The Da Vinci Code

michael adams wrote:

aquatinting themselves with the actual facts

Since this thread appears to hinge on the question of authorial intention,
may I ask whether that was intentional, or a felicitous typo? Either way, I
like it.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

michael adams wrote:

Well spotted gentle reader. It was indeed felicitatious, but
it's surprising what the addition of just the one letter can do.

Now you've really got me smiling! Thanks for brightening up this dreary
autumnal day.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote...

Agreed. An example of respect for history in writing
fiction is John Dunning's recent book "The Bookman's
Promise".
...he does not have to distort what is known to have
happened in order to make the plot work.

So? Good for him, if that's what he wanted to do. Other choices are
possible and just as valid for storytelling. There's a whole genre, the
alternate history story, based entirely on "distort[ing] what is known to
have happened in order to make the plot work."


Nor does he make
any claims that this actually happened or even that it has
any reality outside of the story line.

Again, who cares if he does or doesn't? What difference does it make what
he claims? Novelists are professional liars. What goes on between the
covers of their books is not answerable to any truth-claims outside the
book.

The main argument in this thread seems to be between those of us who
understand that a work of fiction is just a story--which may be good or bad,
a passing diversion or a lasting memory, a mere entertainment or a work of
art--and those of you who want to believe that a work of fiction is, or
ought to be, a vehicle for education or moral instruction. It's an old
debate, and we won't resolve it here, but I continue to maintain that it's
plain silly to try to "debunk" something that isn't anything but bunk to
begin with.


--
Jon Meyers
(To reply, lose
your way)

michael adams wrote:

"Jon Meyers" wrote in message
...


The main argument in this thread seems to be between those
of us who understand that a work of fiction is just a story--
which may be good or bad, a passing diversion or a lasting memory,
a mere entertainment or a work of art--and those of you who want
to believe that a work of fiction is, or ought to be, a vehicle
for education or moral instruction.



But that surely is begging the question. As it assumes that a
work which contains references to actual people and actual
events can remain purely a work of fiction.

Are you saying that such a work is totally indistinguishable from
a work which contains no such references, but is all pure fantasy?



It's an old
debate, and we won't resolve it here, but I continue to maintain
that it's plain silly to try to "debunk" something that isn't
anything but bunk to begin with.



But a work containing references to a real person Leonardo, and a real
painting the Mona Lisa, can hardly be "bunk" can it? If it was about a
fictional Rennaissance painter called Antonio Soprano, or Pauli Della
Walnuts, then fair enough, maybe its bunk. But the author only chose
a real person, Leonardo, in the first place, so as to transcend bunk.
To give his work a certain cachet. And as such IMO, he takes on
certain obligations in return.

michael adams

...


I agree with you, Michael. People rely a lot on fiction for historical
accuracy as to public events. They make inferences from what they read
about what happened in that time, with that person and so on. As to
Leonardo, there is a wonderful historical novel by Dmitri Merejkowski,
"The Romance of Leonardo DaVinci" written around 1900, that has been
translated and reprinted many times in English. When I read that work,
I accepted much of the events as true. Not all, of course, but some
were there as representative of what he might have done, say to learn
human anatomy. And his sexuality was treated carefully, not coming to
any unambiguous conclusions, remaining in the realm of interpretation.


Francis A. Miniter


p.s. Another good example of historical fiction would be Shogun by
Clavell. When I first read it, I excused the Englishman in the story
as literary licence, but I was surprised to find that there was such a
person. Clavell did his research well and did not violate history.
Whether a sexual relationship might have occurred between a noble lady
and a foreigner at that time is, of course, speculative, but that is (1)
a private event, and (2) not to be underestimated, given the power of
sexual attraction.

michael adams wrote:

No stunning Japanese maples then I take it.

There are, Michael, and not too far from home, but having just got back from
the UK, with jet lag and a touch of 'flu, it's the unremitting rainfall and
the greyness that predominate in my perceptions right now.

Must dash, though. By felicitatitudinous coincidence I am debunking the
debunkings of the debunking, and have my work cut out for me.

And anyway, the rcb hyenas will start baying if you and I continue bantering
for too long!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote:

michael adams wrote:

"Jon Meyers" wrote in message
...


The main argument in this thread seems to be between those
of us who understand that a work of fiction is just a story--
which may be good or bad, a passing diversion or a lasting memory,
a mere entertainment or a work of art--and those of you who want
to believe that a work of fiction is, or ought to be, a vehicle
for education or moral instruction.



But that surely is begging the question. As it assumes that a
work which contains references to actual people and actual
events can remain purely a work of fiction.

Are you saying that such a work is totally indistinguishable from
a work which contains no such references, but is all pure fantasy?



It's an old
debate, and we won't resolve it here, but I continue to maintain
that it's plain silly to try to "debunk" something that isn't
anything but bunk to begin with.



But a work containing references to a real person Leonardo, and a real
painting the Mona Lisa, can hardly be "bunk" can it? If it was about a
fictional Rennaissance painter called Antonio Soprano, or Pauli Della
Walnuts, then fair enough, maybe its bunk. But the author only chose
a real person, Leonardo, in the first place, so as to transcend bunk.
To give his work a certain cachet. And as such IMO, he takes on
certain obligations in return.

michael adams

...


I agree with you, Michael. People rely a lot on fiction for historical
accuracy as to public events. They make inferences from what they read
about what happened in that time, with that person and so on.........

Francis A. Miniter

LOL

Dubya Bush would be a prime example..

Still, it appears that he is not alone in not being able to
define "fiction" as such..

Tom

Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Another good example of historical fiction would be Shogun
by Clavell. When I first read it, I excused the Englishman in the
story as literary licence, but I was surprised to find that there was
such a person. Clavell did his research well and did not violate
history. Whether a sexual relationship might have occurred
between a noble lady and a foreigner at that time is, of course,
speculative, but that is (1) a private event, and (2) not to be
underestimated, given the power of sexual attraction.

Especially that of Englishmen! Well, but, jollity aside - of the little I
remember of this work - the author describes his protagonist learning
Japanese, and says something about there being a correspondence in Japanese
between syllables and semantic meaning (i.e., each syllable has a distinct
meaning). My memory of this is very hazy, and I don't have a reference, but
anyway, what Clavell says about the nature of the Japanese language is total
bunkum.

Clavell violates a provable external reality and (unlike, according to
postmodernist notions, the existence of Leonardo da Vinci) this *can* proven
by an examination of texts. That is to say, we only have to look at Japanese
texts of the period to see that one syllable did *not* equal one semantic
unit in those days any more than it does in present-day Japanese. Since
Japanese has a syllabic alphabet as well as a pictogrammatic lexicon, this
can be stated with certainty.

John Stovall suggests that Dan Brown's solecisms fall into another category,
that is, that he is merely adding text to other text, and not provably
flying in the face of any external "reality". But there *is* an external
reality here - the texts themselves, which *do exist*. We don't have to
prove any objective correlative (i.e., a "real" Leonardo da Vinci) either
for Brown's work or for other texts about Leonardo in order to assert this.
In other words, Francis Miniter's objections can be sustained without
positing the existence of an "actual", "real" Leonardo da Vinci, but simply
by pointing out that Brown's text is inconsistent with other texts.

A good example of this would be Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells
the life of Bertha Mason, Rochester's first wife in Charlotte Bronte's Jane
Eyre. There is no figure in the "real" world (as far as we know) who
corresponds to Bertha Mason (or to Rochester or to Jane herself, for that
matter), but an important part of the success or failure of Rhys's book is
its "intertextuality" - its conformability with another text (or, indeed,
with other texts, of which Jane Eyre is but one). If the informed reader
(i.e., one who has read Jane Eyre and other texts that have a bearing on
Rhys's text) is troubled by the niggling awareness that such-and-such a
character or incident in Wide Sargasso Sea is inconsistent with characters
or incidents in Jane Eyre (or in other texts, such as, for example, those
describing conditions of life in the Caribbean during that period), then the
underlying rationale and justification for Rhys's novel starts to break
down.

In exactly the same way, if the informed reader (i.e., one who has read
other texts pertaining to Leonardo da Vinci) is troubled by intertextual
inconsistencies when reading Dan Brown's work then, yes, that does undermine
the integrity of the text.

I'd like to ask Jon Meyers - who surely is conscious of the crucial
distinction between science fiction (i.e., fiction that is within the realms
of known scientific possibility) and science fantasy (i.e., fiction that
imagines technologies, etc., quite unknown to modern science), and therefore
ought to have a clear grasp of the issues: How would you react if you were
watching a historical drama set in the 17th century and a character made an
entrance on a bicycle? Not Doctor Who or some other time traveller, not as a
bit of surreal comedy or whatever, but apparently in all seriousness? The
fact that the anachronistic solecism Francis Miniter is pointing out is less
obviously absurd, and evident only to someone acquatinted (sorry, but I do
so like that, though - on an intertextual continuum with Finnegans Wake - I
do insist on the "c"!) with a wide range of related texts, does not make it,
esentially, any different in kind. (This reminds me that I saw a wonderful
performance of Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company, in which Hamlet sets
off for England by train; a wonderful anachronism that enhanced the joy of
the performance.)

Other people may - and surely do - differ, but as a reader I myself find
that, unless they are a conscious part of the artistic design, such as the
RSC performance mentioned above, textual or intertextual inconsistencies are
just as irritating as inconsistencies between the text and what I know to be
(or perceive as being) "reality". As an example of the latter, my respect
for Clavell's text was completely destroyed when he started talking bunkum
about the nature of the Japanese language. It was clear that he didn't know
what the heck he was talking about in that area, and that undermined the
credibility of whatever else he had to say. The illusion of reality of the
text was destroyed and I could no longer experience any pleasure in reading
it.

As an example of textual inconsistency, I recently watched an SF movie
(Paycheck) in which the central character has his short-term memory erased.
He no longer recognises the woman he fell in love with, but he met her
*before* the period of memory that was erased, so he should at least have
recognised her, even though he wouldn't have known that they subsequently
fell in love. Again, this destroyed the illusion of reality - I could no
longer withhold what Keats calls the "suspension of disbelief" which he
considered central to the experience of reading and enjoying literature -
and the video was merely tedious after that (the plot hinges on the hero and
his girlfriend destroying a time machine that the hero has helped to
construct, but for me the storyline deconstructed to the point where I
wondered why they weren't just a pair of Luddites, destroying a machine
simply because they didn't understand it).

It is exactly the same with intertextual inconsistency. It is not necessary
to insist, as Michael Adams does, on the historical reality of a man named
Leonardo da Vinci to feel disappointed when a text that purports to portray
that man contains unsatisfying inconsistencies with other texts. Of course,
what Jon Meyers perceives to be unsatisfying and what Francis Miniter or Jon
Stovall or Michael Adams or me or anyone else perceives to be unsatisfying
are two different things and, ultimately, if a text works for one person
that's fine, but if it doesn't work for another person, well, that's fine,
too. The best anyone can do is explain *why* it does or doesn't work for him
or her (a subject which, incidentally, lies - strictly speaking - outside
the parameters for this newsgroup, but I hope even the purists concede that
such off-topic discussion does liven things up from time to time!).

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

Well said.


Francis A. Miniter


John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

Francis A. Miniter wrote:


Another good example of historical fiction would be Shogun
by Clavell. When I first read it, I excused the Englishman in the
story as literary licence, but I was surprised to find that there was
such a person. Clavell did his research well and did not violate
history. Whether a sexual relationship might have occurred
between a noble lady and a foreigner at that time is, of course,
speculative, but that is (1) a private event, and (2) not to be
underestimated, given the power of sexual attraction.


Especially that of Englishmen! Well, but, jollity aside - of the little I
remember of this work - the author describes his protagonist learning
Japanese, and says something about there being a correspondence in Japanese
between syllables and semantic meaning (i.e., each syllable has a distinct
meaning). My memory of this is very hazy, and I don't have a reference, but
anyway, what Clavell says about the nature of the Japanese language is total
bunkum.

Clavell violates a provable external reality and (unlike, according to
postmodernist notions, the existence of Leonardo da Vinci) this *can* proven
by an examination of texts. That is to say, we only have to look at Japanese
texts of the period to see that one syllable did *not* equal one semantic
unit in those days any more than it does in present-day Japanese. Since
Japanese has a syllabic alphabet as well as a pictogrammatic lexicon, this
can be stated with certainty.

John Stovall suggests that Dan Brown's solecisms fall into another category,
that is, that he is merely adding text to other text, and not provably
flying in the face of any external "reality". But there *is* an external
reality here - the texts themselves, which *do exist*. We don't have to
prove any objective correlative (i.e., a "real" Leonardo da Vinci) either
for Brown's work or for other texts about Leonardo in order to assert this.
In other words, Francis Miniter's objections can be sustained without
positing the existence of an "actual", "real" Leonardo da Vinci, but simply
by pointing out that Brown's text is inconsistent with other texts.

A good example of this would be Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells
the life of Bertha Mason, Rochester's first wife in Charlotte Bronte's Jane
Eyre. There is no figure in the "real" world (as far as we know) who
corresponds to Bertha Mason (or to Rochester or to Jane herself, for that
matter), but an important part of the success or failure of Rhys's book is
its "intertextuality" - its conformability with another text (or, indeed,
with other texts, of which Jane Eyre is but one). If the informed reader
(i.e., one who has read Jane Eyre and other texts that have a bearing on
Rhys's text) is troubled by the niggling awareness that such-and-such a
character or incident in Wide Sargasso Sea is inconsistent with characters
or incidents in Jane Eyre (or in other texts, such as, for example, those
describing conditions of life in the Caribbean during that period), then the
underlying rationale and justification for Rhys's novel starts to break
down.

In exactly the same way, if the informed reader (i.e., one who has read
other texts pertaining to Leonardo da Vinci) is troubled by intertextual
inconsistencies when reading Dan Brown's work then, yes, that does undermine
the integrity of the text.

I'd like to ask Jon Meyers - who surely is conscious of the crucial
distinction between science fiction (i.e., fiction that is within the realms
of known scientific possibility) and science fantasy (i.e., fiction that
imagines technologies, etc., quite unknown to modern science), and therefore
ought to have a clear grasp of the issues: How would you react if you were
watching a historical drama set in the 17th century and a character made an
entrance on a bicycle? Not Doctor Who or some other time traveller, not as a
bit of surreal comedy or whatever, but apparently in all seriousness? The
fact that the anachronistic solecism Francis Miniter is pointing out is less
obviously absurd, and evident only to someone acquatinted (sorry, but I do
so like that, though - on an intertextual continuum with Finnegans Wake - I
do insist on the "c"!) with a wide range of related texts, does not make it,
esentially, any different in kind. (This reminds me that I saw a wonderful
performance of Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company, in which Hamlet sets
off for England by train; a wonderful anachronism that enhanced the joy of
the performance.)

Other people may - and surely do - differ, but as a reader I myself find
that, unless they are a conscious part of the artistic design, such as the
RSC performance mentioned above, textual or intertextual inconsistencies are
just as irritating as inconsistencies between the text and what I know to be
(or perceive as being) "reality". As an example of the latter, my respect
for Clavell's text was completely destroyed when he started talking bunkum
about the nature of the Japanese language. It was clear that he didn't know
what the heck he was talking about in that area, and that undermined the
credibility of whatever else he had to say. The illusion of reality of the
text was destroyed and I could no longer experience any pleasure in reading
it.

As an example of textual inconsistency, I recently watched an SF movie
(Paycheck) in which the central character has his short-term memory erased.
He no longer recognises the woman he fell in love with, but he met her
*before* the period of memory that was erased, so he should at least have
recognised her, even though he wouldn't have known that they subsequently
fell in love. Again, this destroyed the illusion of reality - I could no
longer withhold what Keats calls the "suspension of disbelief" which he
considered central to the experience of reading and enjoying literature -
and the video was merely tedious after that (the plot hinges on the hero and
his girlfriend destroying a time machine that the hero has helped to
construct, but for me the storyline deconstructed to the point where I
wondered why they weren't just a pair of Luddites, destroying a machine
simply because they didn't understand it).

It is exactly the same with intertextual inconsistency. It is not necessary
to insist, as Michael Adams does, on the historical reality of a man named
Leonardo da Vinci to feel disappointed when a text that purports to portray
that man contains unsatisfying inconsistencies with other texts. Of course,
what Jon Meyers perceives to be unsatisfying and what Francis Miniter or Jon
Stovall or Michael Adams or me or anyone else perceives to be unsatisfying
are two different things and, ultimately, if a text works for one person
that's fine, but if it doesn't work for another person, well, that's fine,
too. The best anyone can do is explain *why* it does or doesn't work for him
or her (a subject which, incidentally, lies - strictly speaking - outside
the parameters for this newsgroup, but I hope even the purists concede that
such off-topic discussion does liven things up from time to time!).

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

"John Yamamoto-Wilson" wrote in
message ...

In exactly the same way, if the informed reader (i.e., one who has read
other texts pertaining to Leonardo da Vinci) is troubled by intertextual
inconsistencies when reading Dan Brown's work then, yes, that does
undermine
the integrity of the text.



Reminds me of THE NAME OF THE ROSE--quite an important novel for
medievalists, as I was way back when.

Brian Tierney, who had written a book on the Franciscan debates that form
the backdrop of the story, once told us that he approached TNOTR thinking
that the history would be all wrong but that it would be a good story. He
came away remarking that the history was perfect but that story was not all
that engaging.

On another tack, my old advisor James J. John, professor of Latin
paleography, disapproved of the movie version of TNOTR because some
anachronistic letter forms were used for inscriptions in the monastic
library.


And to bring this fine discussion back ON TOPIC:

I'm off to Gettysburg in 2 weeks for a conference at which my old professor
Brian Tierney will give the Arthur Carl Piepkorn Lecture in celebration of
the 50th anniversary of the publication of Tierney's FOUNDATIONS OF THE
CONCILIAR THEORY (Cambridge U. Pr. 1955). I am bringing my copy of the
first edition of FOTCT, among other tomes, for Prof. Tierney to sign.
Should be a fun occasion.


Any booking recommendations in the Gettysburg/central Pennsylvania area?


William M. Klimon
http://www.catholicbookcollector.com (actually has some new posts--when the
blogging bug bites, you've got to blog)

"michael adams" wrote in message
...


No.

Texts referring to Leonardo, refer to a real person concerning whom
there is extant evidence in the form of primary source material
in the form of artifacts of various kinds. We in the 21st century
can witness direct unmediated evidence of Leonardo's existence.

Do you wish to deny that?

Or do you wish to deny the attribution?

Are you claiming that its impossible to prove that those artifacts
and Notebooks are the work of Leonardo who existed in 16th century
Italy ? And possibly more to the point, will there be any more substance
to your objection than the fairly commonplace and pointless observation
that its impossible to "prove" any statement referring to events
which happened in the past ?

...

Leaving aside the accuracy of our historical understanding of Leonardo, I
feel that the main point is that in fiction we can play with that
understanding in absolutely any way and it can still be legitimate. It can
be well or poorly done, as far as reader acceptance or understanding goes,
but from art's point of view, there's no hands-off-the-real-figure's-image
rule. If for some reason I want to write a story that features a Leonardo
who cannot paint a barn, let alone a canvas, and sits in the corner eating a
pickle sandwich while his nephew creates masterpieces that later will be
attributed to Unca Leo, I may do so. I might in fact create great art with
just such nonsense. To hold otherwise, it seems to me, is akin to holding
the view that only representational art is acceptable.

- Todd T.