A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE ASKED ME ABOUT THE LONDON PLAGIARISM TRIAL IN WHICH TWO OF THE AUTHORS OF HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL (MICHAEL BAIGENT AND RICHARD LEIGH) SUED OVER ALLEGED PLAGIARISM OF THEIR WORK BY DAN BROWN IN THE DA VINCI CODE

Here are excerpts from a press release we issued three weeks before Judge Smith issued his ruling. Smith's ruling confirmed my analysis in the press release, although his ruling itself has now become more famous for its buried "Smithy Code" within its 71 pages than for its rejection of the plagiarism charge. (More on that soon).

Anyway, here are excerpts from our March 16, 2006 press release:



"IF DAN BROWN IS A PLAGIARIST, SO WAS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE"

SECRETS OF THE CODE editor Dan Burstein comments on the controversies surrounding novelist Dan Brown's London trial on charges of plagiarism


New York, March 16, 2006—“There’s no more plagiarism in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code than there is in Shakespeare’s King Lear,” said Dan Burstein, editor of the book, Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind the Da Vinci Code, in a statement released today. Burstein was reacting to the recent headline making news from a court case in London where Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, stands accused of plagiarism by two writers of the 1982 bestseller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG).

“In editing Secrets of the Code three years ago, long before the allegations of plagiarism surfaced, our editorial team searched out all the books Dan Brown might have used in his research, and licensed the right to present excerpts from many of them in our book,” Burstein observed. “We included an excerpt from Holy Blood, Holy Grail in Secrets of the Code because it was obviously one of the key books Brown relied on. He mentioned it specifically by name in The Da Vinci Code, he listed it on his website bibliography, and of course, the fictional character, Leigh Teabing, the “grail hunter” in The Da Vinci Code, is modeled on an amalgam of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, the HBHG authors now suing in London. The first name Leigh is drawn from Richard Leigh and the surname Teabing is an anagram of Baigent.”

Burstein noted that in light of the current trial in London, it is interesting to look back at the introduction to the excerpt from Holy Blood, Holy Grail in Secrets of the Code. That introduction said in part:

“Holy Blood, Holy Grail is the book that ‘started it all,’ in terms of the late twentieth century’s interst in the intersecting secrets and conspiracies of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, their supposed bloodline, the lost Gospels, the Templars, the Priory of Sion, … Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh spent over ten years in their own kind of quest for the Holy Grail, delving deeply into the secretive history of early France in order to write Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Reading the book, one can almost see the places where Dan Brown might have highlighted something or put a Post-It on it and said, ‘Aha! I’ve got to use that!’

[In a case of life imitating our Secrets of the Code, just such a marked-up, highlighted copy of HBHG showed up as evidence in the London court room!]

“However, as a number of articles (in Secrets of the Code point out), Holy Blood, Holy Grail has been seriously questioned in terms of its research, its methods, and its conclusions. Most academics with expertise in the fields the book touches upon find it either non-credible at best, or, at a minimum, mistakenly supportive of the hoax that many experts believe the whole Priory of Sion to be.

“Holy Blood, Holy Grail is definitely worth the reader’s attention. Whether it is true or not, or how much of it might be true, we will leave to each reader to judge. Let’s just say Dan Brown had a good idea in weaving this fascinating material into a work of fiction…Our aim here is to give readers a taste for this true Ur-text for The Da Vinci Code. If it interests you, get Holy Blood, Holy Grail and read the whole thing!”

Burstein points out today, “Perhaps no one in the world has studied the issue of the source materials for The Da Vinci Code as closely as our team of writers and editors in the ‘Secrets’ series. I can say with confidence that, while we found HBHG to be very important to The Da Vinci Code, we also found many other books, authors, and ideas to be of critical importance as well.

“Our whole concept in Secrets of the Code is to show readers interested in The Da Vinci Code the rich world of fascinating resources Dan Brown had drawn upon. It wasn’t just Holy Blood, Holy Grail—it was also the work of Lynn Picknett, who, in her book The Templar Revelation, first articulated the alleged hidden messages in The Last Supper that Dan Brown would later use; it was also Margaret Starbird, who wrote powerfully about new ways to look at Mary Magdalene in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar; it was also Elaine Pagels who forever changed the world of mainstream theology with her book, The Gnostic Gospels; and it was James Robinson and his team of scholars who translated and interpreted the great collection of alternative scriptures to be found in the book, The Nag Hammadi Library. …Dan Brown mentions all these books by name in The Da Vinci Code and listed them all in his bibliography. Excerpts from all of these books—and many, many more—are in Secrets of the Code because we knew that all of these ideas were important to Dan Brown in creating the narrative web of The Da Vinci Code and that they would be even more important to readers who wanted to learn and know more.

“Brown is not a plagiarist. He is, instead, a master at finding this largely out-of-the-way material, mining it, deconstructing it, reconstructing it, mixing and matching it, and weaving it all together against the backdrop of an action-adventure/murder mystery with characters and plots all his own.

“Shakespeare did the same thing—he borrowed the plot of King Lear and numerous other plays from prior plays. But then he added his proprietary Shakespearean touch, which made all the difference. Did Matthew, Luke, and John “plagiarize” Mark? Did the New Testament “plagiarize” the Old Testament? Did the Gnostic Gospels “plagiarize” the accepted Gospels? Obviously not. The courtroom drama over the intellectual property at the heart of The Da Vinci Code is not really a battle over plagiarism. Instead, it is a battle over the collective heritage of western civilization. These myths, legends, Jungian archetypes, alternative histories, cosmological theories belong to all people, to all writers, to do what they will with them in fiction or nonfiction.”

I saw the latest Da Vinci Code film clip recently--Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou as Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu in the Louvre. Unfortunately, it made me cringe with its stilted dialogue and flat acting. I have been saying for some time that I think The Da Vinci Code will be the biggest grossing movie of all time. I still think that will turn out to be true. But it isn't going to win huge critical acclaim. It looks like the screenplay has not really nailed the right voice to tell the story in and Tom Hanks remains a poor casting choice in my opinion. In my straw polls taken in groups of Da Vinci Code enthusiasts around the country before the cast for the film was officially announced, a noticeable majority favored Harrison Ford (for whom the Robert Langdon part was written by Dan Brown, if you read his descriptions of Langdon in the novels) and Juliette Binoche.

Sony Pictures' decision, announced today, to sponsor a web site devoted to various varieties of Christian theological and intellectual critique of its soon-to-be-released film version of The Da Vinci Code is remarkably clever. Although somewhat akin to tobacco companies sponsoring ads warning of the dangers of cigarettes, this is a far smarter move politically, artistically, and from a marketing point of view. In one sweep, Sony diffuses much of the type of theological critique that has hounded The Da Vinci Code as a novel. Sony is able to keep the "artistic integrity" of their film, without bowing to every pressure group and religious lobbying interest. But at the same time, Sony can say, hey, we're not anti-Christian--look, we're giving the critics a huge forum to tell their side of the story. And of course it should all work to turn potential boycotters of the movie into filmgoers who then join the discussion on the www.thedavincichallenge.com web site. I have one piece of advice for Sony: there are groups other than Christian critics who have a lot to say critically--as well as to add to the conversation--about The Da Vinci Code. So open up the critical commentaries to everyone else who has something important to say! You don't have to believe The Da Vinci Code is blasphemous in order to have an interesting critique of it.

Opus Dei is pulling out all the stops to present itself as a warm and fuzzy group with a human face prior to the attack on their group they fear is coming in The Da Vinci Code movie. Early word was that the generally secretive and inward-looking and extremely devout Catholic group, having felt its reputation unfairly tarnished by the Dan Brown novel, appealed to the filmmakers to make the film without specifically referencing Opus Dei....And the early word was also that the filmmakers had acceded to this demand and turned Silas's group from Opus Dei into simply a shadowy fringe group within the Church. Now, it isn't so clear that the film has written Opus Dei out of the script, so my friends over on Lexington Avenue are mounting their own pre-film media campaign. They've brought forward all sorts of against-type members of Opus Dei. They have recently introduced me and my research team to several perky middle-aged career women who are wonderful mothers and wives. Most recently, we even met "the real Silas," a member of Opus Dei in the New York area who happens to be named Silas--Silas Agbim, a Nigerian-born stockbroker. This "real Silas" is not only not an Albino and not a monk (Dan Brown, take note: there are no monks in Opus Dei, which is a lay organization), he jokingly points out he has never murdered anyone. Opus Dei also directs anyone who is interested toward John Allen, a CNN advisor in covering the Vatican and a respected Catholic journalist. Allen has recently written the book, Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. Allen's book is reasonably fair and balanced. However, don't think for a minute that Dan Brown simply made up a sinister role for Opus Dei out of whole cloth. He based it on something. I am guessing he had read the same persistent rumors I have read that Opus Dei was involved in some of the Latin American death squads on the 1980s, the Vatican Bank scandal of the 1970s and the possible murder of Pope John Paul I (a very similar Pope is poisoned in Dan Brown's prequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons). There's a lot we simply don't know about Opus Dei...but my guess is that we will learn more in the coming weeks as the debate over The Da Vinci Code reaches a new crescendo.