Dear bookies,
With Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" at #1 on the bestseller lists, I thought you might be interested in reading my bookstore-y about Brown's first #1 book. As always, let me know what you think of this posting.
Bookstore George
THE “DA VINCI CODE” CUSTOMER
A Bookstore-y
Our first customer of 2005 was a 50-ish man with a handsome head of wavy, slick-backed, gray hair. He arrived wanting to sell a few books: three on auto repair, the three-volume paperback set of Anne Rice/Anne Roquelaure's erotica “Sleeping Beauty”, and a box of “The Lover’s Tarot”, which, he pointed out, had never been opened.
After receiving more than he expected for them, he asked if I would be interested in a copy “The Da Vinci Code”, which had been the bestselling book of 2004. I assured him that we did. It was a bestseller that was very unique, and demand for it was high while available used copies were few.
“The Da Vinci Code” is a page-turning thriller with an unusual spiritual dimension. The author, Dan Brown, challenges much of the accepted history of the early Christian church, drawing from a wide variety of published sources, including the Dead Sea Scrolls/Gnostic Gospels. The protagonist – a professor of religious symbology – along with a female French code-beaker with the Paris police are chased by the same French police on a scavenger hunt-like trail of clues that lead them into the French country side, London, and eventually Scotland.
Brown provides an intriguing look into church history as the innocent fugitives flee from murder charges, going on a Holy Grail quest as the way to solve the murder that begins the book.
It is in such high demand – even after over a year on the bestseller list – that the publisher has just released an illustrated edition. I found the book interesting enough the first time through to buy the illustrated edition with some birthday (12-26) money to re-read it with all of the symbols evident along with the text that describes them.
With agitation, the customer began talking about his attempt to read the book. "I only got 50 pages into it, and then had to put it down, because it turned my belief structure upside down and inside out. It challenged everything I believed, and it seemed fairly accurate." While standing on the other side of the counter, he kept unconsciously rearranging the books he'd sold me while continuing to talk about something that obviously had deeply upset him.
"I even started reading more about the things he was suggesting, and they seemed to be realistic, too,” he said.
"The part about the church eliminating the gospels that didn't give them the power they wanted was very disturbing. I thought there were only four gospels, and it turns out that there might have been eight dozen! Why would the church tell us that every word of the gospels was divinely inspired if they got rid of the gospels that might have been equally inspired but didn’t agree with their agenda of setting up a powerful church structure?”
He was moving around in front of the counter, unable to stand still while discussing a book that had destabilized his spiritual life.
I asked him if he were Catholic.
"Yes, I was brought up Catholic, but these days I'm more interested in my spiritual development than church teachings."
Which made me wonder about his next statement regarding the popular book, “I...I...I just couldn't bring myself to read any more of it, or about it. I’m almost afraid to read it further.
"Growing up, we were instructed that the Bad Popes had done a lot of things that the church disapproved of, and now I'm learning that a lot of what we were taught just wasn’t true. Just which ones were the Bad Popes and which were the Good Popes? Or was there any real difference?”
Quite upset, he seemed relieved to take a break from talking about the book in order to instruct me to create a card for his store credit for another visit, promising to bring back the book which had exploded his world.
He returned around 4pm, carrying Dan Brown’s book, holding it away from his body, as though to avoid the physical equivalent to the contamination that had already entered his head.
He saw a children’s picture book titled “Winter Solstice” on display, one of the holiday titles we’d overlooked earlier in the day as we de-Christmas-ed our bookshop. “Will you trade me this book for “The Da Vinci Code?” he asked eagerly.
I assured him we would, and give him another $1.75 in cash or $3.50 store credit as well. “You will? You’ve always treated me good in here!” he said.
Leafing through the illustrations, he said, “My wife is gonna love this! We got married on winter solstice.”
“How long have you been married?” I asked, nursing the store-y.
“About three weeks now,” he replied with a smile.
Oh!
Before I could congratulate him, he cocked his head and said, “Winter solstice is another one of those problems with the church that I’m having since reading this book,” tapping “The Da Vinci Code” he’d laid on the counter.
“Because of the way it created questions in my head, I went to the Winter Solstice gathering they had over at the university? And it was a beautiful ceremony.” In an aside, he said, “I could have sworn that (Ohio State Athletic Director) Andy Geiger was beside me.” (Buckeye-worship is widespread around here.)
“We walked the labyrinth – is that the way you pronounce that? And they taught us that there any many paths to the center, including your spiritual center.
“I was really pleased that my new wife and I went to that. It was very moving. But in the beginning the church tried to bury Winter Solstice ceremonies, too. They tried to tell us that it was held by witches and other evil people.”
He tucked “Winter Solstice” under his arm and headed for the door, an unhappy man. As he started pushing the glass door open, he turned to me and rhetorically asked,
"How could the church lie to us like that?!"
