May | June 2006 Volume 80 Issue 3 |
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Feature Article Touring The Da Vinci Code
Of all the excellent reasons to visit Europe—Big Ben, the Champ-Elysées, St. Mark's square—I have to ask myself this: Does finding the spot where a fictional albino psycho murdered an elderly goddess worshipper in a best-selling American novel really measure up? For legions of fans of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, who have been snapping up package vacations and day tours built around his deliciously readable thriller, the answer is an emphatic “Oui!” Ticket sales at the Louvre, where the novel opens, surged 9% last year—growth the museum's general administrator attributes largely to the book. Visits to Scotland's tiny Rosslyn Chapel, where the story wraps up, have quadrupled since its 2003 publication. These numbers are expected to get another boost with the imminent release of director Ron Howard's big-screen adaptation, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. First stop: Paris I'm standing in the Louvre midway through “Cracking The Da Vinci Code,” one of a handful of Da Vinci–related day tours offered in Paris, gazing at Leonardo's luminous Madonna of the Rocks, a crucial prop in Brown's narrative. Instead of soaking up its beauty, however, I am preoccupied by how large it is—six feet tall, four feet wide, and surrounded by a massive frame. How ever did Brown's heroine hoist this behemoth from the wall to use as a shield, as she does in chapter 30? Was she a giantess? Bionic? Ah, that is but one of Brown's many liberties, says guide Ellen McBreen, noting that the same character also threatens to put her knee through the “canvas,” when the work is actually painted on wood. But McBreen wants us to stop sweating the small stuff. “If you read the novel as history, you're in trouble,” she says. “If you read it to find out what's interesting to you in history, that's good.” McBreen uses Da Vinci to compress the Louvre—35,000 artworks stretched over six miles—into a short, sparkling survey of Brown's themes, from depictions of Mary Magdalene to gender ambiguity in Christian painting, dipping into a collection of Greek statues to illustrate the venerable tradition of goddess worship. “Everything here has a story to tell,” she says. “All these things that go on and on for room after room, they're all encased in a very complex story.” Just not, she makes clear, the same story that Brown tells. At press time, The Da Vinci Code had spent 146 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. In case you are one of those who has not climbed aboard this rollercoaster, here's a synopsis: Robert Langdon, a Harvard “symbologist” (one of Brown's cheesier inventions is the academic discipline of “symbology”) and French cryptographer Sophie Neveu, rush to the Louvre one night to find Sophie's grandfather murdered in the Grand Gallery. Clues send the clever pair tearing off on a breakneck scavenger hunt through Europe, decoding messages supposedly embedded in works of art. As they search, they uncover evidence of a centuries-old cult called the Priory of Sion and a shocking secret at the root of Christianity. Preposterous? Absolutely. But Brown based his thriller on some genuinely provocative historical questions. You want to break the ice with a London cabbie? Make chitchat with a marshal at Westminster Abbey? Get involved in a heated religious debate? Bring up Da Vinci. Or just drop by Paris's dark, somber St. Sulpice church. Of course, I couldn't find the marble floor tile that Brown's fictional albino smashed in his mad search for the Holy Grail, but I spent several minutes studying a sign posted by the priests: “Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this is not the vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. Please also note that the letters ‘P' and ‘S' in the small round windows at both ends of the transept refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, not an imaginary Priory of Sion.” London calling “We have guides who are snooty about doing The Da Vinci Code,” says British Tours' Henrietta Ferguson, who leads Da Vinci-centric trips around London. “But if that's the only way to get people into Westminster Abbey, I say let's do it!” An ebullient blonde who can discuss Daniel Defoe as easily as Dan Brown, Ferguson leads expeditions—to the stark, lovely Temple Church where Langdon squares off against the albino, to Opus Dei headquarters where the albino heads for refuge, to Kensington Gardens where a character staggers to die—all-day whirlwind tours punctuated by gusts of animated chatter. When Ron Howard came to scout film locations two years ago, he hired Ferguson to show him around. “I didn't mention ‘Happy Days,'” she says. “I'd heard he doesn't like that.” It is difficult—and depressing—to imagine that anyone would visit London and not head for Westminster Abbey, but Ferguson says it happens. She has encountered tourists who only wanted to visit Hard Rock Cafes. This is truly disheartening, for there are few spots on earth more inspiring, intriguing and outrageously strange than the Abbey. You may go in thinking you only want to eyeball Sir Isaac Newton's ornate sarcophagus, where Sophie and Langdon find a sinister message, but you will soon discover it is impossible to tear yourself free in under two hours. If that. Every nook is crammed with effigies, coffins, obelisks, plaques, stained glass, swords and busts, all in an insane, exhilarating mishmash of styles. Indeed, Henrietta refuses to take tourists directly to Newton. “It would be a sacrilege,” she announces crisply. “You've got 1,000 years of English history here.” She seems almost sorrowful pointing out Brown's fictional touches which many people take to be truth, including the fact that he sends his characters into the Abbey through a metal detector—“now present in most historic buildings in London,” he writes. In fact, there are no metal detectors here.
Off to Scotland The Abbey may be unusual, but for sheer weirdness few structures can compete with Scotland 's Rosslyn Chapel. Local tour outfits offer popular Da Vinci expeditions to Rosslyn in summer, but even on a bone-chilling January weekday the drafty church outside Edinburgh is jammed with visitors shivering in down coats and earmuffs. “This has been some year!” Rosslyn's director Stuart Beattie wrote in his winter 2005 newsletter, citing the challenge of accommodating thousands of pilgrims “coming along with their copies of The Da Vinci Code.” Indeed, some experts worry the unprecedented influx is putting the fragile 1446 edifice in danger, and Beattie has mentioned plans for limiting access. For now, though, Rosslyn—where Langdon and Sophie conclude their mission—remains open to all. It is well worth battling a frigid Scottish morning to experience this marvelous oddity, carved on every interior surface with fantastical and macabre images, from the Dance of Death reliefs that adorn an arched doorway to the 100-plus depictions of the pagan Green Man, and cryptic inscriptions like: “Wine is strong, the King is stronger, women are stronger still: But the truth conquers all.” One can only hope. The place suggests mysteries The Da Vinci Code will never help a traveler unravel. After a week following in the footsteps of Brown's characters, I have not come away with an enhanced appreciation for the blockbuster novel. But I am in awe of the extraordinary and enigatic places it has
taken me. Jennifer Reese, a former VIA magazine senior editor, is the head book reviewer for Entertainment Weekly.
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