Dan on Trial

The Holy Blood, Holy Grail trial begins soon:

Mr Leigh said: "That was somewhat ironic. In fact, we toyed with the idea of a novel on several occasions.

"The book caused a fairly substantial flap at the time, both here and in the United States. We were very careful to state that in synthesising the material, we were presenting a hypothesis.

"When I first heard about The Da Vinci Code, I ordered it. I said to my agent, 'If they make a film of this, I will be p****d off'."

He added that the writer Paul Schrader had been interested in making a film of his book for Paramount Pictures before he wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ.

Mr Leigh said: "That's another reason for our grievance. In effect, Brown has ruined our material."

Intriguingly, the only mention of his book in The Da Vinci Code is when its villain, an eccentric English historian called Sir Leigh Teabing, lifts a copy off his bookshelf and says: "The authors made some dubious leaps of faith in their analysis, but their fundamental premise is sound."

The name Leigh Teabing is an anagram of Leigh and Baignent, while his physical description - he walks on crutches - is allegedly based on Mr Lincoln, who walks with a limp.

Mr Leigh said: "None of us can work out why he did that. Was it a jokey homage, or a nudge, nudge, wink, wink?"

Comments

[pacatholic]

"None of us can work out why he did that. Was it a jokey homage, or a nudge, nudge, wink, wink?"

How about option c: I've ripped off the whole book so I might as well rip off their names and disabilities, too.

I suppose any financial judgment against him will be a drop in the bucket for Mr. Brown. However, it would put a bit of a crimp in his "impeccable research" claims.

[The Inquisitor]

Plagiarism? Let's see:

Holy Blood, Holy Grail: Jesus has sex with Mary Magdalene. They spawn a holy bloodline.

Da Vinci Code: Jesus has sex with Mary Magdalene. They spawn a holy bloodline.

Yep, sounds like a lawsuit to me.

[dymphna]

In my amazon review from a couple of years back I said that DVC is nothing but warmed over Holy Blood Holy Grail. The court case should be interesting. Who do you root for? It's like picking between arsenic and thalium.

[Chris]

You root for Leigh and Co., because at least then Brown will have to admit that his whole screed is based upon "dubious leaps of faith", by his own admission.

That would be worth something.

[ToddV]

I remember skimming through the entire "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" about 5 years ago in a Barnes and Noble and thinking what a bunch of dingbat stuff. Little did I know it would get plagiarized into a blockbuster. I always tell people who ask me to read DVC that I already read the primary source and it was bogus, so I know DVC is bogus. But I do hear that DVC is one heckuva pageturner....

Todd V

[Charles]

But one of the many problems with DVC is that it's not a pageturner. It's embarrassingly poorly written. And I'm not comparing it to Shakespeare. DVC falls way short compared to Ludlum and other potboiler/thriller/beach reads. I always assumed it was popular because it said what people wanted to hear.

[Muireann]

"The book caused a fairly substantial flap at the time, both here and in the United States. We were very careful to state that in synthesising the material, we were presenting a hypothesis."

Wow, Mr Leigh better get his lawyers on standby again because there must be some *other* book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" out there ripping off his scholarly presentation of a hypothesis. That would be the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" book I read which was hyped to the utmost as the Real! True! History the Catholic Church Does Not Want You To Know!!!

Which must be a completely different book to Mr Leigh's unsensational work, of course.

[Sandra Miesel]

"Oftimes evil will evil mar."

HBHG has lots of footnotes and bibliography. Therefore it's by definition "scholarly." Their sequel MESSIANIC LEGACY does dimly perceive that some of the important sources for HBHG were hoaxed but the authors are undeterred.

[Eileen R]

This is confusing. If the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" think everything they wrote was true, how can they say Dan Brown's plagiarizizng them to reveal the truth?

[Rich Leonardi]

Can we file this one somewhere near "Hitler's troops invade U.S.S.R."?

[Carrie]

I discovered an interesting bit of information a while back. The Lord Pentland who was president of the Gurdjieff Foundation in America until his death in 1953 is Henry John Sinclair, of the Rosslyn Sinclairs. If you're interested in links that verify this, I've posted them here.

Before you say "so what", consider that the enneagram was originally Gurdjieff's idea, that it plays a big part in the spirituality that is taught by Fr. Richard Rohr at the Center for Action and Contemplation, and that the new catch word "contemplation" (not to be confused with the activities of Catholic saints who used the word)is a major factor in the Benedictine spirituality of Fr. Thomas Keating and Fr. Basil Pennington (now deceased), both of whom gave their endorsement to MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT, and both of whom promote the centering prayer movement. What's more, Fr. Keating has spoken at the Church of Conscious Harmony, which is using centering prayer/contemplation to promote the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. If you want to know more, it's here.

[Ken]

"When I first heard about The Da Vinci Code, I ordered it. I said to my agent, 'If they make a film of this, I will be p****d off'."

This is like when John Todd & Mike Warnke got into a backstage fistfight over who was stealing whose "Satanic Illuminati Conspiracy" shtick.

Pass the popcorn.

[CMick]

"While his book has been attacked as nonsense by the Vatican..."

*Attacked* as nonsense? That's pretty bad writing in itself.

It's been *dismissed* as nonsense.

[Annalucia]

Every time I see the name ``Teabing'' I read it as ``Teabag.''

[Mary Kay]

Carrie, do you have a reference for your statement that Fr. Basil Pennington endorsed Meditations on the Tarot? That is contrary to what I've read by him, all of which emphasized the importance of Mary.

[Ken]

From:

http://www.medtarot.freeserve.co.uk/pennington.htm

A startling book! The Author pushes us further into the Good News that all things are ours -- even the tarot cards -- and we are Christ's. Yes, all can be brought into the service of Christ. Read, and be expanded.

The scholarly and wide ranging introduction of Hans Urs von Balthasar should lay to rest any fears of more orthodox Christians. He doesn't hesitate to compare this extraordinary work with those of Bonaventure and Hildegard of Bingen, both saints, though he does add some few necessary cautions. It is a question of accomodation, not syncretism; it is not a question of "laying the cards" but of exploring their symbolism. These meditations have had their antecedents in every age of the Chruch.

The unknown Author relies on numerous quotations to evoke the masters of the traditions. It is such a rich collection of wisdom drawn from such a staggering number of diverse sources that it leaves the mind almost reeling. Besides the Bible we find the Upanishads, the Kabbala, the Hermeticists, and men as diverse as Origen and Chardin, Plato and Bergson, Jung and John of the Cross, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

It is without doubt the most extraordinary work I have ever read. It has tremendous spiritual depth and insight. It contains one of the most challenging treatises ever written on the three vows (obedience, poverty and chastity) -- one wonder is the anonymous Author is not a religious who has long lived the vows.

Basil Pennington, OCSO, 1984.

end of quote/

Please understand that I knew Fr. Basil many years ago, when he received me into the Catholic Church. He deeply loved the Lord and Our Lady. May he rest in the peace of Christ.