Wrong. Just one of many examples, given by a reader from England:
I grew up in the Inner Temple, London, and subsequently was educated at Westminster School. As a result, I had free and constant access to two of the scenes of the Da Vinci Code, and for this reason I can say with confidence that Dan Brown has either never been to the Temple and Westminster Abbey Chapterhouse, or did so long before he wrote his book and therefore had forgotten the geography.
From the Temple Church, the heroes of the story run to Temple Station, and from there take the underground to King's College. But (a) Temple Station is in fact the nearest underground station to King's College and (b) King's College is closer to the Temple Church on foot than Temple Underground Station is.
From the Chapter House at Westminster there is no direct connecting route to or from the Abbey. As in most monasteries, you have to leave the Abbey, walk along the cloister, and enter the Chapter House from there. There is no view over College Gardens (named after my old school which uses them for cocktail parties - incidentally the oldest lawn in the world).
This reminds me of something written by Dan Burstein, editor of Secrets of the Code. He wrote (and I paraphrase, because I don't have his book with me and I'm on the road) that Dan Brown is actually more accurate the further back in history he goes in The Da Vinci Code. But if you can't trust an author to be accurate about modern-day details that can be confirmed through direct observation, or via trusted resources (maps, travel guides, etc.), why trust him about ancient history? Weird.
I wonder if the participants of the TDVC tours get to try taking a train at Temple Station to get from Temple Church to King's College. :P
Posted by: Cristina A. Montes | Wednesday, May 03, 2006 at 04:04 AM
An afterthought: perhaps we should organize "Da Vinci Hoax Tours" where participants do things like walking from Temple Church to King's College and to Temple Station to get an idea of the actual relative distances between them, or try to yank the "Madonna of the Rocks" from the wall. :P
Posted by: Cristina A. Montes | Monday, May 08, 2006 at 05:35 PM
WHAT??!?!?!?! that's not real??? Then the whole novel is a piece of trash, i'll go advice everyone i know against read it because even if it is fiction it doesn't get its geography right a we know how important an accurate geography is in a fiction novel ... what are you guys going to "expose" next? That there's no one called Robert Langdon in Harvard?
What do you think of this title: "The inaccuracies of the Middle Earth, geography for Tolkien" ? Send me an email and we'll get rich.
On a final note, the las paragraph of this blog entry is just silly ... why would i trust a novel about any kind of historical facts it deals with while the story develops ? ... the only way that can happen is if my IQ is low enough to make me unable to distinguish a novel from a history book. Co uld people with such a low IQ possibly exist?
Posted by: Project9 | Tuesday, May 09, 2006 at 04:04 AM
Carl: I just finished reading DVC myself and I'm a little curious. Doesn't Brown actually have them leaving the Abbey and walking through the cloisters to the Chapterhouse? Don't get me wrong, I don't trust a single thing in the book. Nearly everything is indeed wrong, but I'm wondering whether this particular criticism is correct. Or maybe his writing is so overwrought that I didn't understand what he was describing.
Posted by: Domenico Bettinelli Jr. | Tuesday, May 09, 2006 at 06:52 AM
P9: If you actually take Tolkien seriously, you'd see that although his world is made up, it has interior consistency. He actually made maps of the worlds he created, and if you actually refer to the maps while reading his descriptions of places and how long and difficult it takes for characters to get from one place to another, you'd find that his descriptions are logical and likely. For Tolkien, even a fantasy writer has to make his fantasy world convincing -- which is what distinguishes his fantasy from inferior fantasy.
If a good fantasy writer is one who makes his made-up world convincing, all the more should a writer of historical fiction make his background convincing. Well, actually, he only has to if he wants to be called a GOOD writer of fiction.
Posted by: Cristina A. Montes | Tuesday, May 09, 2006 at 06:01 PM
Yes Cristina, i really enjoy Tolkien's book. I see you're implying that Dan Brown is not a good fiction writer, i've only read the DVC so i really can't comment on that.
Posted by: Project9 | Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 04:15 AM
"Yes Cristina, i really enjoy Tolkien's book."
Wait till you find out what Tolkien's religion is. :D (evil laugh)
Posted by: Cristina A. Montes | Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at 10:58 PM
Cristina his religion didn't affect his ability to write nor how much i enjoy his books.
Posted by: Project9 | Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 10:20 AM