Brown vs. Crichton and the value of "Faction"
I don't know about you, but I really enjoy reading fiction that challenges my views on reality, the same could be said for movies or music I suppose. In fact, most great fiction, whether it be in literature or film, is explicitly concerned with explaining or developing thoughts and ideas about the real world and humanity. Now, we would never claim that these great novels or films, like The Brothers Karamazov or Citizen Kane were true stories, but that doesn't mean that they didn't contain some "truths" or ideas that could be useful or true about real life.
But times are changing, and enter now the new hot item on our book shelves and soon to be in our movie theaters: Faction. I think thats a good word for it, bookstores are filled to the brim these days with works of fiction that are supposedly based on factual information. This is not an entirely new subgenre, Its at least partially related to historical fiction, which places fictional characters in actual historical events, can be very entertaining. But much of this new work has a different intent than to make history more alive and human, it wants to change our minds about certain beliefs and opinions; to open our thoughts to the possibility that certain "facts" we now possess may be untrue and supplant them with "the real truth." Two great examples of this are Michael Crichton's State of Fear, and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.
SPOILER WARNING: Go no further if you don't want to know what happens in these books!
State of Fear is the fast paced thriller we Crichton fans love, stuffed full of technical jargon and cool technology that Crichton always throws in his work, like the genetically engineered dinosaurs in Jurrasic Park, the sign laguage capable apes in Congo, and the out of control nano technology in Prey. But there's something new in this thriller. Crichton has included a vast array of information about global warming and in the midst of his chases and shootouts makes a very bold statement about his beliefs on the topic, he even goes so far as to conclude his novel with a personal note on what should be done about it.
The Da Vinci Code has fast become one of the best selling books of all time and in the same span has grown into one of the most controversial books in all of popular literature. Infusing exciting chases and very cool puzzle solving mysteries with his hypothesis on the truth about Jesus and the Catholic Chuch, Brown created a sure fire hit and a firestorm of debate. At the outset of his story he claims that much of what is written in the following pages is factual.
So here we have two novelists, best sellers, men at the top of their game with huge fan bases, but more than that we have a problem: we are used to accepting what they write instantly because it is fiction, we wonder about the ideas they present but only abstractly, exptrapolating their points and applying them to reality, but now we are confronted with two books that claim to actually be based in truth and we are left with this quandry: How do we seperate the fact from the fiction? How much do these guys actually know about their topics? Is what they say is true...really true?
Let me start with this, as a writer I can assure you that any responsible author, writing fiction or especially if writing non fiction, will have read and studied a great deal on their subject even if just to make sure that their work "feels legitimate." Whether or not they choose to use the facts or knowledge that they gain properly, or whether or not to embellish them in fiction usually isn't a problem because its...well...fiction. But now these two authors are making a greater claim, that their facts are indeed real and that something needs to be done becasue of the truth they've revealed to us. In this respect, Crichton has succeeded where Brown has not in that he has provided his readers with a tool that allows them to clearly see where he is inserting his own research and where he is simply writing his story. This tool is called Notation, and it is Brown's failure to use this elementary device that landed him in a recent lawsuit.
Crichton's claim is that Global Warming may be an invention of the media and scientific community for their own gain, the media needed a story to continue to keep viewers glued to their sets after the end of the cold war and scientists needed something to keep them busy and keep rich folk funding their lives. Ouch! Bold claims in a world that has all but accepted Global Warming as fact, and if Crichton had left it at that, I'm sure we would probably just write him off as being overly critical, but he keeps hitting us with that damned notation and even goes so far as to include actual temperature measurements from across the world over the past several years and goes on to use the evidence to make his own claims about natural phenomena: That deforestization and the earth's own cycles are the cause and not global warming, which he insists, (this time without notation) is around to push a liberal agenda. He goes so far in this aspect to have a Patagonia sporting, leftist, Hollywoodite insist that natives living in undeveloped countries are better citizens of earth than those of us who wastefully live in develped cities...the natives then eat said actor in a canabalistic rite...(okay, I laughed my head off becasue I thought it was pretty hilarious, I'm sure it pissed off a lot of actors who really aren't so stupid or self absorbed, but man, it was funny) So any way, Crichton presents his ideas and the literary community and the rest of us pass off an exciting novel that has actual documention in it without much thought, except for a spiteful review in Popular Science that claims that Crichton's work was anti-science.
Now we have the Da Vinci Code, an exciting tale of suspense and intrigue in the vein of Indian Jones. There are cool Anagrams, secret messages written in art (or worse) and vast conspiracies that cover up centuries of real truth with orthodox falsehoods. In truth, this novel is a real page turner, and Brown does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, but he also presents us with a problem, he never divides his fact from fiction. He makes astronomically large claims: Jesus was married to Mary Magdelane, they had children, the early church made up stuff about Jesus to gain power and at the same time stifled the outgrowth of the original teachings and stamped out the peaceful religion of the "sacred feminine," not too mention has a whole slew of battle ready monks and priests ready to take names and kick some ass in the name of the Pope. (Of course, if that were true I think more people my age would be becoming Catholic and hoping to get let into the Special Forces Catechism classes so we could take it to the streets!) So how do we know if what Brown is saying is true or not? Well, we don't, so we have to look it up ourselves, which I don't guess very many people have, because unfortunately, unlike Crichton's charts in State of Fear, the reality behind Brown's work is a little dull. I'm sure most of you have seen that Brown was in a court case involving the authors of a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This work, written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln was an historical hypothesis presented in 1982 based on the claims of Frenchmen Pierre Plantard and also makes many of the same claims as the Code does (the law suit is for plagiarism) But do yourself a favor, and just type in the book (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and the man (Pierre Plantard) into an online encyclopedia (I like Wikipedia.) HB, HG was denounced by mainstream historians as inaccurate and even one of the books own authors deep sixed it as not having much to do with any proveable history, just an idea, and P. Plantard turned out to be one of the biggest cons and frauds in French history (He even claimed in the 1960's that he was the true King of France...take that Chirac!) Anyway, maybe that's why Brown didn't include any notation, becasue even a brief online encyclopedia search nearly debunks his entire claim.
So in the end, if an author is going to make a claim that his/her fiction is based in truth, I think they should go the Michael Crichton route and include notation, but even if they don't, (I mean, in a film its sort of impossible unless the filmmakers encourage you to do dig into some particular works) we as readers or film goers should be responisble enough to at least do a little bit of research before believing the claims presented in entertainment.
So until next time, I guess I'll leave you with my G.I. Joe lesson for the day: Gee, Duke, State of Fear was really a great book! That's right Scarlett, keep reading these challenging books, and thinking about their ideas, just don't buy into them without careful thought and study! GOOOO JOOOEEE!!
But times are changing, and enter now the new hot item on our book shelves and soon to be in our movie theaters: Faction. I think thats a good word for it, bookstores are filled to the brim these days with works of fiction that are supposedly based on factual information. This is not an entirely new subgenre, Its at least partially related to historical fiction, which places fictional characters in actual historical events, can be very entertaining. But much of this new work has a different intent than to make history more alive and human, it wants to change our minds about certain beliefs and opinions; to open our thoughts to the possibility that certain "facts" we now possess may be untrue and supplant them with "the real truth." Two great examples of this are Michael Crichton's State of Fear, and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.
SPOILER WARNING: Go no further if you don't want to know what happens in these books!
State of Fear is the fast paced thriller we Crichton fans love, stuffed full of technical jargon and cool technology that Crichton always throws in his work, like the genetically engineered dinosaurs in Jurrasic Park, the sign laguage capable apes in Congo, and the out of control nano technology in Prey. But there's something new in this thriller. Crichton has included a vast array of information about global warming and in the midst of his chases and shootouts makes a very bold statement about his beliefs on the topic, he even goes so far as to conclude his novel with a personal note on what should be done about it.
The Da Vinci Code has fast become one of the best selling books of all time and in the same span has grown into one of the most controversial books in all of popular literature. Infusing exciting chases and very cool puzzle solving mysteries with his hypothesis on the truth about Jesus and the Catholic Chuch, Brown created a sure fire hit and a firestorm of debate. At the outset of his story he claims that much of what is written in the following pages is factual.
So here we have two novelists, best sellers, men at the top of their game with huge fan bases, but more than that we have a problem: we are used to accepting what they write instantly because it is fiction, we wonder about the ideas they present but only abstractly, exptrapolating their points and applying them to reality, but now we are confronted with two books that claim to actually be based in truth and we are left with this quandry: How do we seperate the fact from the fiction? How much do these guys actually know about their topics? Is what they say is true...really true?
Let me start with this, as a writer I can assure you that any responsible author, writing fiction or especially if writing non fiction, will have read and studied a great deal on their subject even if just to make sure that their work "feels legitimate." Whether or not they choose to use the facts or knowledge that they gain properly, or whether or not to embellish them in fiction usually isn't a problem because its...well...fiction. But now these two authors are making a greater claim, that their facts are indeed real and that something needs to be done becasue of the truth they've revealed to us. In this respect, Crichton has succeeded where Brown has not in that he has provided his readers with a tool that allows them to clearly see where he is inserting his own research and where he is simply writing his story. This tool is called Notation, and it is Brown's failure to use this elementary device that landed him in a recent lawsuit.
Crichton's claim is that Global Warming may be an invention of the media and scientific community for their own gain, the media needed a story to continue to keep viewers glued to their sets after the end of the cold war and scientists needed something to keep them busy and keep rich folk funding their lives. Ouch! Bold claims in a world that has all but accepted Global Warming as fact, and if Crichton had left it at that, I'm sure we would probably just write him off as being overly critical, but he keeps hitting us with that damned notation and even goes so far as to include actual temperature measurements from across the world over the past several years and goes on to use the evidence to make his own claims about natural phenomena: That deforestization and the earth's own cycles are the cause and not global warming, which he insists, (this time without notation) is around to push a liberal agenda. He goes so far in this aspect to have a Patagonia sporting, leftist, Hollywoodite insist that natives living in undeveloped countries are better citizens of earth than those of us who wastefully live in develped cities...the natives then eat said actor in a canabalistic rite...(okay, I laughed my head off becasue I thought it was pretty hilarious, I'm sure it pissed off a lot of actors who really aren't so stupid or self absorbed, but man, it was funny) So any way, Crichton presents his ideas and the literary community and the rest of us pass off an exciting novel that has actual documention in it without much thought, except for a spiteful review in Popular Science that claims that Crichton's work was anti-science.
Now we have the Da Vinci Code, an exciting tale of suspense and intrigue in the vein of Indian Jones. There are cool Anagrams, secret messages written in art (or worse) and vast conspiracies that cover up centuries of real truth with orthodox falsehoods. In truth, this novel is a real page turner, and Brown does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, but he also presents us with a problem, he never divides his fact from fiction. He makes astronomically large claims: Jesus was married to Mary Magdelane, they had children, the early church made up stuff about Jesus to gain power and at the same time stifled the outgrowth of the original teachings and stamped out the peaceful religion of the "sacred feminine," not too mention has a whole slew of battle ready monks and priests ready to take names and kick some ass in the name of the Pope. (Of course, if that were true I think more people my age would be becoming Catholic and hoping to get let into the Special Forces Catechism classes so we could take it to the streets!) So how do we know if what Brown is saying is true or not? Well, we don't, so we have to look it up ourselves, which I don't guess very many people have, because unfortunately, unlike Crichton's charts in State of Fear, the reality behind Brown's work is a little dull. I'm sure most of you have seen that Brown was in a court case involving the authors of a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This work, written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln was an historical hypothesis presented in 1982 based on the claims of Frenchmen Pierre Plantard and also makes many of the same claims as the Code does (the law suit is for plagiarism) But do yourself a favor, and just type in the book (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and the man (Pierre Plantard) into an online encyclopedia (I like Wikipedia.) HB, HG was denounced by mainstream historians as inaccurate and even one of the books own authors deep sixed it as not having much to do with any proveable history, just an idea, and P. Plantard turned out to be one of the biggest cons and frauds in French history (He even claimed in the 1960's that he was the true King of France...take that Chirac!) Anyway, maybe that's why Brown didn't include any notation, becasue even a brief online encyclopedia search nearly debunks his entire claim.
So in the end, if an author is going to make a claim that his/her fiction is based in truth, I think they should go the Michael Crichton route and include notation, but even if they don't, (I mean, in a film its sort of impossible unless the filmmakers encourage you to do dig into some particular works) we as readers or film goers should be responisble enough to at least do a little bit of research before believing the claims presented in entertainment.
So until next time, I guess I'll leave you with my G.I. Joe lesson for the day: Gee, Duke, State of Fear was really a great book! That's right Scarlett, keep reading these challenging books, and thinking about their ideas, just don't buy into them without careful thought and study! GOOOO JOOOEEE!!
posted by Twenty One Productions at 9:47 AM
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