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Early on in The Da Vinci Code, while they are still hiding in the Louvre, the easily-impressed Prof. Langdon is overwhelmed by sophisticated Sophie’s brilliance (she knows the location of an emergency stairwell):
“Langdon decided not to say another word all evening. Sophie Neveu was clearly a hell of a lot smarter than he was.” (Ch. 18)
Ah, if only he had kept his resolution! Instead, he can’t seem to shut up and, as a consequence, exposes his ignorance on nearly every page of the book. In fact, Sophie is subtly portrayed as quite a bit sharper than her two pedantic pals, Teabing and Langdon. They do all the talking, of course, but what they say is nonsense. At one point, Dan Brown has Sophie effectively demolish the whole premise of her companions’ inane enterprise:
“But what good is a documented genealogy of Christ’s line?,” Sophie asked. “It’s not proof. Historians could not possibly confirm its authenticity.” (Ch. 60)
With this one question Рand Teabing makes no attempt whatsoever to contradict her РSophie renders pointless the whole search for the so-called “Grail documents” and all the bogus “conclusions” that the rest of the book seems to insinuate.
Obviously, Dan Brown has astutely taken into account the inconclusiveness of the fictional documents. That’s why we never get to see them, and they remain forever in their fictional hiding place in the boiler-room of the Louvre.
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OK, but in general, Sophie is rather brainless.
- After the first few pages of the book, everything she knows she learned from Grandpa, whereas Langdon apparently is wise by his own powers.
- She hasn’t spoken to her dear Grandpa in years because of the strange ritual she saw him involved in – then Langdon, a virtual stranger, tells her “Oh, but that was a ritual of a secret society he is part of!” and suddenly, she realizes she was wrong to be horrified. (Hadn’t she figured out until then that it was a secret ritual?!)
I could go on, but mainly it bothers me that this is presented as a pro-feminist book. Sophie is presented as a sex object, little more, and so is Mary Magdalene, and we are supposed to venerate them for that? I don’t think so. Mary Magdalene has other qualities I admire much more.
Poor Audrey Tautou. If the movie is faithful to the book, she’ll spend most of her screen time saying things like “No, really?” and “Gosh, I never knew that, professor. You’re so SMART!”
I suspect that this was obvious to Brown’s editors, so they made him make her the better driver, so she’d have at least some token bragging rights. A pretty pathetic gesture.
Note that among the leaders of the Priory of Sion, supposedly dedicated to the sacred feminine, there are hardly any women (almost all “dead white males”). Some matriarchy! Compare that to the ratio between male and female saints in the Catholic Church.
Speaking of that weird ritual in the basement, here’s a very funny bit of dialogue, in which the brilliant Professor Langdon knows exactly what Sophie is going to say and yet, when she says it, can’t believe his ears!
“Langdon eyed her carefully. “You witnessed a sex rite. Didn’t you?”
Sophie recoiled. “How do you know that?”
“Sophie, you told me you witnessed something that convinced you your grandfather was in a secret
society. And whatever you saw upset you enough that you haven’t spoken to him since. I know a
fair amount about secret societies. It doesn’t take the brains of Da Vinci to guess what you saw.”
Sophie stared.
“Was it in the spring?” Langdon asked. “Sometime around the equinox? Mid-March?”
Sophie looked out the window. “I was on spring break from university. I came home a few days
early.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
“I’d rather not.” She turned suddenly back to Langdon, her eyes welling with emotion. “I don’t
know what I saw.”
“Were both men and women present?”
After a beat, she nodded.
“Dressed in white and black?”
She wiped her eyes and then nodded, seeming to open up a little. “The women were in white
gossamer gowns… with golden shoes. They held golden orbs. The men wore black tunics and black
shoes.”
Langdon strained to hide his emotion, and yet he could not believe what he was hearing.”
(GASP!) The induction ceremony for the incoming Postmaster General!!!
Ahem. Maybe someone else can do better…
Or maybe it was… a dress rehearsal for the newest Andrew Lloyd Webber musical!
You have to read this brilliant spoof over at Amy Welborn’s site. Go through the comments, as well, they’re really funny…
http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/05/too_good.html
Amy has somehow missed the real story: Brown’s book is actually a roman a clef — its original working title was The Lundkvist Code and it was a thinly-disguised novel about a Lutheran secret society headquartered in the catacombs below a small church in northern Minnesota. He rewrote it to involve the Roman Church when he received an anonymous threat which pointed out that the last writer to investigate this plot had been found half-dissolved in a vat of lutefisk.
As proof, there is in a secret vault in the basement of the library at St Olaf’s College a fragment of a medieval manuscript, in typically execrable Latin, which reads (in translation), “I dunno, Svendus, what Satanic ritual do you feel like performing tonight?”
Excellent, Mr. Goodrich!
While you’re at it would you you please provide the original Latin? Or perhaps the blasted thing was in more ancient latin (now only spoken by the enlightened tongues of 7th graders trying to get out of latin class): Iay unnoday, Endussvay, hatway atanicway itualray oday ouyay eelfay ikelay erformingpay onighttay?
test
radio control car accessories…
Good observation, your ideas are right on….