I agree, that's exactly what he - and his publicists - are doing. What annoys me almost as much is the way the cottage industry of books and "documentaries" discussing the Da Vinci Code is doing the same thing.
I was watching a "documentary" last night that purported to be examining whether there was any historical proof for the scenario of Brown's novel. What literally enraged me was the way that the person presenting the documentary would interview some total wing-nut whose book said that a particular aspect of Brown's novel was factual based on her feelings about Mary Magdalen or the visions she had when she visited some church or whatever, and would then interview a serious historian or archeologist with several peer-accepted schoraly book to their name in the pertinent field who would say that there was no textual evidence for that aspect of Brown's novel, and then the presenter would sum the segment up by saying rather chirpily "We may never know the truth about this aspect, so let's go on and talk about Y now."
To me, the frightening reverse to this obsession with authenticity is the complete lack of respect for what is actually authentic (I include reality TV, becasue most of them are contrived and at least partly scripted situations, and not at all "real").
And there's the fact that so many people just accept that if someone tells them "this is historically accurate" or - to broaden the field - "this is scientifically accurate" or "this is what is actually happening in another part of the world you can't witness personally" then it must be so.
People (well, a fairly large proportion of them aren't questioning the things they see or hear or read. And maybe unquestioning accptance of historical inaccuracy isn't as important an issue as some other manifestations of this kind of complacency, but it is part of the phenomenon. And it disturbs me greatly.
no subject
I was watching a "documentary" last night that purported to be examining whether there was any historical proof for the scenario of Brown's novel. What literally enraged me was the way that the person presenting the documentary would interview some total wing-nut whose book said that a particular aspect of Brown's novel was factual based on her feelings about Mary Magdalen or the visions she had when she visited some church or whatever, and would then interview a serious historian or archeologist with several peer-accepted schoraly book to their name in the pertinent field who would say that there was no textual evidence for that aspect of Brown's novel, and then the presenter would sum the segment up by saying rather chirpily "We may never know the truth about this aspect, so let's go on and talk about Y now."
To me, the frightening reverse to this obsession with authenticity is the complete lack of respect for what is actually authentic (I include reality TV, becasue most of them are contrived and at least partly scripted situations, and not at all "real").
And there's the fact that so many people just accept that if someone tells them "this is historically accurate" or - to broaden the field - "this is scientifically accurate" or "this is what is actually happening in another part of the world you can't witness personally" then it must be so.
People (well, a fairly large proportion of them aren't questioning the things they see or hear or read. And maybe unquestioning accptance of historical inaccuracy isn't as important an issue as some other manifestations of this kind of complacency, but it is part of the phenomenon. And it disturbs me greatly.