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juliet mills
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The long-suffering readers of this blog will never know the thrill of reading the first, breathless review of a forthcoming publishing sensation. But they could just possibly be reading, and Im proud of this, the last-ever review of a publishing sensation.
Mr Browns thriller has been out for three years now and seems to have sold several hundred million copies and generated an enormous multi-million pound industry around itself, culminating in a Hollywood blockbuster movie starring Tom Hanks and an juliet mills weave.
Its no wonder that I began my patronising journey into the wonderful world of Rubbish Holiday Books with The Da Vinci Code. Any sense of shame and embarassment I may have suffered by gingerly opening my copy, fortified by a vodka and juliet mills juice, barely seconds after our plane had tilted into the skies over Heathrow, was ameliorated by the knoweldge that I wasnt alone.
The chap in row 34b had one, the lady in 58A had almost finished her illustrated edition, and a person of indeterminate sex in row 78F was wearing a copy as a hat for most of the flight. I almost caused an incident when I tried to barge into Business Class to see if anyone was reading it in there but, mostly, I gathered - before I was man-handled through the curtains by a couple of trolley dollies - it looked like everyone had opted for the fish and was watching Narnia, containing scenes of mild peril, over a plesant plastic beaker of champagne.
I wasnt expecting to be surprised by the Da Vinci Code and, happily, I wasnt. As a thriller it has the kind of clunking, mechanical efficiency that a Lecturer in Creative Writing could engineer. Every character has some kind of primary motivation; every plot-point dovetails neatly into the next; every twist enters the room with the subtlety of a diplodocus in a paisley waistcoat. And pacy it aint - the protagonist, Robert Langdon, takes 200 pages to get out of The Louvre.
For a thriller which is meant to be controversial its a curiously conservative book. Even the scenes of ritualistic, orgiastic sex are written with all the sexual excitement of a round of whist down the British Legion.
But part of its success must be down to the fact that it is, in part a theological trivia book. We are given hundreds of facts with which to stick the finger to the local priest, should we be one of the tiny majority of people who actually know such a person.
Among many amazing discoveries, we find out why Friday The Thirteenth is so unlucky. We learn that, sadly, Stanley Kubrick got most of the specifics wrong in his portrayal of the private gathering of ultra-elite Manhattanites during Eyes Wide Shut. You know: when Tom Cruise walks in to witness Hieros Gamos, a communion to celebrate the magic of sexual union.
I would be shocked at Stanleys uncharacteristic amateurishness but, like me, he was probably mesmerised by the six-foot supermodel juliet mills - stark naked, six-foot supermodel ladies - in that particular scene.
We discover that Walt Disney - you know, that dreadful old anti-semite - was in thrall to the story of Mary Magdelene and would hide references to her in his films, The Rescuers Down Under or some such. And, of course, learn that the Mona Lisa is, in actual fact, half man, half woman, which accounts for the look of self-satisfaction.
There are a lot of blow me down references to Leonardos paintings. We told that the chap on Christs right in The Last Supper, Ive kindly reproduced above, is not in fact a disciple at all, but his wife! This would explain why Jesus and the missus lean away from each other, eager for conversation elsewhere, and why all the other fellers at the table are pointing at Mary Magdalene - for it is she - in an accusing fashion. Blogdoms own Art Historian First Nations could probably explain this all better.
With the action shifting between some of Paris and Londons biggest tourist-attractions, the Da Vinci Code is like that fabulous Monty Python travelogue film ( Venice! And more of those fucking gondolas! ) In fact - and Im not sure why other have not noticed this - there is a similarity in tone between this book and my favourite television series ever - Murder, She Wrote.
Occasionally, the producers of Murder, She Wrote - an old-fashioned, plodding, defiantly middlebrow, murder-mystery series - would think it a good idea to pack Jessica Fletcher off to London.* This would give Broadway singing-star Angela Lansbury the opportunity to get up on a West End stage dressed as an Edwardian harlot to sing A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square** in a mangled Cockney accent to an audience carefully comprised of a cross-section of British society: men in bowler hats and cravats, coal-miners in full rig, a Beefeater, a charwoman and a couple of mohicaned punks.
The single London street would be built under a vivid Californian sun and comprise of buildings slung together from a couple of cancelled Western series and a Parisian bordello. complete the effect, the set-dresser, lets call him Randy, slam down three red postboxes in a random sequence. And, of course, a Routemaster bus would fly across the screen every couple of seconds - with nobody on it. Oh, to live in that lovely town.
The Da Vinci Code is, um, a bit like that, but without the sleuthing old lady.
My day is near!
* During pre-production the respective LA agents of Patrick Macnee, Judy Geeson and Wilfred Hyde-White could wait by the phone with some confidence.
** Curiously, I only today discovered, thanks to Matthew Sweets marvellous book, Shepperton Babylon, that this song was written for an actress called Judy Campbell. Nope, Ive not heard of her, either.
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Post je objavljen 16.01.2008. u 02:44 sati.