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A nineteenth century French priest discovers something in his mountain village at the foot of The Pyrenees which enables him to amass and spend a fortune of millions of pounds. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago. The author's conclusions are persuasive: at the core is not material riches but a secret - a secret of explosive and controversial proportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village all the way to contemporary politics and the entire edifice of the Christian faith. It involves nothing less than... the Holy Grail. "From the Paperback edition."… (more)
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The occcasional tidbits of fact slipped in (such as the mystery of what Sauniere found and the cutting of the Elm) are fascinating, though. Too bad they're weighted down with tons of unreliable speculation, so I have no idea what I can believe without checking the sources. Instead of playing on the reader's idiocy to try to convince them it's all God's honest truth, somebody should write this (admittedly fascinating) story as fiction.
Only, you know, do it well.
The trick is to come up with a fictional past that people will want to believe in (in this case: Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and just as you always suspected, the whole church establishment is a fraud). Then write a tedious narrative full of mystifying language about how we, the authors, were inexorably drawn to believe this theory in despite of all our dry-as-dust scholarly colleagues with their timorous reliance on careful sourcing.
All this padding is essential; it adds heft to your book, which increases its air of authority. But be sure to spice it up here and there with quick-moving passages that assert really wild and sexy claims (like, a lineal descendant of Jesus will someday assert a claim to rule all of Europe). These will be the only parts most readers will absorb, so give them arresting subheadings.
Readers will underline these passages and email their friends, then ask their ministers about them. Soon one or two scandalized churchmen can be counted on to rail against your book on TV. You'll be invited to appear as well, for the sake of balance, and all you have to do is act the role of a maverick but dedicated scholar.
Then the paperback comes out, graced with a lengthy introduction in which you express, with cherubic innocence, your shock at all the uproar about your humble and sincere efforts to uncover the truth. History Channel, here we come.
Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln start off with the discovery of French documents that purport to outline a secret history of Jesus after the resurrection wherein he and Mary Magdalene fled to France and settled down, had kids, and fathered a line of French kings that exists to the present day.
Each chapter follows a general pattern: take a document or set of documents, engage in wild speculation about how, with the right set of eyes, you can see how it fits into the grand scheme of things, and admit that it is speculation but that it could be true. Then, begin the next chapter with some variation of, "now that we concretely established X from the previous chapter as true, we will now examine the next bit of evidence". Rinse, repeat.
Although it's all pretty silly, and it was later revealed that the documents they rested their theories on were forgeries, they are far more imaginative than Dan Brown could ever hope to be, so if you're into that kind of conspiracy theory fiction, read the original rather than subjecting yourself to The da Vinci Code, as it is pretty much a fictionalization of Holy Blood Holy Grail.
What I like is the rather dry manner in which the authors have written the book. Anyone expecting shocking revelations at the turn of every page will be disappointed.
While the dry style is good, it also means that there are times
The main conclusion is, however, tenuous in my opinion. Establishing a bloodline with genetic data is difficult enough, and to establish a 2,000 year old bloodline on the basis of documents even more so. I would think that there is some speculation here.
That Jesus Christ was a mortal man, married, and was deified later is entirely possible. I have my own country, and the myths of Rama and Krishna to attest to this possibility.
I say, if you read the book mostly for the historical theories, then skip the parts about the bloodline and even the Prieure de Sion. Those parts are entertaining and well written, but (unfortunately?) proven wrong to some extent. However, their theories and descriptions of early christianity and the Knights Templar carries much more weight, and leans on more respected sources. This book is really not as ridiculous as some people have claimed it to be!
Interesting - if you are as fascinated as I am with what people will believe, read this.
If you want history - go to Barber (MALCOLM) et al.
Because the authors of THIS book actually believe this, I tried to seriously follow their trail of the Grail. Not convincing.
"He who steals my purse steals trash." about sums it up.
Still, there is much there to make one wonder if there isn't just a bit of truth to the myth. If you are a fan of mythology or conspiracy, check this out. It's not a short read and is dense with dates, places, and names but that is what makes it one of the greatest mythologies in history.
Most readers will be familiar with the ideas in the Holy Blood, Holy Grail, thanks to the Da Vinci Code. Its pretty obvious that Dan Brown based his novel on the research in this book. The authors do an excellent job of presenting their findings and are very open about what they can support with documentation and what they are making educated guesses about. Even the guess are plausible and it all presents a very interesting picture. Readers interested in history, religion or a good detective novel will enjoy this book.
The theorising about the relevance of the Merovingian dynasty is interesting, but the threads become very thin and left me with extreme