Leonardo da Vinci in court: Ramdom esoteric mutterings...

I haven't posted on a non-political topic in weeks, so you'll have to bear with...

My lady and I are re-reading the esoteric classic Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which is a better book than many think. Fundamentalists despise the work because it suggests, toward the end, that Jesus not only had a penis but used it. To me, that was always the boring part. I like the weird historical stuff in the middle section -- the stuff that no fundie ever talks or cares about: The Cathars, Rene d'Anjou, Charles Radclyffe, Sir Isaac Newton, Nodier...

Of course, we know a great deal more these days about the Priory of Zion, which appears to be a latter-day fantasy concocted by right-wing French esotericists with dreams of aristocracy. That affectation is common among occultists -- Aleister Crowley, for example, loved to be called Sir Aleister Crowley, a title he never earned. (I've long suspected that Ian Fleming used his friend Crowley as the model for his arch-fiend Blofeld, who also had pretenses of nobility.)

Still, HBHG remains a lot of fun. It is careful to label speculation as such, and it does present some genuinely original research. These are virtues possessed by few other works in the genre.

HBHG also gave rise, in part, to Dan Brown's inaccurate-but-lovable page-turner The Da Vinci Code, the film version of which is slated to open in the middle of March.

Two of the authors of HBHG -- Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh -- are now suing Brown. This, despite the fact that Brown's bestseller helped renew sales of their own book. Obviously, the two plaintiffs want a piece of the film action.

Leigh looks like a biker: Leather jacket, dark glasses, smokes on camera... I'm not too surprised to see an aggressive move on his part.

The primary author of the orignal work, Henry Lincoln, is not party to the suit. He now seems disdainful of the book that made him famous. For some years, he has pursued a theory that ancient monuments in France and elsewhere are arranged according to geometrical patterns. There seems to be something to this claim -- but I'm not sure what!

I mention the upcoming court case because -- although I wish Leigh and Baigent well in all other respects -- I hope they lose this case. A writer of fiction should not have to share his earnings with the non-fiction writers whose research inspired his work. Otherwise, the fellow who wrote the play Give 'Em Hell Harry would have had to share royalties with everyone who had ever written a Truman biography.

Incidentally, even those who have read HBHG usually do not know that, way back in the 1960s, Henry Lincoln wrote the screenplay for Boris Karloff's final film, The Crimson Cult. I saw that one in the theater, when I was barely past tyke-hood. And I'll never forget it. First time I ever saw an actual naked lady on screen. She was the lovely Virginia Wetherell, best known for her role in A Clockwork Orange ("She came toward me...") -- and there's an hilarious story about Stanley Kubrick and her which used to be on the net but isn't anymore.

Ahem. I seem to have wandered from my topic. Forgive me. Some memories are pleasant.