Secrets of the Da Vinci Code sequel
Can you write a critical account of a novel you haven't read? If the author of the novel is as big as Dan Brown, why not? The Solomon Key, Brown's sequel to The Da Vinci Code, is not yet finished, but that hasn't stopped David A Shugarts, a former aviation journalist, from jumping on the back—or, rather, flying out in front—of it. Shugarts aims to predict, no less, what will happen next. In his Secrets of the Widow's Son, Shugarts identifies clues hidden in Brown's earlier novels that lead to revelations about the future adventures of his protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon. For example, if you pick out the bolder letters from the blurb on The Da Vinci Code's dust jacket, you get the question: "Is there no help for the widow's son?"—an allusion, apparently, to freemasonry. This leads Shugarts, through "endless Google searches," as well as some actual research, to the conclusion that Professor Langdon will be exploring the masonic conspiracy behind the founding fathers of America. Shugarts gets excited about the Washington Monument—the 555-foot obelisk (or masonic symbol) at the heart of the US capital. Looking into the monument's strange history, Shugarts finds a "great plot twist for a Dan Brown novel!" And he notices that "the core of the city's layout is a cross, and this is surely going to mean something to Dan Brown." Shugarts is on pretty secure ground in one respect. With 8m copies of Dan Brown's books sold in Britain alone, and a movie of The Da Vinci Code due to open in May, some of those fans are sure to be up for a prophesy of The Solomon Key. Brown's publisher, Transworld, has still not set a publication date and Shugarts's publisher, Weidenfeld, is allegedly still miffed at missing out on an early chance to sign Brown himself.
Unweaving the crafts Sometime in the new year the long-awaited Arts Council review of the visual arts will be published. What has kept them so long? One reason may be the vexed question of the Crafts Council, now in the throes of reorientation. For many years people questioned the independent status of the Crafts Council. Now a client body of the Arts Council, there is muttering about whether it should not just quietly be absorbed by the great parent. For while it has nurtured the careers of individual craftspeople, it has in some ways perpetuated an unhelpful ghettoisation. As many enthusiasts, including Arts Council chairman Christopher Frayling, keep pointing out, the triumph of the crafts has been to challenge distinctions between fine art, craft and design. Once the best leaps that barrier, what is left but evening class amateurism? As if in response, the current show at the Crafts Council gallery in Islington, Table Manners, offers a stout defence of this flexible category. Curated by the potter and writer Emmanuel Cooper, it lays down a gauntlet on behalf of the value of craft. It is this, interim Crafts Council chairman Julian Stair concurs, that the council has failed to articulate adequately. Come the spring, the gloves will be off.
David Gray's rustic art
Flush with the success of his new album Life In Slow Motion, singer-songwriter David Gray has taken to publishing art books. Last month saw the launch of his new enterprise, Invisible Inc, intended as an "umbrella organisation" for various side interests. First out is Tumulus, a retrospective of photographs by John Miles. Like Gray, whose folksy ballads are nourished by his rural upbringing, Miles projects the spell of his inner world over rustic Dorset. Guests at a fireside launch were urged to "stick a compass into the west Dorset village of Loders on a 1-inch Ordnance survey map, draw a circle with a radius of ten inches… and you will find the location of 90 per cent of John Miles's photographs." It's a poignant collection of images which subvert modern life, or even ignore it altogether—an activity which Gray and his coterie are happy to cheer on.
Can you write a critical account of a novel you haven't read? If the author of the novel is as big as Dan Brown, why not? The Solomon Key, Brown's sequel to The Da Vinci Code, is not yet finished, but that hasn't stopped David A Shugarts, a former aviation journalist, from jumping on the back—or, rather, flying out in front—of it. Shugarts aims to predict, no less, what will happen next. In his Secrets of the Widow's Son, Shugarts identifies clues hidden in Brown's earlier novels that lead to revelations about the future adventures of his protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon. For example, if you pick out the bolder letters from the blurb on The Da Vinci Code's dust jacket, you get the question: "Is there no help for the widow's son?"—an allusion, apparently, to freemasonry. This leads Shugarts, through "endless Google searches," as well as some actual research, to the conclusion that Professor Langdon will be exploring the masonic conspiracy behind the founding fathers of America. Shugarts gets excited about the Washington Monument—the 555-foot obelisk (or masonic symbol) at the heart of the US capital. Looking into the monument's strange history, Shugarts finds a "great plot twist for a Dan Brown novel!" And he notices that "the core of the city's layout is a cross, and this is surely going to mean something to Dan Brown." Shugarts is on pretty secure ground in one respect. With 8m copies of Dan Brown's books sold in Britain alone, and a movie of The Da Vinci Code due to open in May, some of those fans are sure to be up for a prophesy of The Solomon Key. Brown's publisher, Transworld, has still not set a publication date and Shugarts's publisher, Weidenfeld, is allegedly still miffed at missing out on an early chance to sign Brown himself.
Unweaving the crafts Sometime in the new year the long-awaited Arts Council review of the visual arts will be published. What has kept them so long? One reason may be the vexed question of the Crafts Council, now in the throes of reorientation. For many years people questioned the independent status of the Crafts Council. Now a client body of the Arts Council, there is muttering about whether it should not just quietly be absorbed by the great parent. For while it has nurtured the careers of individual craftspeople, it has in some ways perpetuated an unhelpful ghettoisation. As many enthusiasts, including Arts Council chairman Christopher Frayling, keep pointing out, the triumph of the crafts has been to challenge distinctions between fine art, craft and design. Once the best leaps that barrier, what is left but evening class amateurism? As if in response, the current show at the Crafts Council gallery in Islington, Table Manners, offers a stout defence of this flexible category. Curated by the potter and writer Emmanuel Cooper, it lays down a gauntlet on behalf of the value of craft. It is this, interim Crafts Council chairman Julian Stair concurs, that the council has failed to articulate adequately. Come the spring, the gloves will be off.
David Gray's rustic art
Flush with the success of his new album Life In Slow Motion, singer-songwriter David Gray has taken to publishing art books. Last month saw the launch of his new enterprise, Invisible Inc, intended as an "umbrella organisation" for various side interests. First out is Tumulus, a retrospective of photographs by John Miles. Like Gray, whose folksy ballads are nourished by his rural upbringing, Miles projects the spell of his inner world over rustic Dorset. Guests at a fireside launch were urged to "stick a compass into the west Dorset village of Loders on a 1-inch Ordnance survey map, draw a circle with a radius of ten inches… and you will find the location of 90 per cent of John Miles's photographs." It's a poignant collection of images which subvert modern life, or even ignore it altogether—an activity which Gray and his coterie are happy to cheer on.
