I still haven't quite got what all the fuss is about over The Da Vinci Code; it's only a work of fiction. Heck it's not even that original an idea; Jesus Christ was a human being who had a wife and kids and died and the Vatican has conspired for 2000 years to cover up this truth. Ho Hum. Been there, read it, and almost bought the T-shirt.
I'm not even talking about the guys who wrote The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail either. That wasn't the first book to come down the pipe about the mystery surrounding the life and times of the carpenter from Nazareth who was cast into the role of saviour. It wasn't even the first one to incur the wrath of the Vatican and find itself on the proscribed list.
Nikos Kazantzakis only had to have Jesus be tempted while on the cross with giving up Godhood in exchange for married life to get himself in trouble. The irony of course is that Nikos was a devout Christian who believed in the divinity of the Christ. But he had Him be sorely tempted at the last moment to give it all up for the love of a good woman. (Is it just me or does it sound like there's a country song lurking in there somewhere)
But the first book I read which dealt with the thorny subject of "The Cover Up" was by American author Tom Robbins. His first novel, published in 1971, Another Roadside Attraction, meandered into the catacombs of the Vatican and found out the deepest, darkest secret.
Amanda is a fortuneteller in a travelling circus of hippies and other exotica, when she meets jazz musician/film-maker/magician John Paul Ziller and his baboon Mon Cul (who happens to be the only creature in existence who knows a word that rhymes with orange). Before you can say "love at first sight" they have announced their marriage, and abandoned their itinerant ways to open another roadside attraction.
In their case this amounts to a hot dog stand and flea circus. They've only just settled in to raising their firstborn, when Marx Marvelous wanders into their lives. (Surprisingly not his real name, he created it on the theory that those two words together would be enough to set any decent red-blooded American male's teeth on edge.) Marx ingratiates himself into their lives under false pretences. While pretending to be a fellow traveller on the road less travelled, he is actually a plant sent out by a think tank in Washington to discover what the younger generation is in an uproar about. (Remember this was written in 1971 and while the sixties were dying, revolutionary fervour was still somewhat in the air.)
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Article comments
1 - Nik
I had been thinking about this book a lot myself with all the Da Vinci hoopla. Infinitely better take on a similar idea, isn't it?
2 - Che
I enjoyed the hell out of this book when I first read it. Maybe its time to dust it off for a re-read and give myself a break from all the da Vinci Crud.
3 - Scott Butki
This was my introduction to Robbins and I've liked
him ever since.
4 - Bruce Hoppe
I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who made this connection. Until I read this piece. Well done. As a 20 something in the 60's who was somewhat active (civil rights issues, singer/song writer)I grapple with the question inherent in Richard's closing remarks. Were those times really so innocent? Or were we really on to something that, at some level, we sensed we weren't quite ready for?
There are a couple of lines in my new novel up for review here(a shameless plug)that touch on this issue. The character reflects on the dismissal of the 60's as a mildly charming, if naive experiment and wonders, "A crafty ploy, playing this shell game with the past. It has always been the need of the timid to prove passion fatally flawed." Though who "the timid" are can lead to a whole other train of thought, (Not just Nixon's "silent majority." The good guys flinched too.I'm grappling with that one also.) there is a connection here in the character's comment.
And Richard's concluding point hits the nail on the head when he observes there was once a time when people passionately embraced change as an opportunity to grow--not something that preciptates a Prozac binge. And, for me, that's enough. No follow up dislaimers about naivete are required. Though, it certainly is aggravating that, given our collective prevailing pulses, it seems to be a prerequisite, lest we be dismissed as a candidate for May Day soapbox orations in Haymarket Square.
5 - Jack Grifith
Uhhh Maybe i missed it but where in the novel does it state that ; Marx is planted at the preserve by the think tank. I only recall references to his previous employment there.
6 - Merwyn Haskett
Great review, but one nit-pick: Plucky goes undercover in the woods of Washington, not Minnesota. I wouldn't care, except it's my neck of the woods (no pun intended) and Robbins' too - and I've always found it awesome that the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Humptulips featured in a major work.