What a waste of time, this book.
Every now and then some celebrity tells some paper (s)he is reading this bland concoction, and I can't help feeling sorry. Please give it up, I feel like shouting. Read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire instead, or John McEnroe's Serious!
But of course, I don't shout. Nobody to listen, being the first reason.
Yet this is the work some Christians are greatly upset about, or let me give the emotion its trendy moniker -- their religious sentiments are hurt. (Well, by the film based on the book, though I wonder why it took the film, not the 60-million seller book). This is what has prompted one Nicholas Almeida to offer a Rs 1.1 million bounty on Dan Brown.
As earlier with the film of Kazantzakis's Last Temptation of Christ, as with the film of that superb musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, it is easy to claim offence and decide that everyone else must, perforce, feel it too. Easy to offer bounties. Of course, mediocrity or not, there's such a thing as freedom of expression. Though that clearly means little to Almeida. Because while all that is easy, it's actually harder to understand what freedom of expression truly means.
I know little about Christianity. But when I see behaviour like this, I know these guys, Christians though they claim to be, know even less about it. So for people who think they've got the hotline to JC, here's just one line from the Bible (Matthew 5, 11):
- Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Never fear: this bout of injured religious sentiments gets added to the informal list I began compiling at Four times injured.
5 comments:
Neela
Agree with you. For all of us who have seen and enjoyed DDLJ and KKHH, Dan Browns novel is entertaining. Yes - even I read Ludlum. Strange how Nicholas woke up after 2 years to hear about this novel and he passes a fatwa not on Ron Howard who has made this movie but on Dan Brown who wrote this 2 years back. I am alarmed at literacy in the country. People are really reading less and watching more of TV and movies.
If anything needs to be banned, I think it is Ekta Kapoor's serials.
I am really concerned about the dumbing down going on
This episode demonstrates that wrong headed people are there in all religions, not just in Islam or Hindu.
But it is not only for less literate people who are concerned about this movie - the top notch Wall Street Journalist Peggy Noonan (the Diva of Conservative Thinking...) also finds the movie in bad taste. She chastises Tom Hanks and Ron Howard (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008389) for this movie.
But Hollywood must be having the last laugh – more the controversy about the movie, more will they make money. And Hollywood needs some block busters since lately their business has been down…..
>>top notch Wall Street Journalist Peggy Noonan ..
Hope she wasn't plagiarising anyone this time while commenting.
Dilip, Bestseller Da Vinci code was mediocore because story starts and ends in a day!!! Compare it to your Narmada book where the real issues dragged for over a decade and there still no buyers of the book! Other than some illiterate villagers who were given some copies by your NGO and now those villagers I believe were using it to compensate for the water shortage ( a la Dances with Wolves)
Rejoice, your book beats Browns hands down (on mediocrity)
Well, I did not intend to write as a proof of wisdom of WSJ or Conservatives. Rather wanted to say how even so called intelligent people are falling to the trap of 'hurting religious sentiment'.
Dilip, this Anonymous dude is out to get you!
- Zap
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