[rating:4/5]
After reading The Da Vinci Code, I thought I’d take a look at some of the other books available on the topic. As a rule, I disdain spin-offs and other such nonsense. Well, perhaps that’s an understatement – I actually HATE such nonsense – if those who like to ride on the coat tails of others could write, they should create something original and not bother us with their nonsense. Sadly, this seems to be the case with so many books that are now appearing – everyone wants to ride the on the success of Dan Brown. There are already far too many books that are exactly that – spin-offs. One book; however, did stand out and that was Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This book caught my attention for a couple of reasons:
The book was published long before The Da Vinci Code (I frequently look at the copyright page to obtain such information before buying a book), and the book concerned many of the same topics as the Da Vinci code but was listed as non-fiction.
Overall, I found this book to be highly enlightening and well written. Even so, after The Da Vinci Code, it was rather dry reading (although that didn’t bother me) and contained a tremendous amount of information. While the authors were obviously knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their topic, I was disappointed in many of their rather shocking conclusions. Granted, they consistently noted that these conclusions were speculative, at best, I believe that derived at many of their decisions just to continue with their story. In particular, their apparent belief to support the contentions of Plantard, (the Frenchman who appears to have invented the “Priory of Sion” back in the 1950’s) without fully probing into his background in greater detail, casts a pall over the entire book. In fact, I would have to say that their failure to do so now has repercussions on their entire work.
Another problem I have with Holy Blood, Holy Grail is that the authors seemed to extremely well versed in their topic, and numerous references were provided (although I wish these were placed at the bottom of each page as footnotes, rather than stored in the back of the book) but they consistently forged ahead with their story without providing sufficient information for uninformed readers (including myself) to fully grasp the context of their work.
Of greatest interest to me was the second half of the book which dealt with the Bible (especially the New Testament) and the history/role of the Catholic Church. As I am far more familiar with those topics, the information was particularly informative and, of course, shocking, if true. Many of the discussions on the early history of the Bible along with questions regarding the information included in the four Gospels were particularly interesting as they raised many of the same questions I’ve had regarding inconsistencies. This was particularly true regarding Mary Magdalen’s role in the Bible, along with her relationship with Jesus. While many of their hypothesis regarding this relationship could, conceivably, be true, the author’s failure to really address issues that would demonstrate that the Priory of Sion is really a hoax casts a long shadow over the entire book – after all, if the authors can’t fully explain, or at least investigate an organization that may really have been founded in 1958, why should we accept their conclusions regarding incidents that occurred over two thousand years ago?
Regardless, I would still recommend this book to those that enjoy reading dry, albeit controversial, materials and are interested in this fascinating topic.