of Buddha, the Holy Quran, the Bhagavad Gita - the words therein are a guide for mankind. To follow the teachings of any one of them will make a person more human and help man lead a better life. Perhaps, this is the real code; indeed, to give the reporter of the article entitled, Decoding ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Koh Soo Ling, some credence, she hit the nail on its head when the piece ended with this phrase: Whether fact or fiction, the world would be a happier place to live in when there is a better understanding of, and respect for one another’s religion.

Aneeta Sundararaj is the editor of 'How To Tell A Great Story' (http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com ).