The Code wastes my time.

[kippurbird]

The photograph mentioned in the last chapter is now going to be known as the goat picture until disproved.

Do we get to know what the Goat Picture is in our next chapter? No. Instead we get to go back to our albino shooter. His name is Silas. And he has a limp. So, Brown has given us a highly identifiable shooter, with a limp. Which'll make him stand out even more. He apparently has something called a "Cilice Belt" on his leg which cuts into his flesh, "and yet his soul sang with satisfaction of service to the Lord." He then thinks, "Pain is good". This makes me want to edge away from him very slowly, least I make sudden moves and he shoots me. Silas enters a brownstone residence where numeraries live. There are no locks on the doors. He apparently feels that he owes God a debt of some sort.

He finds his cell phone hidden in his bottom drawer. How is it hidden, I don't know. The way it's written it sounds like he's got this empty drawer with a cell phone in it. And really, if Crazy Albino Dude has a cell, why didn't Curator have one? I mean, it's far more likely that the curator would need one than this guy who's staying where there's a mat for a bed.

Silas calls someone, a male who he calls Teacher. At least it's not master, because with that cilice belt and a joy for pain, well... you get the picture. The two of them have a conversation about something that's not mentioned - they call it a keystone- which is "an engraved tablet that revealed the final resting place of the brotherhood's greatest secret.. information so powerful that it's protection was the reason for the brotherhood's very existence." So, we're looking for a tablet that tells the resting place of... something. Something very secret. Something that is mockery by being hidden in the house of the Lord, one of Paris' ancient chruches -the Eglise De Saint-Sulpice.. The Afikomen? (Which would be the piece of Matzah hidden by the head of the house during the Passover Seder. If it's not found, then the Seder can't be finished.) It's the only thing I can think of that could be hidden in a house of the Lord that would be offensive (especially since some old fashioned myths said that the matzah is made of the blood of Christian babies.) So the keystone is the missing Afikomen. The photograph is the Goat Picture. Got it? Good.

The Teacher tells Silas that he must retrieve the stone that night! They've waited centuries for this. The only people who know about it are dead. And yet they must get the stone now! Silas seems to be concerned about trying to find away in. Apparently the church is a fortress at night.

And yet he had no problems getting into the Louvre.

Right.

Okay.

The Teacher knows all and tells Silas how he's going to get into the Church.

After he hangs up on the teacher, Silas beats himself to purify himself for his sins.

Nothing quite like having someone beat themselves up, is there?

We then switch back to Langdon. Langdon and the unnamed agent, who really should have been named by now, there's no reason why he doesn't have a name. His name is now Bobo. Bobo and Langdon drive through Paris. Lots of things are described. There's talk about phallic imagery. Unfortunately there's no way I can make it funny.

They make it to the Louvre and talk about the pyramid. Langdon the meets the captain, nick named the Bull.

Actually, looking at this chapter, absolutely nothing of importance happened. I'd have cut this chapter all together. It was basically a tour of Paris. It didn't forward the plot at all. Looking at the next chapter, we could have started there and not missed a single bit of information. One of the things that I've discussed in classes is that every chapter has to have a purpose. Every chapter has to move the story forward and give some sort of information, be it for story or character. This chapter we didn't learn squat about Langdon, Bobo left the scene after dropping him off, and they talked about the phallic imagery of Paris as well as some of the other monuments and their backgrounds. Perhaps this is trying to show us how knowledgeable Langdon is, but it's boring and such information could be given to us, about his knowing stuff, in a manner more directly related to the plot. Like him examining what is in the Goat Picture.

Comments

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

But there is information! We know that there's some mysterious stone that they need to get!

(Why he took an entire chapter for this one piece of information, I don't know ...)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Probably so he can fill pages up. That would be my guess.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

He apparently has something called a "Cilice Belt" on his leg which cuts into his flesh, "and yet his soul sang with satisfaction of service to the Lord." He then thinks, "Pain is good".

Opus Dei does exist, and they do wrap spiky things around their thighs, but they're not nearly as S/M creepy as they're depicted here. The cilice is also not worn when out and about, and meant to be something not enjoyed (empathy with the pain of Christ and all).

On a tangent, have you ever gotten a reply like this while sporking Eragon?

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Wow, that anonymous person sure doesn't like you sporking it!

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

They may not be enjoying it but they sure do go to lengths to explain why it's a great thing to do and they're not crazy . . . explinations that sound about as convincing as Craig's "I'm not gay".

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

So I saw on the Wiki-article. =D Which makes me want to flee him.

Also I got a troll once, but people out trolled him so he went away.

I put in my own response for you to see. =D

[dove-cg.livejournal.com]

One of these days, I swear I will leave you a response about that Bratz fanfic you wrote. I had one half written at one point and I have no idea what happened to it. I'm guessing the computer crashed and I forgot I was in the midst of typing it. ^_^;

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

Okay I have found two links that are chock full of spoilers, but they are also quite hilarious: The Albino Code which shows us the problems a real albino assassin would have.

Then there's How Stuff Works article called How the Da Vinci Code Doesn't Work which is also chock full of spoilery goodness.

In fact it's hard to think of anything that Dan Brown didn't mess up.

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

Skinema.com has quite a bit of info devoted to Davinci Code and Evil Albinos in movies in general. Great site.

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

Okay, "The Albino Code" might possibly be the most hilarious thing I've ever seen.

[authoressarktos.livejournal.com]

Well, I can say one good thing about Brown. Upon realizing (without even knowing that much about albinism) that his albino was poorly researched and badly characterized, I created my own fictional albino. I still have more research to do, but so far he's a realistic, half-blind, non-evil, kick-ass character. And I wouldn't have been inspired without having read The Da Vinci Code :)

I really want to see "The Albino Code"- I've heard a lot of good things about it.

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

I linked to it above you know ;) Here's the link again The Albino Code this is the high bandwidth edition. It's not a really long movie, which is good since the joke would wear thin.

[authoressarktos.livejournal.com]

I don't think it works on my computer unfortunately ^_^'

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of phallic imagery in this book. A LOT.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The Real Da Vinic Code = Find the Phallus, Save the world?

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

It's actually more like: find the meaning of the phallus, save the world. Yeah. What's the meaning of a phallus? Gee, I wonder.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I dunno... I wonder...

[berseker.livejournal.com]

What do you think about his style?

I tried to read Digital Fortress. Coudn´t get past page ten. It was painful. Clumsy, stilted, stupid, a lesson in how not to do it... it was so bad that I gave up in his books. I wonder if DVC is the same.

(plus, he was talking about computers, right, so he decided to explain what it was all about so we coud understand the plot, so he devoted at least one paragraphs every two pages to explain the same thing. ARGH! I got it the first time!)

[zoe-i-am.livejournal.com]

Kudos for making it that far! I couldn't get past the back cover!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

His style is dull and uneven. He rambles on about the most important things without ever moving the plot forward. I really don't care how much a building costs. It's not important. He seems to pick the wrong details to include in the text in an effort to be descriptive. The point of description is to help a person imagine what something looks like, not the abstract qualities of an item.