The Da Vinci Code

published	March 1st 2004 by Corgi Adult
first published	2003
binding	Paperback
isbn	0552149519 (isbn13: 9780552149518)
ebook
pages	605
description	With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder myst...more [close] With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoterica culled from 2,000 years of Western history. A murder in the silent after-hours halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching not only for Neveu's grandfather's murderer, but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England and history itself. Brown has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh, Amazon.com [close]
date added	03-07-07 edit book

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Mer rated it:

(review of isbn 1400079179)

12/25/07

bookshelves: tripeshitandgarbage

Read in January, 2004

recommends it for: morons and troglodytes

PLEASE do NOT recommend The Da Vinci Code to me because you think it's brilliant. Please do not try to explain to me that it is a "really interesting and eye-opening book." Just don't. Please.

I've read Iain Pear, I heart Foucault's Pendulum, Dashiell Hammett is my hero, Alan Moore is My Absolute Favorite, I listen to Coil on a fairly regular basis, and cloak n' dagger secret society/Priory of Sion/Knights of Templar-tinged num nums make me a very happy girl... but if you truly bel...more PLEASE do NOT recommend The Da Vinci Code to me because you think it's brilliant. Please do not try to explain to me that it is a "really interesting and eye-opening book." Just don't. Please.

I've read Iain Pear, I heart Foucault's Pendulum, Dashiell Hammett is my hero, Alan Moore is My Absolute Favorite, I listen to Coil on a fairly regular basis, and cloak n' dagger secret society/Priory of Sion/Knights of Templar-tinged num nums make me a very happy girl... but if you truly believe that Brown's stupid airport thriller has ANY right whatsoever to be placed in the same category with Michael "Wooden Dildo Dialogue" Crichton, let alone Umberto Eco, kindly keep this opinion very far away from me, or the ensuing conversation we have will not be constructive or polite in any way.

I loathe Dan Brown. I resent him for spoon-feeding the masses pseudo-intellectual "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" D-grade thriller shite under a pretense of real sophistication, and getting orally serviced by The New York Times for his effort.

I'd heard that the novel was meticulously researched and contained some really interesting and controversial assessments of religious zealotry. Um, not really? Well, not by my Merovingian standards, anyway. :D

Let's put it this way. If Dan Brown was teaching an Insurgent Christian Symbolism in Art and Literature 101 class at my local community college, I'd definitely have a different opinion about him.

But NO. Dan Brown is not a professor of anything but pap. He is a barely competent thriller writer who wrote an AWFUL book that I could not bear to finish because I felt my IQ plummeting a little further with every "Let's Go to Paris! Guidebook" description and blowhard authorial essay. Oh, don't even get me started about those cute soliloquies the main characters are so fond of delivering, ever so calmly, often while cops n' bovvers are chasing them.

The characters are weakly drawn. The dialog is excruciating. The research is shoddy and self-serving at best. The plot, no matter how open-minded you are, is beyond ludicrous. It's laughable enough to be incorporated into the next Indiana Jones movie. That'd be sweet, dude.

What really irks me are Dan Brown's sanctimonious interviews, wherein he shows off all of his priceless antiques while expressing his abiding convictions that the American public needs a "deeper appreciation" of art and history and culture. What a shallow, self-aggrandizing hypocrite. I'm all for fictional subversion of the dominant Catholic paradigm, but only if the subverter knows what the hell they're talking about. Brown DOESN'T. He's all "la la la, connect the dots" but the picture he comes up with is awkward and unconvincing.

The DaVinci Code is a dead easy, nay, downright lazy read, and yet droves of people are patting themselves on the back for having read and *gasp* actually understood it. Like this is some spectacular achievement? WHY? What, because the slipcover describes it as "erudite"? Are you fucking kidding me?

Don't believe the hype, kids. You are profoundly more intelligent than this holiday page-turner gives you credit for.

If you really, honestly, just plain liked the book, that's cool I guess. Maybe you also prefer Anne Geddes to Alfred Stieglitz, Kenny G to Sidney Bechet, John Tesh to Igor Stravinsky. Your prerogative. Just.... please don't try to tell me that this is "fascinating" or "meaningful literature". Frickin' read The Club Dumas or something. Then we'll talk, and I won't want to shoot myself in the face.

Alright, glad I purged that poison from my system. Carry on....less

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256 comments

Michael rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

02/10/08

The following is Dave Barry's take on the book, which is a lot better than any review I could write.

`The Da Vinci Code,' cracked
by Dave Barry

I have written a blockbuster novel. My inspiration was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has sold 253 trillion copies in hardcover because it's such a compelling page-turner. NOBODY can put this book down:

MOTHER ON BEACH: Help! My child is being attacked by a shark!

LIFEGUARD (looking up from The DaVinci Code: Not now! I just got to page...more

Like this review? yes (35 people liked it)

2 comments

Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

07/17/07

This is a pretty formulaic page turner, a fun quick read. Written at about the level of the average Nancy Drew mystery, it is best appreciated at that level. As far as the content, there are howlers on virtually every page (starting with the hero who looks like "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed" and is a "Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard" -- good work if you can find it). You have to ignore very pulpy, cheesy writing to enjoy this romantic thriller.

Intended as a b...more This is a pretty formulaic page turner, a fun quick read. Written at about the level of the average Nancy Drew mystery, it is best appreciated at that level. As far as the content, there are howlers on virtually every page (starting with the hero who looks like "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed" and is a "Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard" -- good work if you can find it). You have to ignore very pulpy, cheesy writing to enjoy this romantic thriller.

Intended as a book that a dedicated reader could finish in a day, or something you take to the beach and casually finish in a weekend, The Da Vinci Code makes for a reasonable airline novel, so much so that it is often a bit clunky in its desire to ensure that no intellectual effort on the reader's part will be required. Here's a recurring example in this novel: a bit of unfamiliar terminology, say "crux gemmata" (jeweled cross) will will be explained on page N, then on page N+1, a character will finger his jeweled cross and explain, "Oh, yes -- this is a crux gemmata." I've read dinner menus that were more demanding on the reader. My wife and I both read about a third of it in a day, sharing the same copy, and that's a full work day plus taking care of kids, bedtime, etc. That's also a kind of virtue, I guess -- it's fast and peppy.

As far as history goes, Dan Brown apparently thinks that "most historians" give credence to the hoary forgeries and frauds promoted in sensationalist best-sellers like Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This author gets the best of both worlds: simultaneously claiming that "it's just fiction," while introducing the novel with claims that the historical record contained within is "fact." That claim is ridiculous. To pluck a random example, he spends some time talking about the Council of Nicaea, and incorrectly summarizes it as the origin of the doctrine of Christ's divinity by Constantine. He ignores the Arian controversy out of which it arose, which is like trying to explain the Treaty of Versailles without mentioning World War I. He ignores the documented fact, agreed upon even by the cheerleaders of the gnostics that he is sympathetic to, that the earliest gnostic doctrines held that Christ was *purely* God, and not really man -- the very reverse of the doctrine that serves as the linchpin of his novel's intellectual base (such as it is). This is a bad novel for weak or misinformed Christians, but anyone familiar with history should spot the train wreck of Brown's ideas a mile off.

Oh yes, and in Brown's world, Opus Dei has shadowy assassin "monks" (in real life, Opus Dei is not a monastic order -- there are no Opus Dei monks, let alone trained assassins), and the Catholic Church has been promulgating known lies as its central dogmas, promotes violence throughout the world, and has been retarding the progress of science and knowledge for 2 millennia. Brown leaves the reader with the impression that this, too, is a matter of settled historical record. Oh, but then again, it's just fiction. Except when it's not.

In general, if you're looking for a heady thriller wrapped around Christian arcana, I'd recommend Umberto Eco's excellent The Name of the Rose, not this dumbed down, by-the-numbers novel....less

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Mirna rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

02/15/08

Read in April, 2005

Buku ini ditulis belakangan dibandingkan Malaikat dan Iblis (Angels and Demons) oleh Brown pada tahun 2003, namun Serambi menerbitkannya lebih dulu daripada MdI yang cetakan pertamanya pada 2005 sementara buku ini dicetak pertama kali pada 2004.

The Da Vinci Code disebut sebagai buku paling kontroversial tahun ini karena memberikan sebuah teori konspirasi pembuktian bahwa Isa al Masih yang dianggap suci itu pernah mengawini seorang wanita yang tak kalah terkenalnya, Maria Magdalena. Dan perka...more Buku ini ditulis belakangan dibandingkan Malaikat dan Iblis (Angels and Demons) oleh Brown pada tahun 2003, namun Serambi menerbitkannya lebih dulu daripada MdI yang cetakan pertamanya pada 2005 sementara buku ini dicetak pertama kali pada 2004.

The Da Vinci Code disebut sebagai buku paling kontroversial tahun ini karena memberikan sebuah teori konspirasi pembuktian bahwa Isa al Masih yang dianggap suci itu pernah mengawini seorang wanita yang tak kalah terkenalnya, Maria Magdalena. Dan perkawinan itu membuahkan keturunan. Rupanya perdebatan status kemanusiawian Yesus yang Kristus itu sudah berlangsung cukup lama dalam kalangan kristiani sendiri.
Tokoh jagoannya masih juga Robert Langdon yang otaknya seksi dan kali ini pendamping wanitanya adalah seorang perempuan Perancis yang cerdas dan dididik di Inggris bernama Sophie Neveu. Thank God he didn’t romance her at all. Kalau tidak Langdon akan sangat kehilangan keistimewaannya sebagai jagoan berotak. He will be just another horny man who happens to be very smart and classy.

Alurnya masih kurang lebih sama dengan MdI, sanak keluarga Sophie terbunuh dalam sebuah rancangan konspiratif raksasa yang melibatkan pemecahan sandi yang rumit dan pengungkapan konspirasi tertua di dunia mengenai sejarah kehidupan pribadi Kristus. Kalau Vittoria Vetra kehilangan seorang ayah angkat, dalam artian yang kurang lebih sama Sophie juga kehilangan seorang ayah angkat, yaitu kakeknya Jacques Sauniere; seorang kurator Musee de Louvre dan sejarawan Perancis ternama yang merawatnya semenjak kecil karena orangtua, nenek dan adik lelakinya konon terbunuh dalam sebuah kecelakaan mobil.
Tokoh lainnya adalah Capitaine Bezu Fache, kepala biro intelijen Perancis, Police Judiciale (setara dengan FBI) yang diibaratkan seekor banteng mengamuk tak pandang bulu dan mempertaruhkan reputasinya. Ini semacam olok-olok khas Amerikanya Brown pada orang Perancis yang digambarkan selalu mematuhi hukum dan mudah tersinggung. Tokoh-tokoh polisi Perancis bawahan Fache juga digambarkan “khas” Perancis.

Olok-olok lebih lanjut ditujukan pada orang Inggris yang diwakilkan pada Sir Leigh Teabing, antagonis bangsawan sejarawan bergelar ksatria yang jadi gila karena obsesi terhadap legenda dewi dan Maria Magdalena. Karakternya sangat eksentrik, khas tokoh Inggris yang seringkali digambarkan oleh tulisan novel detektif picisan atau film Hollywood yang sudah ada sebelumnya (sejenis dengan Artful Dodger atau bahkan Remington Steele yang tampan). Kaya raya, memiliki selera humor yang aneh (maksudnya: sulit dimengerti orang Amerika), senang memperolok diri sendiri, sangat sophisticated, dan tahu benar apa yang diinginkannya—karena itu ia membuat rencana rumit untuk menjebak ketua lembaga gereja besar menjadi kambing hitamnya.

Kambing hitam dalam cerita ini adalah Uskup Aringarosa, kepala gereja Opus Dei, dan Silas, anak angkat albinonya yang tercerahkan dengan terlahir kembali setelah rangkaian “cobaan penebusan dosa”. Dua tokoh ini digambarkan begitu ingin dekat dengan Tuhan—dalam kasus Aringarosa, ia ingin menyebarkan jalan Tuhan yang paling benar, heh not the first of his kind— hingga bisa diterjemahkan sebagai fanatik fundamentalis yang sangat naif hingga bisa diperalat untuk tujuan yang kurang mulia.

Karakter dalam buku ini sedikit lebih manusiawi daripada dalam MdI. Sophie jelas jauh lebih manusiawi dari Vittoria yang bagai jagoan dalam sebuah game RPG. Fache, Teabing, dan si penjahat Silas masih dapat kita kenali blueprint Hollywoodnya. Timbul dugaan kalau Langdon ini Indiana Jones versi nerd Brown, yang memang ia akui dalam buku ini.
Senjata utama plot misterinya masih seputar konspirasi dan sekelompok teka-teki yang cerdas. Selain bepergian ke tempat-tempat yang dikisahkan dalam buku ini, Brown konon menyusunnya dengan berkonsultasi dengan orang yang pernah terlibat dalam Opus Dei, sejumlah ahli matematika, sejarah dan setumpuk buku referensi yang menyegarkan otak. Tak salah lagi buku ini cukup mendidik.

Kekuatan fiksi buku ini terletak pada dua hal. Yang pertama adalah settingnya yang berputar pada kehidupan kepercayaan Kristiani dan pertentangan yang sudah cukup sering dieksploitasi antara Ilmu pengetahuan/sekularitas dengan keagamaan/religi.

Yang kedua adalah alur konspirasi yang dibangun sangat kuat dan meyakinkan di atas landasan setting tadi.
Kegemparan yang ditimbulkan oleh buku ini pada umat Kristiani sepertinya terlalu berlebihan. Pembaca yang jeli akan melihat selera humor Brown dalam membeberkan plotnya. Dia bahkan menggunakan sistem anagram, meminjam beberapa nama asli orang dekatnya, untuk menamai karakter dalam buku-bukunya. Misalnya Jason Kaufman yang menjadi Jonas Faukman (keduanya sama-sama berprofesi sebagai editor). Atau Stan Planton dan Sylvie Baudeloque, yang terakhir muncul di buku MdI sebagai sekretaris presiden CERN. The Da Vinci Code seharusnya disebut The Dan Brown Code. Coba kita lihat berapa orang yang bisa memecahkan teka-teki dan anagram yang disebar Brown di buku itu berkenaan dengan kehidupan sehari-harinya.
Misteri dalam novel ini cukup menghibur dan suatu hari nanti mungkin Robert Langdon akan disejajarkan dengan Sherlock Holmes yang ternama.
...less

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Ethan rated it:

(review of isbn 1400079179)

07/15/08

Read in May, 2005

Four stars for pure entertainment value.

However, Dave Barry's review gets five stars:

`The Da Vinci Code,' cracked
by Dave Barry

I have written a blockbuster novel. My inspiration was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has sold 253 trillion copies in hardcover because it's such a compelling page-turner. NOBODY can put this book down:

MOTHER ON BEACH: Help! My child is being attacked by a shark!

LIFEGUARD (looking up from The DaVinci Code: Not now! I just got to page 2...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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Jake rated it:

(review of isbn 0385504209)

07/09/08

bookshelves: fiction, pulp

If for some reason you haven’t heard of the Da Vinci Code before now, I have no help for you. I live under a fairly substantive rock, and even I had heard of this book to death. I had even attempted to read it once or twice, during my stint at Waldenbooks, but couldn’t really get into it. So I gave up, and decided to relegate it to the same place as Titanic and Forrest Gump—works of popular culture that I have no interest in, and therefore, will not partake of. But in a testament to the po...more If for some reason you haven’t heard of the Da Vinci Code before now, I have no help for you. I live under a fairly substantive rock, and even I had heard of this book to death. I had even attempted to read it once or twice, during my stint at Waldenbooks, but couldn’t really get into it. So I gave up, and decided to relegate it to the same place as Titanic and Forrest Gump—works of popular culture that I have no interest in, and therefore, will not partake of. But in a testament to the power of the feminine wile, SV convinced me to read it, and so, at the suggestion of Professor Mortis, borrowed a copy from my local library before setting out for the Thanksgiving holiday (Thanks to PG and Laurion for their lending offers, though I did not take them up on it.).

So what did I think of this incredibly popular, highly controversial work that sold literally millions of copies, spawned a movie, and produced comments from the Vatican itself? In a word, it’s bad. Other appropriate single words might be awful, atrocious, terrible, or abominable. Other similar synonyms can be found here.

The Da Vinci Code is a combination of bad writing, shoddy history, poor plotting, and unconvincing characters that blends together to form a barely readable work. The fact that anyone took this work seriously in any capacity is amazing to me. The characters are flat, boring, and none of them exceed two dimensions at best. The “history” is so riddled with holes as to be completely unbelievable to the semi-alert observer (my favorite part is the explanation of how the Church’s desire to destroy the “sacred feminine” is responsible for Orthodox Jews and devout Muslims barring women from certain rites.). And finally, the plot just makes no damn sense. Even the much vaunted puzzles are fairly trite, and usually explained so quickly that it’s barely worth thinking about. The final puzzle that the main character is faced with is so mind-bogglingly obvious that anyone who knows how to draw a Mogen David (Star of David) can figure it out instantly.

So the question for me became this: given how awful this book is, why the hell is it so popular? I can offer the following explanations/observations.

First off, Brown employs a clever (and I use the term loosely) narrative structure in which he ends every single chapter on a cliffhanger. This forces the reader to continue reading, hoping to reach a payoff or stopping point that is never quite realized. Thus the reader keeps going to the next chapter, hoping to finally hit a point where the story will relax, only to discover that the story never really relaxes. It just plods relentlessly forward, like the Terminator chasing Sarah Connor with a SuDoKu puzzle.

In a similar vein, Brown keeps his chapters short. In fact, I’ve read verse poetry that was longer than some of the chapters in this book (and considerably better written). This helps the reader feel as though they are making progress, because they’re suddenly on Chapter 44, and can reach Chapter 50 with only a few extra minutes of reading. Hooray for the short attention span.

Likewise, Brown taps into some popular political and historical fallacies that are guaranteed to make him well-liked. Namely that the Catholic Church is an evil conspiracy (Christianity is one of the few religions it’s still ok to hate in this day and age, after all) and the notion that ancient Europeans were all ecologically conscious, goddess-worshipping pacifists until the evil patriarchy destroyed their edenic culture. And hey, both of those are popular, if totally un-nuanced and historically questionable viewpoints, but shoddy history is always popular with the masses. The popularity of this book is proof enough.

Knowing that I’m one of the last people in the United States to have read this book, I can hardly imagine my recommendation can save anyone at this point, but on the off hand chance it can—don’t read this book. It’s a waste of time. At the very least, take it out of the library so you don’t put more money into the pocket of an author of questionable talent. There’s much better writers in this world....less

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Katie rated it:

(review of isbn 0739302043)

06/20/08

Read in June, 2008

First, saying this book is historically accurate is like saying t-bone steaks are part of a vegetarian diet. I've never read a work of historical fiction that was more poorly researched. The majority of historical 'facts' that the book is based on were either cited incorrectly, based on other works of fiction, drawn from generally unaccepted nonfiction conspiracy theories, or flat out invented by the author. It would have been one thing if Dan Brown had acknowledged up front that his work was...more First, saying this book is historically accurate is like saying t-bone steaks are part of a vegetarian diet. I've never read a work of historical fiction that was more poorly researched. The majority of historical 'facts' that the book is based on were either cited incorrectly, based on other works of fiction, drawn from generally unaccepted nonfiction conspiracy theories, or flat out invented by the author. It would have been one thing if Dan Brown had acknowledged up front that his work was based on fictional facts, but instead he prefaced his novel with a page that stated unequivocally that the historical facts in the book were accurate. By now, scores of sources, both academically authoritative and amateur, have proven how inaccurate Brown's "facts" were. Yet he won't give in and admit his gaff. There is no way I can respect this author.

Here are just very few examples:
- The Priory of Sion was actually created in 1956 as a hoax.
- The title "Mona Lisa" was not given to the painting until the 19th century, so it wasn't named by Da Vinci.
- The Rosslyn Chapel was not built by the Knights Templar. It was founded by Sir William St Clair, third Earl of Orkney and Lord of Rosslyn, and built more than 150 years after the Templar Order was disbanded.
- (Also there is no Star of David worn into the floor of the Rosslyn Chapel, although it's a key point in the plot near the end of the book.)
- The French for 'royal blood' is 'sang royal', not 'sang real'.
- The Paris Meridian does not pass through the Church of Saint-Sulpice, nor does it pass over the Pyramide Inversée (which, by the way, has 673 panes of glass, not 666 as the book claims).
- Paris was settled in the 3rd century BC by the Gauls. The book claims it was founded by the Merovingians, who didn't rule in France until the 6th century AD.

You get the idea.

OK, let's set all that aside and look at the book just as a work of fictional fiction (as opposed to historical fiction). Does he craft a compelling story? Maybe. Take away the sensationalist value it gains from an alleged basis in historical fact, and it's actually not that original a storyline. A dead man leaves coded clues, coincidentally, they are decrypted by a family member familiar with the man's penchant for codes, and an expert in the same academic field. Yawn.

Well, is he at least a decent writer? Not by a long shot. This guy's writing sounds like novice Internet fanfiction. Three particularly amateur techniques pissed me off the most: 1) The tactic of withholding information from the reader that the point of view character knows at any given moment. This is a common tool used by bad writers because they think it creates suspense. In reality, it just pisses off the reader and fails to deliver any truly suspenseful revelation when the time finally comes. The most egregious example of this is repeatedly not telling what Sophie saw in her grandfather's basement, despite the fact that she herself is thinking about it. 2) Killing dramatic tension by shifting into the trivial at exciting moments. This refers to setting up an intense, revelatory moment and at the moment of the big reveal, stopping all momentum to spend time examining something far less interesting or dramatic. This is different than a cliffhanger, which does not kill the tension because the scene continues to mount and roll out after the page is turned. Brown kills dramatic tension a lot. The one I really hated was when Sophie was still in the Louvre, and Langdon came running in because he had just figured out something big. He asks her an urgent question, and we know he is just about to tell Sophie (and us) what he realized. Then Brown kills the tension entirely by going into a lengthy flashback about when Sophie was a little girl. By the time we finish with the flashback and get back to the museum, the dramatic tension is gone, and we're not on the edge of our seats anymore. Langdon reveals what he knows, and we respond with a lackluster, "Oh, how interesting." instead of the "Wow, cool!" the pre-flashback tension would have produced. 3) This book is way too full of "As you know, Bob" exposition. Google that if you don't know what it is. Ugh. Amateur writing.

I find little at all to recommend this book as a bestseller. The only reason it caused such a controversy was because he stated that is facts were true, and the unsuspecting readers believed him....less

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CJ rated it:

(review of isbn 0385513755)

08/09/08

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

After reading this novel, I can see why it made the splash it did. A well conceived thriller which, when not taken too seriously, makes for a fun ride. Here's my plot summary followed by the bits I enjoyed.

The story revolves around Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon who specializes in religious symbology and its ties to the scared feminine in fact hes just handed a manuscript of his speculations on the Templar Knights and their fabled protection of the Holy Grail to his editor for prepublic...more After reading this novel, I can see why it made the splash it did. A well conceived thriller which, when not taken too seriously, makes for a fun ride. Here's my plot summary followed by the bits I enjoyed.

The story revolves around Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon who specializes in religious symbology and its ties to the scared feminine in fact hes just handed a manuscript of his speculations on the Templar Knights and their fabled protection of the Holy Grail to his editor for prepublication. While in Paris on business, Langdon receives an urgent call in the middle of the night to assist the French police in a murder investigation. The elderly curator of the Louvre, Jacques Saunière, has been murdered inside the museum, and the circumstances around the victim are suspicious. Little does Langdon know that earlier that evening, Silas, the albino monk following The Teacher, hunted Saunière through the Louvre. Saunière desperately seized a painting in order to activate the museum's alarm system. He succeeded in buying some time and he used these last moments of his life to leave behind a baffling cipher. He toke off his clothes, drew a circle and arranged himself like the figure in Leonardo's most famous drawing, "The Vitruvian Man." He further, leaves behind an anagram and Fibonacci's famous numerical series as clues.

Langdon is the prime suspect to Saunières murder because his name show up in part of the cipher, but he is rescued by a French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu who turns out to be the granddaughter of Saunière.

The stakes are raised when Langdon uncovers a startling link: the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sionan actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, Nicholas Flamel, among others. Langdon suspects they are on the hunt for a breathtaking historical secret, one that has proven through the centuries to be as enlightening as it is dangerous. In a frantic race through castles and cathedrals in Paris, London, and Scotland, Langdon and Neveu find themselves matching wits with The Teacher, a faceless mastermind who appears to anticipate their every move. Unless they can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle, the Priory's secretand an explosive ancient truthwill be lost forever.

The author uses Langdons character as well as Sir Teabing to reveal secrets embedded in the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, symbols of ancient Egypt, and the architecture of landmarks such as the Louvre, Westminster Abbey, Rosslyn Chapel

Brown fashions the story so that Langdon and Agent Neveu tap into a mother lode of religious conspiracy theory. The Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar and the controversial Vatican prelature called Opus Dei are all invoked, as is the pentacle, the Divine Proportion (Phi), the strange sex rites glimpsed in the film Eyes Wide Shut and the Holy Grail. The author dismisses the historical notion of the Holy Grail as a cup and instead purports that it is a combination of secret documents reflecting the blood line of Jesus and Mary Magdalenes family along with the sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene herself. Further, the author suggests that it is this secret that the Priory of Scion and the Knights Templar had spent centuries protecting.

The New York Times review sums up the book eloquently when it describes that, "[Dan Brown:] is drawn to the place where empirical evidence and religious faith collide. And he creates a bracing exploration of this realm, one that is by no means sacrilegious, though it sharply challenges Vatican policy."

A fast, engrossing read, I probably learned more about Phi, the Louvre, archaic time and directional methods, and Scotland than I did through all of high school, college and grad school! Still a note of caution, as much realism as was placed in the book, there is one point to remember about The Da Vinci Code and that is the section of the bookstore that it is sold!...less

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Alana rated it:

(review of isbn 0385504209)

07/31/07

bookshelves: thriller

Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist of a pedantic turn of mind, and Sophie Neveu, a cryptologist trained by a master of an ancient secret society, come together as they flee the police in an attempt to solve the bizarre mystery of her grandfather's murder. They become entangled in an intricate web of pagan religions, artwork and the Holy Grail with both the police and a fanatical branch of the Catholic Church determined to stop them.

While it is true that the writing is facile at best, the...more

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Maura rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

07/30/07

Read in July, 2006

recommends it for: someone interested in a completely mindless beach read

I've finally started reading that ever so controversial best-seller by Dan Brown. Actually, not reading it, listening to it while driving around Lansing, MI. This book seems to have changed the minds of many Catholics (my grandfather included) and Protestants alike. Granted, there have long been rumors of secret societies and organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, and historical cover-ups are rampant throughout civilization.

HOWEVER,

The book is crap. It's not at all well wr...more I've finally started reading that ever so controversial best-seller by Dan Brown. Actually, not reading it, listening to it while driving around Lansing, MI. This book seems to have changed the minds of many Catholics (my grandfather included) and Protestants alike. Granted, there have long been rumors of secret societies and organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, and historical cover-ups are rampant throughout civilization.

HOWEVER,

The book is crap. It's not at all well written. Brown seems to feel that in order to impress the mystery of the supposed Holy Grail conspiracy upon his readers, he must be repetitive and condescending. It almost seems that the whole purpose of the book is to tell the world how much Brown knows about obscure art history and symbology, and that he is willing to explain it to the teeming masses of uniformed Christendom. His constant use of cliff-hanger chapter endings (almost every chapter) makes the novel read like it was originally intended as a serial publication. Much of Brown's story hinges upon the loss of the Sacred Feminine, and yet his main female character (a cryptologist for the French police) is constantly having to be led clue by clue to obvious conclusions by her quicker, more worldly, male counterparts.

I might have put some stock into Brown's "history," he writes with conviction, if not much style. I may even have looked into some of his sources on my own. Today, though, Brown completely lost any stock I would have put into his actual knowledge. He referred, multiple times, to Jesus Christ as the Immaculate Conception. As every half-informed Catholic knows, Mary was the Immaculate Conception (conceived without sin), Jesus was the Miraculous Conception (conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit).

How this novel came to be as popular as it is, I can understand. Everyone today is dying to get to the big TRUTH, something which can never be done in religion. Faith is by definition something that is unsubstantiated, we must just believe. What I can't understand is how people can believe this absolute drivel.
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Kurtis rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

03/29/07

bookshelves: least-favorite

Read in May, 2004

recommends it for: Nobody

Why I hated the Da Vinci Code:
1. The book features puzzles that any intelligent sixth grader could solve, but baffle supposed experts. I mean, there's actually a cryptogropher who's stumped by backwards writing, and the best minds in the world can't solve a riddle about Newton when the answer is "apple." It takes phyiscal effort to read stuff that silly (but treated with dead seriousness) and not send the book screaming across the room.
2. The professor character is so anti-intellec...more

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Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0307277674)

11/17/07

Read in January, 2005

This book, and everything written by Dan Brown (to varying degrees), represent much of what I most dislike about pop literature. First of all, Mr. Brown, despite teaching English at Amherst College, is a bad writer. This is not to say that I am a good writer. But I recognize a person who can't "show" you vivid scenes, he has to "tell you". Various characters wear expensive clothes. How do we know? The text says they're expensive. How do we know Mr. Langdon is brilliant? The t...more This book, and everything written by Dan Brown (to varying degrees), represent much of what I most dislike about pop literature. First of all, Mr. Brown, despite teaching English at Amherst College, is a bad writer. This is not to say that I am a good writer. But I recognize a person who can't "show" you vivid scenes, he has to "tell you". Various characters wear expensive clothes. How do we know? The text says they're expensive. How do we know Mr. Langdon is brilliant? The text makes no bones about telling us. Langdon is also famous. Blah.

Furthermore, Mr. Brown's books are ridiculously formulaic. Every single "thriller" that he has written to date begins with the murder of a key character at the hands of a shadowy and "terrifying" assassin individual/group. This group is controlled by a larger group with dubious intentions that generally have to do with world domination. The protagonist is introduced as an "expert" whose credentials relate to the matter at hand, and who takes the job of hunting down the bad guys. He enlists the aid of an extremely avuncular, wise, benevolent helper. This person provides assistance as the protagonist (with a love interest) finds clues to the murder, attempts to find the bad guys, is pursued by the assassin(s), all while TIME IS RUNNING OUT. The avuncular father figure turns out to be pulling the strings of the assassins, is behind the original killing, and provides a forgettable monologue at the end where he pleas for understanding. But our hero takes him down. The end. I'm sorry if I just ruined all Dan Brown's books for you.

Finally, Mr. Brown likes to write about what he sees as religious conflicts. These conflicts take place between believers and non-. Unfortunately, he proves unable to adequately and convincingly describe these conflicts, because he reveals a striking inability to understand why people believe, in the first place. His highly religious characters therefore invariably turn out to be crazed nutjobs. I don't like stories that exploit religion for entertainment, and then use the attention that they draw to this entertainment to subtly undermine the reasons for faith.

But by all means, read the Da Vinci Code. People say it's smart. Others describe it as a fast-paced thriller with historical and theological implications. It could've been in the hands of another author. ...less

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Manu rated it:

(review of isbn 8804550198)

03/01/08

bookshelves: fiction, historical-fiction, thriller

First of all, I can't ABSOLUTELY understand HOW Dan Brown could make such a success.
I mean, his plots are quite originals and I read the Da Vinci Code months before it became such a case all around the world. But I was so disappointed by it!
As I've just said, not from the plot, that was quite good and interesting... the good plot for a seller book that have to conquer masses of readers. And he suggested even some clever interpretation about some elements.
But I was absolutely horrified by ...more First of all, I can't ABSOLUTELY understand HOW Dan Brown could make such a success.
I mean, his plots are quite originals and I read the Da Vinci Code months before it became such a case all around the world. But I was so disappointed by it!
As I've just said, not from the plot, that was quite good and interesting... the good plot for a seller book that have to conquer masses of readers. And he suggested even some clever interpretation about some elements.
But I was absolutely horrified by his style. And by the counter-reaction that generated so many books, full of explanations of why the Da Vinci Code was full of "shit".

So, his style: my first reaction was to blame the Italian translator... you know, it happens often that a translation can almost change and ruin the writer's style. Not because the translator is doing a bad job, but because it's not easy to turn some images or way of saying into another language, being even completely adherent to the original text. An easy example? The English/Americans says "touching wood" in order to gain some fortune. But, in Italy, we say "touching iron". The explanations to this are many but since they'll be completely OoT, I won't explain them here. Maybe some day, into another comment.
So, you can see my point and the reason why I thought the translator did a poor job. And so, I gave to Brown another chance to stun me and make me see why people all around the world adore his novels: I bought Angel and Demons in Ireland, in the English version. I read it with attention and, again, the plot is quite good as itself. But, the style... OMG, I realized that the Italian translator even improved his style. It is SO POOR. Details are important, but settings are just WRONG. Come on, I noticed it even reading the DVC! Another example? Easy: in France, the police isn't absolutely organized as in America. They don't have "lieutenants" and the organization of the police is so far from the American one that it's utterly ridiculous that he described it differently.
And, what about A&D? The Italian sentences made my stomach twist and knot: I WASN'T ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THEM! And I'm ITALIAN, for Goddess' sake! I had to wait until one of the characters explained their meaning, or I would me almost clueless about what the author meant to say.
Come on, the man sells books all around the world and we are in the Internet age: it was so hard to find something different from the Google translator? And his editor, why he didn't check out if they were right?

Then, the reaction books: why write all those articles/books/relations about the mistakes into the DVC? You know, it is a NOVEL! And, as it is, it's just normal that the author changes the reality to suit his plot. Nobody with a bit of intelligence into his/her head can really take it seriously. Come on, how can you believe the man when he say that Saint Joannes was instead S. Mary? Everybody with a bit of knowledge of the facts, KNOWS that S. Joannes in the Christian iconography is always represented with delicate tracts, almost feminine. Simply, Brown used that recurrence to fit his plot into reality. And there are TONS of examples like that.
What annoyed me is that people don't see that it's just a book and even the Church condemned it. Come on, there are worse books all around the world, why attack this one? In this way they gave a notoriety to it that Brown won't ever reach even into his wildest dreams.
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Codereloadpulsa marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0307277674)

07/12/07

bookshelves: to-read

Read in July, 2007

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