Novelist Susan Hill's latest book is a commentary on everything she read in 2009 (Howards End is on the Landing). They were books she had already read or had neglected but couldn't be without. In snowy January it seems worthwhile to look back on last year's reading and try something similar. I didn't manage to read quite as many books as she did but all of mine were new discoveries and deserve to be shared.
Or, at least, some of them do. I won't attempt to cover the whole list but the highlights neatly illustrate my current tastes in history, biography and fiction.
To be honest, that should be "pseudo history". It all started in that den of seduction, the Nottingham Subscription Library, where the attractively-jacketed The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail caught my eye, in the miscellaneous and war section, of all places. Setting aside my inherent prejudice against anything that had been so much in the media, I picked it up and found I couldn't put it down. What a bold sweep of history and geography, weaving fact, myth and legend into an almost believable tale of secret societies, bloodlines and conspiracy. I wanted to believe it. Why shouldn't Jesus have had a private life and a family that moved to Southern France, after his death, to escape persecution, living on in the Merovingian dynasty? After all, I'd been to the town of Saintes Maries sur Mer on holiday and the legend of Mary Magdelaine arriving there from Egypt was very much alive.
Finishing the HBHG inspired me to set aside my prejudice once again and have a look at The Da Vinci Code. I was aware of the controversy surrounding Dan Brown's famous thriller from the coverage in 2006 of the copyright lawsuit brought against him by the authors of HBHG. I was curious to see what Dan Brown had made of the story.
You know what? I couldn't put that down either. "Irritatingly gripping tosh" was BBC critic Mark Lawson's opinion. Certainly gripping. And, yes, Dan Brown's style grates a bit. Why do cars always "gun" down the highway? The academic lectures from the "symbologist" hero Robert Langdon and other experts are somewhat long and tedious. But what a plot! And humour. I couldn't believe my eyes when I came across the character "Leigh Teabing", who propounds the Mary Magdelaine bloodline theory. What impudence, inventing a character based on the HBHG authors Leigh and Baigent! "Tosh" is certainly a bit strong isn't it?
Looking into the lawsuit proved irresistible. It is general knowledge that Dan Brown won the case and that the copyright of HBHG was not infringed. However, I haven't read in any news reports that the written judgement of Mr Justice Peter Smith is almost as gripping as the novel (see the report at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2006/719.html). It clearly sets out the factual background and presents the judge's scathing impartiality in an most entertaining way. For example, he is not afraid to be blunt:
"It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way DVC has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright."
The HBHG authors are wittily put in their place:
"Mr Baigent was a poor witness. Those are not my words: they are the words of his own Counsel in his written closing submissions (paragraph 111). Those words do not in my view do justice to the inadequacy of Mr Baigent's performance."
Yet, Dan Brown is also roundly criticised:
" I do not believe he consciously lied. His failure to address these points in my view shows once again that the reality of his research is that it is superficial."
Which brings me back to the "tosh" point. Judge Peter Smith carefully avoided opinions about the content of the books in dispute, but the cold light of his judgement was suggestive, if not dismissive about the bloodline theories. Fortunately, for me, a new book came out in 2009 that shone a searchlight onto the credibility of those theories.
David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, the Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History includes the court case in a dispassionate, forensic review of twentieth century media controversies. David is a journalist on The Times newspaper and I read and enjoyed his previous journalism in The Independent and his book Paddling to Jerusalem. In true investigative style, he probes the events and biographies of the protagonists in the Da Vinci Code case, as well as the Stalin show trials, the McCarthy witch-hunts, the deaths of John Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana , the 9/11 attack in New York and the suicide of David Kelly, the UK government science adviser.
Aaronovitch's research suggests that critical evidence used in HBHG was clearly a hoax. The Frenchman who approached the book's authors with information about the secret society, the Priory of Sion, had a track record as a con-man. It is possible that the authors knew this but didn't let it get in the way of their story.
But it was an enjoyable story and it led to a good thriller. The HBHG and DVC created scenarios that were perhaps best described as "conjectural history" or fiction based on some factual material. Voodoo Histories persuasively clarifies misconceptions on this score created by conspiracy theorists who, in Aaronovitch's words, see themselves as "lonely custodians of the truth...understanding what everybody else doesn't and what everybody else would most like to deny".
