Madam, - Breda O'Brien (Oct 30th) makes the terrible mistake of picking a fight with fiction, and losing. Her dismissal of the Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is rather sad.
The book is a work of fiction which draws on some facts, some myths which may or may not have a basis in fact, and lots of imagination to conjure up a pacy piece of pulp fiction. It is a great read.
Storytellers exaggerate and in doing so capture something of interest to us.
Brown's story of a tolerant, female-centric religion open to human sexuality is interesting, irrespective of how historically true it may or may not be.
Brown is making a fortune because he's telling a good story, a story based on as much evidence as anything told in church of a Sunday. - Yours, etc.,
DERMOT CASEY, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.
Madam, - I am writing in response to Breda O'Brien's ridiculously sanctimonious and somewhat puzzling article (Oct 30th) in which she reveals the "codology" of Dan Brown's recent bestseller, The Da Vinci Code.
Given that this book can be found in the "Fiction" section of most good bookshops, the first half of the article is completely superfluous as she simply picks holes in some of Mr Brown's fictional plot lines.
The latter half of Ms O'Brien's rant is, however, even more outrageous, as she attempts to refute the dubious beginnings of Christianity as we know it, i.e. a certain emperor essentially fabricating a tale about a divine man, which to this day is heralded as the complete truth by anyone who chooses to ignore their history as well as their common sense.
Ms O'Brien concludes by accusing Brown of "simply recycling stories which have been discredited a dozen times before".
Anyone who regularly attends Mass, including, I presume, Ms O'Brien, will know more than myself on this particular subject. - Yours, etc.,
DARREN HENRY, Iveragh Road, Whitehall, Dublin 9.
Madam, - I cannot understand why so many Catholics, including Breda O'Brien (Oct 30th) feel so threatened by Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code.
Perhaps it is because Mr Brown has raised awkward questions for the church.
One doesn't need to be a theologian or a novelist to know the Catholic Church is one of the most ruthlessly efficient organisations.
It cannot have survived 2,000 years without a determination to destroy its enemies.
Perhaps this explains so many attacks on Mr Brown.
There is a cottage industry of books available to reassure Catholics whose faith is so shaken by the incendiary "potboiler"!
Catholics need to stop attacking every perceived slight on their church.
They need to address the institutionalised protection of child abusers that has damaged the church a lot more than Mr Brown's book.
The real conspiracy theory has not been answered.
When did members of the Hierarchy find out about abuse in their diocese and what did they do about it?
No doubt the church will do everything in its power to suppress that information. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN KENNY, Moran's Cottages, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Breda O'Brien has misunderstood The Da Vinci Code (Oct 30th). Dan Brown regards the Holy Grail and all it may symbolise as a hoax. Marie Saunière is Dan Brown's mouthpiece (see DVC, page 581, Corgi). More importantly, through her too, he expresses his real concerns for the world we live in, "The pendulum is swinging. We are starting to sense the dangers of our history and of our destructive paths. We are beginning to sense the need to restore the sacred feminine" (page 581, Corgi).
As I argue in my article on Dan Brown's book on my website, if Marie had substituted the word "include" for "restore", she would have expressed my views on the need to include feminine perspectives and values, to a much greater extent, as we seek to transform our turbulent, violent, aggressive, male-oriented world and construct in its place a world where the emphasis is on non-violent ways to address and resolve our conflicts. - Yours, etc.,
ANDREW FURLONG, Tubbermore Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin.