Almost everything Dan Brown writes about Parisian topography is wrong.
• To go from the Louvre to the US embassy is actually quite direct: simply follow Rue de Rivoli for less than a mile. The US embassy is on Place de la Concorde.
If you pass the US embassy and continue west, you will end up on Champs Elysees. Hence Sophie and Robert made quite a detour if they had to go through Champs Elysees to reach the US embassy from the Louvre!
• There is no way to enter the Tuileries Gardens by car, especially not where Brown locates the Northern entrance.
• You cannot park your car next to the Pyramid; the height difference from the street to the Louvre paved courtyard is about 40cm - too much for any car (and definitely prohibitive for a Smart Car!).
• It is impossible to see the Centre Pompidou from the Pyramid (you would have to tear down the Richelieu wing first).
• The Mona Lisa is not in a separate room, but in the Grande Galerie.
• On page 210, Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu purchase two train tickets to Lille in the 'Gare St Lazare.'
However, tickets for Lille cannot be purchased at Saint-Lazare station. Saint-Lazare is the station from which trains leave for Caen, Cherbourg, or Rouen. Trains bound for Lille leave at North Station (Gare du Nord).
• Another error relates to the Church of Saint-Sulpice. The book claims this structure was "built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis" (p. 88). This is complete nonsense! The Church was built over the ruins of the previous gothic-style church, which was deemed too small. Construction started in 1646, by which time there were not too many Isis worshippers left in Paris!
• The Da Vinci Code's fictional Depository Bank of Zurich is located on Rue Haxo, near the Roland Garros stadium.
Rue Haxo exists - not close to Roland Garros - but near the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.
All of these blatant errors prompts us to question the quality of research Dan Brown put into the more serious issues in the book if he did not take enough care to have a simple street map of Paris available to him when he was writing his material.
Fans of the novel will find this a great shame. They will want to go out and "walk in the steps" of the book. Many people have done this with Spenser for Hire books, James Bond films, or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
It would not have demanded excessive effort for Dan Brown to ensure his writing was based in reality for the scenes that unfold in his book. Such a small initial effort - but such a widespread end result for not bothering to take the time.
Also, if Dan Brown did not even get those basic streets down properly, it begs the question how well he researched the other more difficult parts of the subject matter!
SOME CORRECTIONS IN FRENCH EDITION!
Several of the serious errors Dan Brown made in his descriptions of France and Paris were 'cleaned up' before the French version of his book was made.
• The needless detour between the trip from the Louvre to the US embassy going through Champs Elysees has been corrected in the French version.
• Another geographical mistake concerns the address of the Bank of Zurich at 24 Rue Haxo. In the French version of the book the address is 24 Rue de Longchamp, which is located in the western part of Paris and makes more sense considering Sophie and Langdon's itinerary.
It seems like the obvious geographical mistakes that would make a Parisian laugh have been corrected in the French version!
Indeed it appears that Brown, the best selling American writer, is a thorough deceiver. No doubt Parisians and others will get a laugh at his shallowness and ignorance at throwing together a "book" that he plagiarised from other godless authors. Brown himself may counter by saying he is laughing all the way to the bank, but I wonder how he will laugh when standing before Him to whom we must give account?
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6/2/06 6:59 PM
