The Da Vinci Code

Rating:
Summary: If You Only Read One Mystery Novel This Year...
Review: The Da Vinci Code is valuable more for its ability to interest people in art history and medieval politics than for the story itself. The story is unique and well planned, but the writing itself is not spectacular. Author Dan Brown employs the tried-and-true method of cliffhanger endings for every chapter, misleading characterization that draws suspicion to almost every major character, and a series of fascinating clues that simply yield more twists and turns. This is not necessarily a bad thing--although Brown employs rather routine mystery novel ploys, he does it very well. His mastery of the basic elements of mystery writing makes what would otherwise be a mediocre novel a very intriguing page-turner.

I have to admit that I was drawn to this book because of the tempest of controversy surrounding it. Personally, I didn't find the controversy to be warranted. Many of the "scandalous" premises of the novel should already be familiar to anyone who has studied art history, medieval history, or simply the doctrines of the various Christian faiths. The book is recommended by everyone from singer Tori Amos to Laura and George W. Bush. Regardless of one's personal beliefs, this should be interesting book for any reader.

Rating:
Summary: Not even a grade B
Review: This book has some fascinating ideas....too bad the writer couldn't handle them.

Rating:
Summary: A tabloid for conspiracy nuts.
Review: This book is poorly written and researched. Dan Brown has a interesting subject, but he completely fabricates history and distorts facts. But Dan Brown does a great job in crafting a book to dupe conspiracy nuts.

For anyone who studies history, this is a difficult book to get through. I encourage people to take a deeper look into any of the "historical accounts" in this book.....its embarassing.

There are too many facts to dispute, but here are just a few...

-Most Knights of Templar were crushed by King Philip the Fair of France....not the Catholic church.
-Brown's characters state that the Church burned five million women as witches, which show Dan Brown's malicious ignorance of historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned.
-He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn't a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
-Brown's analysis of da Vinci's work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it's widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not - as Brown claims - a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L'Isa (Italian for Isis).

Rating:
Summary: Okay, I have read the novel and here is what I think...
Review: In the "Poetics," his famous study of Greek dramatic art, Aristotle compares tragedy to such other metrical forms as comedy and epic poetry. He argues that tragedy, like all poetry, is a kind of imitation (mimesis), but adds that it has a serious purpose and uses direct action rather than narrative to achieve its ends. Aristotle holds that poetic mimesis is imitation of things as they could be, not as they are (i.e., of universals and ideals). Consequently, poetry--that is to say, all literature--is a more philosophical and exalted medium than history, which merely records what actually happened. Aristotle was defending poetry as much as explaining it because there were those in ancient Greece who were deeply offended that anyone should create works of fiction.

That would seem to explain some of the reaction to Dan Brown's bestseller, "The Da Vinci Code," that has enraged many theologians who have denounced it as anti-Catholic. Brown takes some credible theories about the early Christians, mines the paintings of Leonardo for helpful symbolism, and creates a series of codes left behind by a dying man, to create a thriller with Biblical implications. However, along the way there is a consistent and compelling critique, not so much of the Catholic Church of today, but of the early history of Christianity. The person who takes the biggest drubbing in the book is not the Pope (either one of them that figure in the story), but the Emperor Constantine. The idea that "The Da Vinci Code" constitutes a revisionist view of Christianity is pretty ironic since it was Paul's transformation of the teachings of Jesus into something more palatable for the Gentiles of the Roman Empire, the history of Christianity has been one of transformation.

The big question then becomes whether or not "The Da Vinci Code" is a theological argument dressed up as a mystery that should have been advanced as a scholarly treatise. The position that Christianity fueled a patriarchal society at the expense of Mother Earth permeates the novel, but ultimately it is part of the rationale for solving the mystery, existing more as a function of narrative than a rhetorical stance. Then again, I have no problem with the idea that Jesus will always be an important historical figure, regardless of what information might be discovered or revealed in the future. By the same token, speculation about a possible marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene does nothing to distract from the power of his ministry. On the other hand, I fully realize that such a position will be regarded by a great many as heresy, so I grant that the very premise of Brown's novel will be considered offensive by a great many people. All I can offer in response is the belief that Brown was not intending to challenge such beliefs, but wanted to take some interesting ideas and creatively filling some gaps to make a compelling mystery. The key supporting evidence for this idea would be that most of the key characters take all of this for granted, so that they are always explaining rather than advocating these various ideas.

Of course, there will be those who are disappointed to find out that everything in this fictional novel is not true and who will be upset that this is indeed a work of fiction. But so what if Leonardo Da Vinci did not hide clues about church secrets in his paintings? All Brown needs is a willing suspension of disbelief on the part of his readers (which may be another reason that true believers are grossly offended by the theological "politics" of this novel); from the perspective of symbolists you can "find" lots of things in any artwork from Da Vinci to Degas to Dali to Dr. Seuss. The idea that that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute is a potent one because it speaks to the power of redemption, where even a fallen woman can be saved. Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion are real organizations, but unless you were well vested in such things it would not have mattered if Brown had made up names for the two groups. But clearly Brown wanted to keep his story as close to the real world as possible, for obvious reasons. If you want to separate the truth from fiction with "The Da Vinci Code," then just wait patiently: I am sure several books claiming to do just that will be published in 2004 (and all of them together will probably sell one-tenth as many copies as Brown's novel). It would especially be nice to have a book that collects images of all the works of art and places that are so pivotal in the novel.

"The Da Vinci Code" is a quick and engaging read, where the storytelling matters more than the writing, especially when we are involved in breaking the various codes and making the pieces fit. Actually, I was rather surprised that the cast of characters remained rather small, but the scope of the conspiracy has historical depth rather than contemporary breadth (turning the novel into a screenplay is not going to be difficult: i.e., no characters of subplots have to be eliminated). The characters exist to play the games, solve the riddles, and break the codes because very few readers are going to have a chance to do any of that. I know that Da Vinci wrote backwards in his notebooks and that there are strong similarities between the face of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci's self portrait, so I was ahead of the curve on a few points, but overall I was just along for the ride (I also knew a bit from playing "Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned"). The ending made sense to me from both a narrative standpoint, especially in terms of what ending you could hope to get away with in the context of keeping the story as "real" as possible. But there is also the attendant irony, given the controversy over the book's "attack" on the Chruch, that the ending constitutes more of a matter of faith.

Rating:
Summary: the irony
Review: Mr. Brown uses the very same tactics that he suggests the Catholic church has used over the centuries to mislead the world. By mixing fiction with a little fact he has managed to challenge what many have accepted as the truth, but it would be giving Brown too much credit to suggest that this is what he meant to do with this book--to illustrate that irony.

As far as the writing goes it is a fast, often annoying read. Mr. Brown loves adjectives to the point of redundancy. Here are some I would use to describe The Da Vinci Code: shallow, wooden, uninspired, trite, and clunky.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read
Review: Simply Amazing! Not only is this book a wonderfully suspenseful novel including puzzles, codes, and twisty plot guaranteed to entice the reader, it is all centered around a basic set of facts that challenge everything you ever knew about the roots of the christian religion and ancient history. If you are interested in art history, religion, secret societies, or anything of the like, this is a must read. I highly recommend this novel. It only takes a day or two to finish, so why not give it a spin?

Rating:
Summary: Great read. Questionable truth? A few suggestions...
Review: Where to start?

I've decided to begin by "taking out the trash". I, for one, am sick of these bad reviewers blaming the author for "accusing" and "harassing" the Catholic Church. I even heard one reviewer claim all of his books were anti-Catholic! Obviously, someone read TWO out of his FOUR books, and took them the wrong way. When are these people going to learn that the author didn't invent these theories! That's like reading a biography about a terrible person and then blaming the author for the things that went wrong! He's just writing about one idea! And on the reviewers that claimed he was bad-mouthing the church for the molestation charges? He had NO implications on such things, and only mentioned the incidents in one line, where a guard was remembering the police chief's statement about the church! GIVE ME A BREAK! I also heard people blaming him for goals of national paranoia? Is this the Twilight Zone? My advice to people trying to understand what the book is really like is this: Ignore the truly paranoid people who can't go on with their lives ignoring a "bad" idea let alone consider it and look for REAL reviews (AKA positive criticism on the more important criteria of the book). Talk about stubborn! Now that we have that out of the way, let us continue.

Whether the theory is real or not, I find it unimportant. People are also acting like this is the first book of it's kind. Wrong! You'd be interested how much you'd find out the book is more non-fictional past the author's claims just by reading the first chapter of a certain book (that's all you need, but you might as well read the whole thing).

If you're starting give-up on this review, hear this. This book is not a novel or a thriller, if that's what you're trying to avoid. It's an informational book. The character Jacques Sauniere is also more real then you may have thought, and other character names and places in DVC are all names for other things that played huge roles in the original unearthing of this theory like mountain chains, factual people, and towns. This book is also good for mentioning one thing DVC did not about this subject: the large role in early cryptography. The book is called, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". Keep in mind, this isn't another lone book, since there are hundreds of it's kind. This is just one that I recommend for it's impressive research (a team of English men personally might have been the first to follow the "clues" in southern France and piece together an interesting theory). It's was published in 1983, so it got no help from DVC. Whether you liked DVC or not, this is a good book for informational purposes and a pretty easy read. Happy reading!

Rating:
Summary: entertaining
Review: besides the overdone plot twist, i really enjoyed the history behind the fiction. it was a definite eye opener and great introduction to art and the dark side of religion.

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining Conspiracy Theory Read
Review: I flew through this book with such relish that I was done within 24 hours of cracking the cover. At its core, The Da Vinci Code is a mystery, but it's such a smart one that I didn't get my usual "I hate mysteries" heebie jeebies. The story is packed full of unique keys, secret codes, hidden hiding places and secret societies. And who doesn't love a good secret society?

Dan Brown clearly did some hefty research for this novel, but I think it shows (off) a little too often. There's a bit too much, "Hey, look what I learned!" mixed in with the fiction. Sometimes it's even hard to tell the two apart - but that's not a horrible thing, this is not meant to be a textbook, after all. It was deliciously decadent to slip into the role of questioning the motives of one of the most firmly-rooted establishments in the world; the Church.

The plot is intricate and fast-paced, which draws your attention away from the one-dimensional characters. And the cliffhangers, admittedly transparent gimmicks, do what they're supposed to do - they make you want to read the book faster.

The Da Vinci Code is fantastic for what it's meant to be... an entertaining read. Anyone who criticizes it for being plot-driven or inaccurate is just being pompous and biased against popular fiction.

Rating:
Summary: derivative, unoriginal & boring
Review: If you are in any way familiar with anything to do with the templars then you know 90% familiar with everything this book has to offer by way of plot. There is no character development of any sort. Not even a good summer read; give it a miss.