the corner office

Some time after exams, and after reading the Metro and London Paper for too long and finding myself becoming too irate with totally pointless news stories each day, I eventually decided to hit the charity shops and pick up a few books. First book I chose, and read, was Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I've seen the movie, and read a heap of the 'background' books, but I'd never read the Da Vinci code itself. Seems every charity shop in the UK now has about 5 copies of Dan Brown's bestseller, so I bought a cheap copy and read it.

If you don't know the plot line by now, you've probably been living under a rock. Dude murdered in the Louvre, American prof gets caught up in web of lies and deceipt, the Catholic Church is evil, Jesus is a black hermaphrodite, yadda yadda. OK, not a black hermaphrodite, but not divine and was actually married to Mary Magdalene and had kids and all of this is the world's most shocking cover-up.

The suspense of the novel was kind of ruined for me, having seen the movie, but I can understand why it was such a successful book. It's not your normal subject matter, and is obviously contentious. Despite that, I found the writing somewhat pedestrian and some of the 'shocking' exposition not that shocking. Is I mentioned though, I've read a few grail books in the past, so I knew what I was in for.

The one thing which really did annoy me, was Brown's fascination with the 'sacred feminine'. Now, I don't disagree that the Christian Church has a lot to answer for when it comes to the suppression of women, but please. The notion that women were rocking and free and the world was like, sooo woooow enlightened until those horrid Judeo-Christian oppressors turned up, is just silly. Fashionable amongst anti-Christian pro-pagan trendies, but bull nonetheless. Yes, there are some societies where women were respected and treated as equals, but generally speaking, most societies which have progressed beyond subsistence have grown and prospered on the back of the application of violence; and that violence could be applied as easily against physically weaker women as it could against the warriors in the neighbouring tribe.

That's horrible, but that's history. To say that all the wrongs and ravages of sexism in modern society are because of evil Christians pursuing some shady agenda one and a half thousand years ago, is just pushing things a bit. It seems to have helped Dan Brown flog a few books, though.