book #3

To describe Javier Sierra's The Secret Supper (2004; trans from the Spanish by Alberto Manguel 2006) as the thinking reader's The Da Vinci Code would be trite and misleading, even if in many ways accurate. Sierra's book is an historical novel in which, in 1497, a senior member of the Inquisition, alerted by an anonymous informant, goes to the monastery in Milan where Leonardo is painting his great mural The Last Supper. According to the informant, the painting is dangerously heretical -- the work of Satan. Our Inquisitor, who serves as the book's primary narrator (and who, obviously, is not the nicest of guys), must try to solve two mysteries: the identity of the informant, and the riddle of the painting. There's plenty of Cathar heresy and Mary Magdalene thrown in.

The novel's a little slow to get under way but, once it starts moving, it's absorbing stuff -- I found the pages turning happily. I have no way of knowing if the book's underpinning is valid or complete hokum, but certainly it convinced me for the purposes of the fiction. The translation, despite a few proofing errors (like "edging on" for "egging on"!), is generally the smooth ride you expect from Alberto Manguel. I had the odd sense when finishing the book that I'd at last got out of my mouth the bad taste -- which I'd not even realized was there -- left over from when, a couple of years back, I read (and detested) The Da Vinci Code as research for my parody Da Easter Bunny Code. At last I was reading a Leonardo da Vinci conspiracy-theory novel that I could enjoy as rattling good fun rather than be forcing myself to read.

(There's one irritating element near the end of the novel, when all the characters are implausibly slow to notice something that's patently obvious, but I forgave the book this.)



 

Corrupted Science reviewed

 A review by Jonathan Cowie of my October 2007 book Corrupted Science has just appeared on the Concatenation website. The full review is at http://www.concatenation.org:80/nfrev/corrupted_science.html. Here's the last paragraph of it:

Thanks then to John Grant for an absolute gem of a book that exposes much fraud, ideology and politics corrupting science. This is a critically important book that everyone needs to read. . . . Non-scientists need to read it so that they can see exemplars of what is being said and how attempts are being made to fool them. Scientists need to read it for purposes of professional integrity and to be aware of what is being said in the name of their profession. Indeed I would strongly recommend that every science school teacher, every college and university lecturer should get a copy and check it for examples of how their particular specialism is being misrepresented and then include these in their class/lecture notes. It goes without saying that this is fundamental reading for anyone on science communication courses. Corrupted Science is far more important a book than its title suggests. It pains me to say this (as my own climate change book is just out) but if you only get one non-fiction book this year then make it this one!

Golly.

There's bumf about Corrupted Science at http://tinyurl.com/2xqu7d, and a sample chapter at http://tinyurl.com/3b6885.

The book of his own that Cowie refers to is Climate Change: Biological & Human Aspects, published by CUP: http://www.science-com.concatenation.org/archive/climate_change_biology.html.