Like my estimable co-blogger, I too recently finished The Da Vinci Code. I too am glad I read it, since it confirmed my snobbish belief that nothing that sold millions and millions of copies worldwide was going to be as good as Foucault's Pendulum. However, upon finishing it, I found myself in an interesting linguistic dilemma. If one reads a book expecting to be disappointed, and upon finishing it, finds that one is indeed unimpressed with the quality of the work in question, can one say that one is disappointed? The book, after all, lived up to my expectations--my expectations were just low.

More substantive criticism (and spoilers--be warned if you are one of the two people left in the country who has not read the book) below.

My main problem with DVC was the reductive treatment of symbolism. In the book, while multiple symbols could indicate the same thing, a single symbol could not indicate multiple things. As a result, the world of the Da Vinci Code seemed drab and predictible to me. It didn't help things that I was already fully familar with the Grand Revelation that came partway through the book, and didn't quite understand how any reasonably educated person could have entirely missed the idea that the Grail represented the descendents of Jesus and Mary Magdelene. Nor, given what I know of pagan religions, could I buy this mythical pre-Christian feminist paradise.

But my major gripe centers around the obsession of descent from Jesus and Mary Magdelene. The book tries, at this point, to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand, the Grail-worshippers claim that Jesus was just a man like any other, but on the other hand they attribute mystical properties to being a descendant of his. Which one is it? Either he's just a man, and therefore being descended from him is no more thrilling than being a descendant of William the Conquerer, or Julius Caeser, or else he is indeed the Son of God, and thus able to pass on a certain divinity to his progeny.

Q. Why am I doing this?
A. I'm not sure. But maybe it'll be fun.
Q. Do you ever watch Tom Brokaw?
A. No, but I figure this is like an "event." Maybe there'll be balloons.
Q. Or maybe it'll just be a normal newscast, eh?
A. Maybe. But I hope not. That would make this post pretty boring.
Q. No kidding.
A. Maybe we should stop the prologue now and turn on the TV.
Q. Yeah, probably.

6:30. 40 years of Holiday Hess Trucks! Or at least on the Boston NBC affiliate, that's what we've got. I wonder if that's national or not.

6:31. They're gonna need to strip "Tom Brokaw" from the logo. I don't think I've watched any channel's evening news in a long, long time.

6:32. They haven't acknowledged it's his last day. Yet. That's too bad. I hope they do by the end. The job of news anchor is weird. It requires nothing more than reading off a teleprompter, yet they garner such respect and make so much money. I know there's more than just that. They have to decide what stories, and occasionally do some reporting. But they can delegate that stuff. Really the only thing that makes them anchors is the reading. And Brokaw doesn't have an amazing voice or anything like that. He sounds constipated when he talks, and looks kind of uncomfortable too. He doesn't seem natural. He's "announcing" the news more than he's really talking to anyone, it seems. Is this how he sounds in a conversation? It sounds so stilted.

6:34. Whereas the reporters in the field sound much more natural and conversational. Although, I just figured out why Brokaw gets paid so much. "Jim Mcleshefsky"? Is that the correspondent's name? That's what it sounded like, and that's a hard word to say. Just saying that guy's name right is worth a couple million bucks a year, right?

6:35. Brokaw moves his head but not his body when he talks. His suit stays completely still. Maybe he's not really wearing a suit, and they've just superimposed his head onto a suit. You think that's possible? You think anyone would know if that's what they did? Would it be a scandal? Bigger than Dan Rather's scandal, or smaller? Is the fake-suit scandal what's leading him to retire?

6:36. Not to take my attention away from Tom Brokaw, but John Danforth talks too slow. His one meaningless sentence about danger being dangerous slowed the whole pace of the newscast.

6:37. "U.S. military intervention" has to be one of the easiest phrases for a news director to find video footage to place behind. I mean, you can show anything and no one's going to complain. I bet there's a whole reel of "stock military footage" that they go to all the time for generic stuff.

6:38. Brokaw looks down at the end of all of his sentences. It looks unnatural. Like the teleprompter is moving closer and he needs to see those last couple of words. Maybe the fake suit is getting in the way.

6:39. "Peaceful nations must keep the peace." Excellent, Mr. President.

6:40. Nope, easiest phrase for news director to find footage: "World War II." I think being the guy who finds the stock footage for newscasts would be a horribly boring job.

6:41. Ukraine? I always thought it was "The Ukraine." Guess not.

6:42. Face lift, or no face lift? Not too many wrinkles for a 64-year-old.

6:45. Back from commercial. Online credit reports. Hmmm. I just did that last week. Why's he smiling? Credit isn't funny? Funnier than Iraq, I guess. You think Tom Brokaw knows his credit score? I bet it's pretty high. What's starting today about free credit? You can already get free credit reports on e-loan.com. Even I know that. The whole report is complaining about ads on the website? What's the big deal? And spam e-mail? Yeah, that's bad... but why was this called an "in-depth" report? It was pretty shallow. News must be slow.

6:47. 1/3 of all men 30-34 and 1/4 of all women have never been married. Thanks for the factoid, NBC research bureau.

6:48. OK. Sounds like he'll have some thoughts about retirement coming up later. But first, a heartwarming story about people in hospitals. Or at least that what it looks like. Oh, but first, another drug commercial. Last break had Lance Armstrong. This one's got a Lipitor commercial. "Ask your doctor...." If I was your doctor, I'd be annoyed if someone asked me about a random drug. More drugs. Bayer Low-Dose. I bet low-dose isn't any cheaper than high-dose even though it's cheaper for Bayer. Does eating Stouffer's grilled entrees increase your need for Lipitor?

6:50. They sent Brian Williams to Iraq right before he takes over for Brokaw? I bet Brokaw sent him there, just for kicks. "Hey, Brian, I know you're excited about taking over for me... but first, how about you go to Baghdad for a little while. Hope nothin' happens to you. He he he." Oh, wait, he's not in Iraq. He's at Walter Reed Hospital. That's in Washington, no? I'm not listening well enough. I'm waiting for Brokaw's final words. Maybe he got Jerry Springer to write them for him, like Springer's "final thoughts" at the end of all his talk show episodes.

6:54. Wow, Brian Williams is wearing an awfully nice suit. His suit is nicer than Tom's. I wonder if that's on purpose.

6:55. And, coming up after some more drug ads, Brian Williams reaches through the split screen and drags Tom Brokaw off. Procrit. One-a-day Weight Smart ("the first multivitamin with EGCG"). What the heck is EGCG? Why is the Postal Service advertising? "Mail? I forgot there's mail! Wow, mail!" Nexium. How many different medicines are there, and why do we want people calling their doctors. Shouldn't we rely on doctors, rather than actors, to tell us what drugs we need. All I know about Nexium from the ad is that it can make my esophagus feel better. Maybe my esophagus is what's keeping me from greater heights. How can I be sure? Should I ask my doctor?

6:57. Not leaving Tom much time, sadly.

6:58. "It's not the questions that get us in trouble, it's the answers." "And no one person has all the answers." "And buy my series of books on the Greatest Generation." It's not the questions that get us in trouble, it's the answers. Sounds nice, but what does it mean? I don't really understand that. Plus, I think the use of the word forbearance was a bit excessive. This isn't cable, Tom. You've got kids watching. Forbearance? I don't even know if I know what that means.

6:59. What the heck is this bizarre song closing us out? The photo montage is nice, though too short, but this 30-second song about Tom Brokaw... what *was* that? Odd.

7:00. Okay, well, that was uneventful. I like Tom Brokaw. I don't know how relevant the evening news is anymore, though. With the Internet and cable... I'm not sure. Certainly the "in-depth" report on credit scores was pretty useless, and really everything was pretty surface. All they get is 22 minutes or so, and the only thing I really learned was that I should ask my doctor about Celebrex, Lipitor, Procrit, Nexium, One-A-Day Linoleum, Three-A-Day Byzantium, and Twelve-A-Day Cerebrumum, to maximize brainium activity.

Q. So, was this exercise worth it?
A. I don't know. Maybe. Probably not.
Q. Gonna live-blog Rather's last newscast in March?
A. Maybe. We'll see.
Q. How about live-blogging C-Span for a while?
A. No thanks.

The Route des Cassoulets lies in Southwest France, on the wild Basque borders with Spain. It sounds helplessly romantic, like so much in Europe – one imagines that it must be a sort of savage jaunt through hamlets and hills, maybe ending at a ruined castle, or the tattered remains of a saint’s reliquary. But in truth, it’s nothing so elevated. A cassoulet is a stew of white beans and pork, cooked for hours at low heat. And the route des cassoulets isn’t ancient at all, but the recent fruit of a typically French group who calls itself the Universal Academy of Cassoulet, a hikeable road of restaurants who serve the authentic article. Still, I’d like to head down there some time, and take the walk along its 130 miles – I can’t think of a better thematic holiday to obscure the monotony of a chilly fall, or a more sustaining meal for a daily trundle across the rugged foothills of the Pyrenees.

But why all the melodrama about a stew? Well, first, the cassoulet takes a long time to make. Not all of us are required to be as fanatical about it as Anatole France’s favorite cook, a certain Madame Clemence, who kept hers simmering for twenty years consecutively - but even so, the stew takes at least a whole day of effort, and another day of waiting for the beans to soak. The French, like many Europeans, intuitively understand the relationship between effort and respect– I’ve always chuckled derisively about the German habit of deferring to the oldest members of their upper legislative house, but when you see how those ideas ripple through society in dishes like this, I wonder if I’m too quickly dismissive. But cassoulet not only takes effort to make, it’s ancient and venerable as well. We’re not sure for how long people in France have married beans and pork and other ingredients to make a long simmering, unctuous stew (cassoulet is known as “haricot cream” in some parts, and for good reason), but I know that the efforts man has made to make beans taste better are of mythical vintage. Even with all this, had cassoulet been just the work of Languedoc, it might yet have wandered away into the sands of history unlamented. But cassoulet is a deeply local dish, bound to memory by villages and towns, and micro-regions, and the brutal rivalries of trivial men. There’s not one cassoulet, but dozens, and three greats ones that stand above all the rest like so many heads of a declining French culinary Rushmore – the cassoulet de Castelnaudary, with fresh pork, ham, knuckle, and bacon, the cassoulet de Carcassone, with all the above and mutton and partridge, and the cassoulet de Toulouse, with sausage, and preserved goose or duck; and you can taste them all along the route the local cooks have laid out for you.

To me, all that sounds very fine, and delicious. But really, when you think of it, when you put aside my rhapsodies above, the cassoulet is a stew. It might well be, as Richard Olney puts it, a “voluptuous monument to rustic tradition”, but in the end, it’s also just pork and beans. And that’s the real point of all my meanderings above, for we Americans also do pork and beans, and when we let ourselves make the effort, we do it well. No, even our most elaborate version isn’t the masterpiece that they make in fairytale Carcassone, seat of the medieval cathars. But they’re honest, good meals, and before we introduced sugar and molasses into the mix in the mid-19th century, they were every bit a match for the Europeans’ best. This fact has two messages for us – first, we ought not shy away from making cassoulet for ourselves. The meal requires neither wizardry nor decades of mastery, but just some effort. And second, we needn’t be ashamed of our dishes just because they don’t wind their way through enchanted foothills and around ancient villages steeped in local history. Beans and pork are our heritage too. Let’s make the most of them.

Cassoulet

Put a litre of dried white haricot beans in cold water overnight. The next day, put the beans, some salt pork if you have it, some bacon, a carrot, an onion, some cloves, and a bouqet garni (bunch of herbs in a sack) in a pot with enough water to cover. Simmer on very low heat for about an hour (the beans should be squooshable between your fingers).

In another pan, brown 1.5 pounds of pork loin and a pound of lamb (actually, the recipe is for mutton, but lamb will do in these dreary days of agricultural monotony). Add two chopped onions, another bouquet garni, and garlic. Cook with beef broth for an hour, adding occasionally when necessary – you’re trying to make a sort of sauce for use later.

Take the meat from its sauce and add to the beans along with a garlicky sausage and perhaps some confit de canard (preserved duck). Simmer for another hour, together.

Remove the pieces of meat from the beans, and cut into even portions. Line a casserole with a layer of beans, add a layer of meats, some of the sauce made of the broth, good pepper. Repeat until the ingredients are all used, and top the entire cassoulet with white bread crumbs. If you have it, pour a little goose fat over the whole thing.

Cook at very low heat for another two hours or so. The traditional recipes say that you should allow a crust to form and break it with a spoon seven times before you eat. In any case, by the end you should have creamy, incredibly flavorful beans, and tender meat, all topped with pungent sausage. Eat with crusty bread, and if possible, serve in the casserole in which it was cooked.

Pork’n’Beans

Soak beans of your choosing overnight in cold water, which you can reserve if you want. The next day, cook the beans for one hour in different water, which you can also reserve. Place beans in an earthenware casserole with a large amount of salt pork, some of the reserved liquid, a whole onion, and a little dried mustard – the liquid should be enough to just cover. This also is when you add maple syrup or molasses if you want it. Cover, and bake at low heat for 3 hours, adding more liquid as necessary to keep the beans from drying out. Bake for additional half hour, uncovered. Remove the onion before serving with bread (preferably steamed Boston Brown Bread).

Boston Brown Bread

Get a one pound coffee can, wash it well, and butter heavily. Mix 1/3 cup of molasses with about 1 cup of milk or buttermilk. Stir until fully combined. In a different bowl, mix ½ cup of rye flour, ½ cup of whole wheat flour, ½ cup of yellow cornmeal, a little salt, and some baking soda. Add the buttermilk/molasses mix, and half a cup of raisins. You should have a thick batter. Pour the mix into the coffee can.

This can either be baked for an hour and a half, at about 300 degrees, or can be properly steamed in a pot filled somewhat with water for two hours. If you’re steaming, make sure to cover the top with foil

After much time spent deliberately ignoring anything having to do with The Da Vinci Code, I finally cozied up with a copy and indulged my curiosity. I'm glad I did; it was mostly entertaining. And though my attention generally wanes quickly, I was able to move through the book at a brisk pace. All things considered, I found it quite good.

Since finishing the book I've looked a little into the enterprise that has followed from the book's success. It's really quite incredible.

[Note: These stories were found through a Lexis search -- sorry, no links.]

-- The Daily Telegraph (August 7, 2004) reports big jumps in tourist stops at the Rosslyn Chapel (96%) (it also mentions that "[n]earby hotels and restaurants are having to take on extra staff to cope with the surge in business.") and the Temple Church in London (50%).

-- The USA Today (October 22, 2004) mentions increased visits to the Louvre and Saint-Sulpice. It also notes various guided tour services around France to see locations mentioned in the book and discussion sessions over tea at the Hotel Ritz (where Langdon was staying).

-- Time Magazine (May 24, 2004) notes $30 "Code-themed dinners" in Kentucky and $35 lectures at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art.

-- Forbes (May 24, 2004) offers a projected breakdown of Code related sales in a piece titled Da Vinci Inc.

$210 million Hardcover sales of The Da Vinci Code, assuming current rate of sales, including foreign sales (already a bestseller in a dozen countries).

$60 million Sales of backlist Dan Brown novels Deception Point, Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons.

$10 million Audio books of The Da Vinci Code and a forthcoming illustrated collectors' version.

$75 million Paperback sales. With hardcover sales still hot, Doubleday has yet to schedule the softcover.

$20 million Sales from Da Vinci spinoff books like Secrets of the Code and De-Coding Da Vinci, plus some 90 backlist titles of related subject matter, like Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

$220 million Sales of the next Robert Langdon novel by Dan Brown. It's not a sequel; it's the further adventures of the Harvard professor of symbology.

$450 million Estimated revenues from forthcoming Sony Pictures movie, including domestic and foreign box office, VHS and DVD sales, and TV broadcast deal--assuming the movie doesn't bomb and Hollywood buys backlist titles.

Finally, the movie is being directed by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks is reportedly set to star as Langdon. I can't imagine the movie being as good as the book, but we'll see. If you're a fan and can't wait for the movie, obviously there's plenty to keep you busy.