Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

The Da Vinci Code: the review

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Everybody likes a good conspiracy theory: shadowy secret organization holds some incredibly important information and/or wields vast power over most of the world’s governmental organizations (see also: The X-Files, most of the right-wing militia fringe, and the current Vice President).

Now, anybody who’s into conspiracy theories will recognize the driving conspiracy behind Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code quite early on. Let’s test your CQ (c’mon: Conspiracy Quotient) out with one phrase: Priory of Sion. Got it? Good.

Okay, one more hint: if you’ve read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, you know the whole basis of the conspiracy.

(I knew I was over the whole conspiracy theory thing when I read the follow-up to HBHG, The Messianic Legacy, and found myself far more intrigued by the bits concerning Biblical interpretation and what information was found in the Gnostic Gospels than I was by anything having to do with the modern-day conspiracy stuff.)

All right, enough background—on to the book. The Da Vinci Code is extremely entertaining. The best description I’ve heard of it is “Eco-lite,” which should give you an idea of the flavor: lots of esoteric information, with very little of it in other languages so you don’t feel like a moron the way you do with Eco. Robert Langdon, an American symbologist, is in Paris to give a talk. The curator of the Louvre Museum, Jacques Sauniere, asks to meet him for drinks but poof! gets murdered before they meet. Robert teams up with Sophie Neveu, a master cryptologist—and, conveniently, the curator’s granddaughter—and together they go on the run to solve the murder and uncover what Sauniere wanted to tell them before he was killed.

Brown propels the story along, even as he manages to spill a lot of cocktail-party information along the way. You know, the kind of tidbit that’s so much fun to toss off at a cocktail party: are you aware of the reported symbology in Leonardo’s The Last Supper? The story’s also written in “real-time”—once it kicks off, we see everything that happens, from Robert and Sophie’s run to a sinister Bishop with Opus Dei to an assassin trailing Our Heroes across Paris.

The Da Vinci Code: entertaining, with no academic requirements whatsoever before diving in.

And hidden here is an extra-special note for people who’ve read Holy Blood, Holy Grail:
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Impostor syndrome

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In a week or so Michael Gruber’s new thriller, Tropic of Night, is going to arrive in bookstores. It’s supposed to be a big book—huge press, lavish praise from the usual suspects like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, Book of the Month selection. I haven’t read it, so I can’t tell you whether I think all the hype is warranted. When I get it I’ll report back.

No, the part I find interesting is that this is not Gruber’s first book, it’s just the first under his own name. (I happen to know this for the same reason Brian Dear does; we’re both on the Well, as is Gruber.) For years he has been writing legal thrillers for Robert K. Tanenbaum. I haven’t read any of those, either, but they’re supposed to be quite good. Evidently some readers guessed that Michael Gruber had quite a lot to do with them, because the acknowledgements page always said something like, “Thanks to Michael Gruber, without whom this book wouldn’t exist.” Which was, apparently, literally true. Gruber wrote all the novels, stem to stern, by himself, without editorial input or outlines or other interference from Tanenbaum. (Although evidently on the last few books Tanenbaum changed the policy of allowing Gruber to ship the manuscript to the editor, taking it first himself and probably having it retyped so as to appear it originated with him.)

Anyhow, a couple of years ago Tanenbaum quit being a lawyer to be a writer full-time. But he wasn’t writing the books. He’s also given interviews about what it’s like to be a successful novelist.

My question: what kind of cognitive dissonance that does cause? To have a public image completely based on a lie? I know that I have a hard enough time with Impostor Syndrome without actually, you know, being an impostor. Or do you figure that since your reputation as a great trial lawyer (which Tanenbaum was) is the reason for the book series and probably for the success of the books (at least initially), that it’s okay and you really are an “author”? I don’t know, I don’t pretend to know. I wonder, that’s all.

Yes, I know Tom Clancy doesn’t write his books either. And Steve “I’m smarter than you, I’m smarter than everyone!” Allen didn’t write his mysteries either. Any other impostors?

Poetry illiterate

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Because I haven’t learned my lesson well enough, I started in on another 800-page book, Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford. It’s a biography of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who was a giant figure in the Jazz Age and is much less well known today. It’s well-written¹, but I think I’m going to have stop reading it. For one thing, it’s difficult to write about charismatic figures, because the flame that drew admirers like moths doesn’t come through on the page. I can’t figure out why all these men (and women) are circling Millay, desperately in love with her, while she doesn’t return their feelings and is always on to her next conquest.

And for another, I’m poetry-illiterate. I honestly don’t understand why Millay’s poetry is considered so noteworthy. This is not to say I think it’s not—I mean, I don’t know why. I read Millay’s poetry, as reprinted in this biography, and I don’t get it. I’m quite sure I can’t tell the difference between the greatest poet in the English language and the worst hack.

I’ve always been poetry-illiterate. I’ve never written poetry, I’ve never read poetry for fun, I’ve never taken taken poetry classes (which is hilarious, given the number of creative writing classes I’ve taken in my life). Periodically someone will shove a poem under my nose and say, “Read this.” Often I find the poem nice and sometimes even intriguing. But I am not stirred to seek out more. Which is odd, given that I love writing in all its many forms.

This is a confession of fear of poetry. You know: poetry is too hard to understand, let alone create, or it requires too great a purely artistic streak. And this is the hardest to actually say aloud, I harbor deep plebian suspicions that poetry is too rarefied and academic. It’s the ultimate expression of the doubts I got as I was growing up: Yes, dear, but writing isn’t a real career. I mean, writers are famous for starving, and poet just seems to scream “extremely starving artist.” Which is nonsense—there does not need to be a connection between “artistic discipline” and “money-making career,” though it’s always nice if there can be. The two concerns really are orthogonal.

I’ve often wondered my lack of poetry chops has affected my writing at all. That is, would I have a better, or at least more distinct, writing style were I a poet? Or if I allowed myself to think of myself as a poet?

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¹Well, except for one thing: the author refers to her subject at different times as “Edna,” “Vincent,” and “Millay,” and there appears to be no rhyme or reason as to which name she uses when. It’s very discombobulating.