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Post by fluke on Jul 21, 2009 22:28:06 GMT -5
Read the first part only if you want to hear my rant on Dan Brown.
I read one book of Brown's for a series I was teaching at church: Cracking the Da Vinci Code. This preacher would be banned and executed if I used the words I wanted to use to describe that book both for its terribly researched "historical" facts and IMHO awful writing. First off, by the title, he gives the impression that Leonardo's family name is da Vinci. It's not! Leo was from the village of Vinci, that's how he got his name. There was no Mr. and Mrs. Vinci who raised him. That's the least of the problems. Secondly, Brown can't get the simplest facts straight when he tries (hello, an albino with perfect night vision? NOT GONNA HAPPEN!). Third, No matter the problem, no matter who is chasing them, no matter how little time is left in the chase, they always have time to stop for a lecture about how evil Christians are.
Of course, the fact that Brown presents such a completely misogynistic work as Gospel of Thomas as an early example of women's rights and the church suppressing it as their hatred of women tells a lot about his methods and selection of which "scholars" to read. [/rant off]
Sorry about that. As you can see, there are no words for the book to do it justice. Okay, "blasphemous" and "the first time I ever considered book burning as a good thing" sum it up fine.
Favorite books? Where to begin?! Chronicle of Narnia Space Trilogy (especially loved Hideous Strength) Eidon series Almost anything by Terry Pratchett (he's just about the only non Christian author I read anymore). Top three: Thud!, Going Postal, and Night Watch Timothy Zhan's Thrawn trilogy (he's a Catholic, actually) I will devour and enjoy/love anything written by Lars Walker, esp his continuing Saga of Erling Scaljson. Hero, Second Class Reading: Phantastes by George MacDonald. I can see why CS Lewis liked it so much.
For nonfiction, when I want to read poignant stories mixed with humor, I have almost the entire set of Lewis Grizzard's work. Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton Mere Christianity by CS Lewis These Sought a Country by RL Cate Old Testament Roots for New Testament Faith by RL Cate Commentary on Act by Wave Nunnally
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Post by Andy on Jul 22, 2009 9:13:04 GMT -5
How about...
Starship Troopers- Robert Heinlein. A defining work in military sf. Ender's Game- Orson Scott Card. Fascinating concept of an orbiting military academy. The Killer Angels- Michael Shaara. Historical fiction of the Battle of Gettysburg, but fantastic dialogue and description of the civil war era battlefield. The Host- Stephenie Meyer. Love the Christ imagery brought out by the main character, Wanda. Thr3e- Ted Dekker. Kevin, Samantha, and Slater are some of the most memorable characters I've come across For Whom the Bell Tolls- Hemingway. Didn't agree with the philosophical conclusions the main character makes in the story, but the scene with El Sordo on the hill is gripping.
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Post by dizzyjam on Jul 23, 2009 0:05:43 GMT -5
Read the first part only if you want to hear my rant on Dan Brown. I read one book of Brown's for a series I was teaching at church: Cracking the Da Vinci Code. This preacher would be banned and executed if I used the words I wanted to use to describe that book both for its terribly researched "historical" facts and IMHO awful writing. First off, by the title, he gives the impression that Leonardo's family name is da Vinci. It's not! Leo was from the village of Vinci, that's how he got his name. There was no Mr. and Mrs. Vinci who raised him. That's the least of the problems. Secondly, Brown can't get the simplest facts straight when he tries (hello, an albino with perfect night vision? NOT GONNA HAPPEN!). Third, No matter the problem, no matter who is chasing them, no matter how little time is left in the chase, they always have time to stop for a lecture about how evil Christians are. Of course, the fact that Brown presents such a completely misogynistic work as Gospel of Thomas as an early example of women's rights and the church suppressing it as their hatred of women tells a lot about his methods and selection of which "scholars" to read. [/rant off] Okay, just want to make sure I'm clear on some things here: Was the book you read actually called " Cracking the Da Vinci Code", or was that the name you chose for your class you were teaching? Because I think there is a book titled that and it wasn't written by Dan Brown, but someone seeking to debunk Dan Brown for his book "The Da Vinci Code". Did you read that one? Personally, I have read a couple of chapters of "The Da Vinci Code" and the reason I haven't finished it yet has more to do with the sudden mass popularity than any bad, or perceived bad, writing on his part. I've read his other books: "Digital Fortress", "Angels & Demons", and "Deception Point". "Angels & Demons" was the first book I read by him and loved it so much I read his other books which turned out to be more U.S. government based in the story than religious based as "A & D" was. When "The Da Vinci Code" hit the shelves and everyone was reading it, I just naturally had an aversion to it because I had already liked this author and now everyone was acting like Dan Brown experts or whatever. Plus he apparently peeved off some people in the Church and the Body of Christ with this one, so I just observed as everyone got on their high horse and argued back and forth about it til they were blue in the face. Of course Dan Brown couldn't have been more pleased with this, so he even hyped things up by claiming to believe the things he wrote in his novel which just aggravated those in the Body that were objecting to him even more, and the more they objected, the more word of what was in his novel went around, and the sales just kept increasing. A couple of years ago I finally got a hardback copy and a paperback copy and I started reading the hardback copy and then the movie came out. My natural aversion kicked in again and I put it down. Now a third book featuring Robert Langdon is going to be out in a couple of months and I still haven't read this one yet. I'll probably get to it before the end of the year. Bottom line, whether you like the story or not, whether it's good writing, bad writing, or whatever, and even though what it suggests isn't something we hold as truth in our walk with Christ, please remember something about "The Da Vinci Code": It's a novel! Not a spiritual handbook, Not a self-help book, Not a historical book, Not even a book written by a scholar, But a novel. It's a story of fiction that a lot of people enjoyed as fiction and maybe a few people out there actually got it in their heads that there really was a church conspiracy after reading it just like people get conspiracy minded after watching Oliver Stone films. But if you find fiction in it when you're reading it, why are you surprised? It's a book of fiction! Of course there will be fictitious things found in it, and hopefully a lot of it! Folks, it's nothing more than a story of fiction that Dan Brown is making a lot of money from. If you don't like what's in it, don't read it, and recommend to your kids not to read it. But for goodness sake, dissecting a work of fiction as if it was anything other than that is about as bad as trying to make Jesus Christ into Lucifer just because in a verse of the Old Testament, Lucifer is called the Morning Star and in the Book of Revelation Jesus calls himself the Bright Morning Star. I've seen someone actually try to do that and is convinced that Jesus lost the battle in Hell and Lucifer rose out to impersonate Jesus. That might work in some sort of speculative fiction that I really don't want to touch to write even though I'd be interested in reading it just to see what the person comes up with, but it ain't reality as I know it, and it ain't worth arguing over or causing something to be even more popular by giving it bad press. It's a novel. Read it, or don't read it, but never forget: It's just a novel.
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Post by dizzyjam on Jul 23, 2009 0:12:52 GMT -5
And my favorite books of all time is Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.
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Post by morganlbusse on Jul 23, 2009 10:06:00 GMT -5
Dizzyjam, the only thing I would add is that even though a book might be fiction (i.e. The Da Vinci Code), when someone sets out to write about God, one must be very careful of the words they write because there are many people out there who will take what you write as gospel truth. I'm not sure where Dan Brown is concerning his beliefs, but I think we as christian writers need to take that to heart... Just because we are writing fiction, God isn't fiction and we need to portray him as accurately as we can.
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lexkx
Full Member
How nice to know that if you go down the hole, Dad will fish you out.
Posts: 125
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Post by lexkx on Jul 23, 2009 10:54:11 GMT -5
The trouble with Dan Brown is the trouble (and blessing) of all novels. And most of us subconsciously know it, or we wouldn't have strong opinions.
Yes, what he wrote was just fiction. Just fiction. Its purpose is to entertain. And, like a lot of fiction writers, he took some historical facts that were true and mixed them with some historical facts that were not, and wrote a story that treated all these historical facts like they were true. A lot of us do this.
However, when we read a novel, we have to decide what to accept as truth and what to accept as fictious. Whether or not we realize it--sometimes whether or not we want to--we learn a lot from reading fiction. We choose what we find believable and incorporate it into the way we understand the world. When we were young and read, for example, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, how many of us honestly thought that sleeping with a guilty conscience and a book across our chest would result in a permanent branding? Very few of us, but we accept it as a necessary part of the story.
Michael Creighton did something similar to Dan Brown in his novel The 13th Warrior, where he lifted the first three chapters from an unfinished medieval manuscript and threw in a lot of references as the story progressed. He freely admits that some of these are real sources and some of them he invented just to see if he could get away with it.
Dan Brown had an agenda of his own--a set of beliefs he wanted to encourage through the telling of the story. It's what grows up between the cracks of the foundation of the tale. That agenda is what most of us [Christians] disagree with. That, and the fact that the barrage of "historical evidence" he presents isn't fact-checked by the average reader.
Oh, right, and I suspect a lot of us are a little offended (I know I am) that the general public is willing to read a novel with such a sub-standard foundation, just because the overall effect of the building appeals to their perception of the world.
Oh, and Fab Faves: 1) Girl classics like L.M. Montgomery and Jane Austen 2) Terry Pratchett 3) Arena by Kathy Tyers 4) Stephen Lawhead pre-1994, especially Song of Albion 5) Patrick Bowers files, Steven James 6) Good Irish--19-20c. plays, Ulster Cycle, Ancient Irish Tales 7) Post-colonial West African/Caribbean lit--most notably Armah and Rhys 8) And, every now and again, a good Shakespeare fix
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Post by fluke on Jul 23, 2009 13:46:49 GMT -5
Dizzyjam,
I read Brown's novel and watched the movie. I read one book specifically against it (can't remember the title but it might have been Cracking). Cracking was my series title. I recognized that Brown was writing fiction but knew also that people were believing it. For the longest time, I shrugged the book off because I was sure that no one would take it seriously. Boy was I wrong. After repeated requests by church members to do a series on it, I finally read it.
I can read books that get some historical facts wrong and still enjoy them completely. I can read books written from entirely different worldviews and still want more of the series (Terry Pratchett is an agnostic, but I love Discworld).
One of the people in the church invited her neighbor because he loved Code and thought it told the truth about history. That's the reason the book got me so worked up. That people believed it because they wanted to.
There are people out there now that believe that the church voted Jesus to be divine at the council of Nicaea and that the vote was "relatively close." To quote McCoy from Star Trek, "Angels and ministers of grace, defend us." Neither fact is so.
The question at Nicaea was "when we say Jesus is divine, what do we mean? Do we mean Jesus is divine the same as the Father or that Jesus is divine similar to how the Father is divine?" Very different from how it is presented in Code. The 330 bishops did debate and wrangle. At the end, the vote was 316 for "same as the Father," 2 for "similar," with 12 abstentions. Even if all the abstentions were "similar" votes, 316-14 is not a close vote no matter how you slice it. But some people who would be clueless about Nicaea otherwise now believe the wrong thing about it.
That kind of work is not just sloppy; it shows an agenda.
I learned long ago that Christians are held to a much higher standard by the world for every little thing we do. I was once a member of an apologetics forum. If a Christian got the teeniest, tiniest fact wrong in a discussion, most of the skeptics would blow off everything else he said no matter how minor the error and how well researched the rest of the post was. The skeptics did not hold themselves to the same standard.
Brown is in the same category of no standard. It's like he only selected poorly researched works historical research. I believe that if he had just made things up from whole cloth, the book's historical details would have been closer to the truth. He had to work to get as many things wrong as he did (another example, contrary to his claim, how the Knights Templar became so prominent is well known among church historians. One of the founding knights was related to Bernard of Clairvoux, a famous theologian who held the pope's ear.).
It's not that I found fiction in a work of fiction that surprised me. It's that I found outright lies presented as truth in a work of fiction. To quote Terry Pratchett in The Truth, "A lie can run around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on."
Morwena and Lexkx, thank you for saying it so well.
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Post by dizzyjam on Jul 28, 2009 18:06:06 GMT -5
I'll comment back more later, but since I'm posting something else as a sense of urgency, I won't let this go without letting you know I've read your responses. I hear you, yet there are still a few things I want to say. Later though. God bless you, and it's always nice whenever I have to disagree with someone when it's done in peace without turmoil. Thank you for that.
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Post by waldenwriter on Jul 29, 2009 1:16:29 GMT -5
I can read books that get some historical facts wrong and still enjoy them completely. As a history buff, I generally would be annoyed by historical inaccuracy in novels. Then again, I have been guilty of accidential historical inaccuracies in a couple of my short stories - inserting a reference to James Bond in a story set before James Bond movies existed, and referencing Henri Matisse in a story set during the Crimean War (before Matisse was even born) and saying in the same story that he was known for odalisques (female slaves in Ottoman harems who were common subjects in Orientalist paintings) when he was not (although he did paint one such painting, his 1923 work Odalisque with Raised Arms). If they didn't make too many mistakes, or if the mistakes made were about history I was not familiar with, I think I could enjoy the story. Some authors twist history on purpose - that's what the whole Alternate History genre is about, right? Even in the storyworld background of my sci-fi novels, I changed some facts about the Apollo lunar missions so that some of our astronauts would end up meeting the native people of the Moon. I can read books written from entirely different worldviews and still want more of the series (Terry Pratchett is an agnostic, but I love Discworld). I felt that way about the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read them because I heard them recommended on a Harry Potter podcast I listen to. Philip Pullman, the author of the series, is a self-proclaimed atheist who has been quoted as saying he intended His Dark Materials to be an "anti-Narnia." Ironically, he claims that the series is inspired by Paradise Lost (which was written by John Milton, a Christian). While the story of the series is interesting and manages to keep you interested in the several plots all going on at once (often in entirely different dimensions), the theology is questionable. It borrows heavily from Jewish mysticism and the apocryphal books of 1-3 Enoch. There are some elements not from this, however, like Pullman's somewhat nihilistic view of God himself and the idea of Enoch having many wives (which is stated by Enoch/Metatron in book 3 of the series). It may even borrow from Islamic tradition - the heroine Lyra's father is named Lord Asriel, and "Asriel" is very similar to "Azrael," the name for the angel of death in Islamic tradition (something I just learned in my Sacred Texts class). Pullman also apparently has something against the Catholic Church, since the Magisterium - the ruling religious body of Lyra's world - resembles Catholicism in many ways, as became plain in the Church's negative reaction to the film version of The Golden Compass, the first book of the series. Still, I find the story interesting, though the theology is disturbing. Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle might also be an example of this; each people group has their own religious viewpoint in his world. The dwarves are polytheistic, the humans of the Valley (Eragon's people) have no specific religion, and the elves appear to be stoic atheists (they have no deities and don't believe the dwarves' gods are real either).
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Post by Spokane Flyboy on Jul 29, 2009 16:22:15 GMT -5
I get kind of that way with The Shack. It's a good work of fiction, but I know a lot of Christians — friends included — that have adopted it's universalism theology after reading it, that all roads lead to Heaven so long as you're close to God's law. I will say that I liked, for the most part, its attempt to portray the Trinity, though bringing in the fourth person that did the judging I felt muddled things.
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Post by Wolfie on Aug 19, 2009 4:56:21 GMT -5
Here are the ones I enjoyed reading.
StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade by Jeff Grub StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Firstborn by Christie Golden The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Black by Ted Dekker Sinner by Ted Dekker The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis Thr3e by Ted Dekker The Apologetics Study Bible Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
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Post by Christian Soldier on Aug 19, 2009 12:45:52 GMT -5
Wolfie:
Blue Like Jazz is awesome! Have you read any of his other works? I started with Searching for God Knows What. I wish I could count how many of my weekly e-mails I've based on that work alone. Another good one in the same genre is Jesus in the Margins; although, I don't remember who wrote it.
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catofninetales
Junior Member
People are the only thing you can take with you to heaven.
Posts: 66
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Post by catofninetales on Aug 21, 2009 20:24:21 GMT -5
Re Brown, a book my non-theist relatives have used to affirm their negative opinions of Christianity.
Re The Shack, a book handed to me by a nominal relative, for what reason I have no idea. Got the feeling he might not have liked it, actually, but he never said.
Dizz, I guess the thing is, I believe there's no such thing as fiction that *doesn't* preach, and for our culture to level the charge of preachiness at overt evangelical fiction, then call Dr. Zhivago a great classic, seems the height of silliness to me. Discourse mixed with real-world test scenarios has long been practiced, but also, discourse isn't necessary to the exposition of something claimed to be truer than truth.
Nothing to do with fiction or non-fiction, or historicity, but whether people buy it as transcendent "truthiness." No point getting cranked about it, either, I would say; but as our mutual friend Mr. Schooley might say, truth claims should be defended if they can be. Neo-gnosticism makes a truth claim. Brown makes a cultural impact. His lack of obscurity would suggest fruit can be borne by openly examining the underlying ideas in a reasonable way. Make the most of the time, because the days are evil.
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