Off the Bookshelf: October 2003 Archives

Have you ever heard of the Fibonacci sequence? This is the sequence:

1 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 13 - 21

It is a progression in which each term is equal to the sum of the two preceeding terms.

Dan Brown uses this sequence as part of the clues left behind by Jacques Sauniere, the murdered curator. Sauniere raised his granddaughter, coaching her in endless puzzles. As an adult she became a cryptographer. When presented with the numbers in a scrambled form, she recognizes the sequence, and understands that it is part of a message.

I know, I've been talking about this book for the last week. It's absolutely engrossing. I love mysteries, and this one keeps you turning the pages right to the end.

Robert Langdon is a Harvard symbologist on business in Paris. Sophie Neveu is a young cryptologist who works for the French police. Sophie's grandfather, Jacques Sauniere, is the curator of the Louvre. The story opens with Sauniere being stalked and shot in the museum. In his last moments, he leaves clues for his granddaughter and Langdon to solve, to prevent the loss of the secret of the Priory of Sion.

The author, Dan Brown, has done an incredible job of fashioning a work of fiction based on fact. It's difficult occasionally to tell the dividing line between the two, and that sent me surfing the Internet for information. The page before the Prologue states that "All descriptions of artwork, architechture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." It also confirms that the Priory of Sion, a secret society founded in 1099 is a real organization, and that Opus Dei, is truly a Catholic sect with headquarters in New York City.

This week I finished "The Pilot's Wife," by Anita Shreve. It's an exceptional book, not the kind I usually choose to read, but a very absorbing story. Normally, I pick up a book and try to read it from cover to cover in one sitting, or perhaps two. With this book, I read a chapter, or sometimes a paragraph or page at a time. I needed the time to think about the unfolding story, and chose not to push the reading.

I've been reading "Under the Tuscan Sun" this summer. I pick it up now and then and read a few chapters, then set it down to work a bit more. I keep coming back to it, and it's rare for me to read a book this way.

I've been delighted with Frances Mayes commentary on the rennovation of a house in Tuscany and how they came to adopt the Tuscan attitudes about food. Toward the end of the book she writes about the background of Tuscan cuisine. She suggests that la cucina provera (the poor kitchen) where leftovers were used up, and there was little extra in the way of ingredients, is the basis for much of the Tuscan cuisine in our more abundant times. The Tuscan cook makes use of what's at hand, grapes, olives, oil pressed from your own olives, beans, mushrooms, mint and salad burnet. The cuisine is hearty, generally peasant in heritage, and revolves around bread, and pasta. Now I know where bread salad must have been created.

If for nothing else, get this book and read the recipes she shares.

There was one other line that caught my attention. Mayes wrote that she had heard that our bodies have the same proportion of minerals that the earth has. Supposedly, the percentage of zinc and potassium in our bodies is the same as those found in the earth. This led her to wonder if we have an innate need to emulate the earth's push toward rebirth.

When I was younger, I would have said this was just coincidence, but now I believe that even the smallest details around us are part of a greater plan.

If you haven't read this book, do. Even if you go to see the movie, read the book. And, when you decide to try the recipes......call me! I'll bring the wine.