The French translation of the megaselling American thriller "The Da Vinci Code" already has sold 400,000 copies since its publication here in March, monopolizing the top slot on all the best-seller lists. As most of the book is set in Paris, at least a dozen tour operators, art historians and self-appointed experts have cashed in, offering insider views of the sites, symbols, legends and lore featured on its pages. "This is a phenomenon, a spiritual healing that is bringing Americans back to France and is telling the world the truth about the most dramatic cover-up in history," said Olivia Hsu Decker, a California real estate agent who buys into the book's plot line. She also happens to own the 17th-century Chateau de Villette outside Paris, where the book's eccentric British art historian and evil manservant live. This week Decker ran her first "Da Vinci" program, donating the chateau she has renovated for a four-day inaugural theme tour to a group of acquaintances from Marin County who bought the trip for $15,000 at a school fund-raising auction. A weeklong "Da Vinci Code" tour with lodging in her 15-bedroom, 240-acre, or 90 hectare, spread costs $55,000. Breakfast is included. The book's most dramatic revelation - that the Catholic Church conspired for centuries to cover up evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife and their descendants became the first kings of France - fits right in with the centuries-old tradition of French anticlericalism. An assortment of feminist theologians and spiritual advisers are organizing seminars and tours in southern France around the cult of Mary Magdalene. According to legend (and the book), she lived in exile in a cave near Marseille for more than three decades and when she died, her bones were buried in the basilica of St. Maximin in Provence. "Da Vinci" is such a crowd-pleaser that even the Louvre, the most staid of French cultural institutions, has embraced the pop-hype and begun to use the book as a marketing tool. On Tuesday, it welcomed potential American donors with a continental breakfast, a brochure titled "Your Business and the Louvre Museum" and an inaugural tour of the galleries and corridors described in "Da Vinci." And why not? The book opens with the murder of the Louvre's elderly curator in the Denon Wing. The eyes of the Leonardo da Vinci painting "Mona Lisa," by far the museum's most famous painting, are featured on the cover. Caught between the need to attract private money to the Louvre and the desire to preserve a modicum of elite decorum, Henri Loyrette, the museum's director, struggled to maintain a cool distance. He addressed his guests, about the need to dispel arrogance and make the museum more accessible to the masses, but excused himself when tour time came. He fiercely denied that his museum endorsed the book in any way. He said he had not even read it, even though the French version is on sale in the Louvre's official bookstore. In a brief conversation, Loyrette called the theme tour a way of entry of sorts into the collections. He said of his guests, "You see, I would say that these are people who are not necessarily of the milieu of culture." On the tour, Jacques Le Roux, a free-lance art historian and tour operator hired by the Louvre, explained that it would be impossible for Jacques Sauniere, the 75-year-old curator and murder victim in the book, to have kept his job or even his access to the museum because the mandatory retirement age in France is 65. At the Church of Saint-Sulpice not far away, where in "Da Vinci" a self-mutilating albino monk searches for a keystone believed to unlock the secret of the Holy Grail, the Reverend Paul Roumanet, the church rector, did read the book. He did not like what he read. He and his staff have had so many inquiries from visitors searching for clues that he has posted a notice in English and French that reads, "Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this is not a vestige of a pagan temple." But the church is in the midst of an ambitious, three-year, $6 million restoration of one of its towers, and Roumanet confesses that from time to time even he is tempted by the book's success. "It would be nice if Dan Brown would give 10 percent of his profits to restore the church," he said. But then he caught himself, adding, "I might not accept the money if he did." The New York Times 
Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
|