The Da Vinci Code

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant, Tightly Wound Tale
Review: Robert Langdon is awoken in the early morning hours by a Paris police officer. He is rushed to the Louvre musuem where he is introduced to a shocking site: the curator of the museum - murdered, and positioned in a bizarre pose on the floor with scribbling and writing on his body. What's more shocking - the curator did this to himself. Within moments, Langdon is drawn into an underground world of hidden societies, Catholic schisms, Albino monks, and a devastating secret that could shake the very foundation of Christianity.

The da Vinci Code goes from zero to sixty in the first two pages and never lets up. But more than being a sharp, witty mystery, this book flawlessly incorporates biblical history, mystic theology, astrology, and much more into a perfect synthesis of faith tradition.

Dan Brown tells readers before they start the book that all descriptions of symbols and history are fact. That may be, but it seems to fit together just too neatly and perfectly. But you're having too much fun reading the book to possibly care.

I can't fathom someone being able to put this book down. Journey to Paris, London, and back in time with Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus Christ, and Mary Magdalene - read the da Vinci Code!

Rating:
Summary: Solving the code ...
Review: Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist and Sophie Neveu, a french cryptologist, work together to solve a mystery: The curator of the Louvre was murdered, Langdon is being accused of the murder, and Neveu works with him to get him out of trouble. Of course they first have to get out of the museum, only to be led back to the Mona Lisa, inside of the museum. The cryptic message left by the curator has its' first clue with the painting, and that one message in the Mona Lisa painted an entire novel of trying to solve the curator's message.
The message of course is politically and religious oriented: The Priory of Sion and the Opus Dei are two organizations - the former was a secret society that historical figures belonged to; the latter was a devout catholic sect of the Vatican. Each clue confounds Langdon and Neveu: Was the curator a part of one of these groups? What was he afraid of, who was after him, and what was he trying to tell them? Most important, did they have to preserve an ancient historical secret ... and how were they going to do it?
The two go from the museum, all over France, to England and back to France - all in 24 hours mind you - as one mystery brings upon yet another...
This is a page turner until the very end, the surprises are endless and the solution to the code may just be as mysterious as the message itself. Some codes are never meant to be broken.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful novel
Review: Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist, receives an urgent phone call while staying in Paris. The police contact him regarding the murder of Jacques Saunière, curator of the Louvre, who, before dying, leaves a series of clues hidden in Da Vinci's works for Langdon and Sophie Neveu, a French cryptologist, to find.

Together they piece the clues to reveal the secret left behind by Saunière. However, seeing Langdon's name written out at the scene of the crime by the victim himself makes him the prime suspect in the murder investigation.

The novel is well written in general and filled with fascinating information about Da Vinci and the Priory of Sion. Whether these details are accurate or not, I wouldn't know, but they make for such a fascinating backdrop to the story that I didn't care. I wanted to believe it was true. But this might keep purists or serious art buffs from getting into the art world described by the author. Dan Brown has written a very entertaining novel and, after having read it, I understand why it has been on the Top 10 list for over 40 weeks. Some of the story lines are quite predictable and you will see the inevitable pages before the author gets to it, but luckily none of these elements are part of the main storyline.

I can't recommend this book enough.

Rating:
Summary: Top Notch Thriller!
Review: Robert Langdon, an expert in religious symbology lecturing in Paris, doesn't exactly live a life of danger; he works the lecture circuit, writes scholarly books, and keeps his nose buried in ancient tomes. So it's something of a surprise when the police come banging down his hotel-room door. Jacques Sauniere, a curator at the Louvre, has been shot to death in one of the museum galleries; in his last moments, he used his own blood and a marking pen to arrange his body in a bizarre tableau, complete with a coded message. Langdon has ostensibly been called upon in a professional capacity to help solve the mystery. But Agent Sophie Neveu, a police cryptanalyst, reveals the truth: Sauniere's dying message included Langdon's name, and the police are about to wrongfully arrest him as the killer. Neveu believes in Langdon's innocence, and she has a special reason for wanting to find the real murderer: Sauniere was Neveu's estranged grandfather. On the run from the police, Neveu and Langdon follow a trail of puzzles and clues to find the truth behind Sauniere's murder, and the knowledge he died to protect - information that reaches back through the centuries to a secret society, an artistic genius, and a priceless historical artifact.

I've always liked books that invite the reader to solve puzzles along with the characters, and Code has them in spades: anagrams, numerical cyphers, riddles, and secret scripts (at one point, a character offhandedly comments that at least 62 other words can be made using the letters of the word PLANETS, and I had to stop reading and try it out for myself). The puzzles range in difficulty from Instantly Obvious to Unsolvable Without Being Fluent In Greek. There's also plenty of historical information, which is integrated smoothly into the prose; remarkably, even when inserted into dialogue, the explanatory asides don't interrupt the flow. Brown ensures that readers who are unfamiliar with religious iconography and cyphers have all the necessary information to fully enjoy the story, without leaving advanced readers feeling bored or patronized. Even if you know all this stuff already, the author's concise recaps are interesting and, as far as I can tell, well-researched and factually accurate.

Brown's writing is clean, precise, and detached, conveying information efficiently and minimizing its narrative presence in the story. The plot is appropriately full of twists and turns, with plenty of cliff-hanging action and a highly satisfying resolution, although some of the inventions seem a bit much (not only must there be a self-mutilating monk/assassin, but he must be an albino self-mutilating monk/assassin to boot). The character development is pretty much what you'd expect from an action-packed thriller - which is to say, minimal, unless it provides an excuse for more ass-kicking adventure. The focus is upon the ingenious puzzles-within-puzzles that Brown has devised, rather than the characters who try to solve them; for this type of story, that's not a problem, although it does limit the book to entertainment rather than literature.

A fast-paced, suspenseful, and surprisingly intelligent thriller, The Da Vinci Code deserves its good reputation. It's fascinating, action-packed, and it'll do more to stimulate your mind than an overpriced mocha at the Terminal B coffee cart. If you're ready to let your powers of deduction take flight, give this first-class airport book a try. Another great novel is THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez.

Rating:
Summary: nothing there
Review: Robert Morris has presented a helpful review here although it does contain information that might spoil the fun for readers. I am unimpressed with the Da Vinci Code. I found the writing flat, the story mediocre and the "conspiracy" unfounded.

I am not a Catholic. I don't even fit the definition of a Christian, but it should be very apparant to anyone reading this preachy pulp that Brown has an anti-Catholic agenda. I am rather surprised at those who feel compelled to come to his defense on that issue.

Go ahead and read it, but when you factor in Brown's bias, his fast and loose use of "facts" and the dull writing there ain't much there.

Rating:
Summary: Running To What
Review: Running To What
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a young man who after college, let go of his family connections and the majority of his material belongings to lead a life of tragedy. The life of Chris McCandless was a curious one. Many people have been fascinated and dumbfounded by the choices he made in life. His behavior was not as extraordinary as many seem to think. Chris was simply attached to the idea of the pure independence. One can only hypothesize the reasons for his extreme behavior, but really we will never know the true reason he ventured out on the adventure he did. Chris took off and disappeared like he did because of he seriously disapproved of his father Walt. He held a great resentment towards his father for cheating on his mother when he was a child. Yet that was merely an individual incident he used in order to have a "reason" for his ill feelings. Chris had an underlying problem with his father's expectations and ideals. He resented his father's choices and way of life. This resentment towards his father is what led him to completely detach from his family, change his name and wander off to the west. Chris' distaste for his father began when he took his first road trip cross-country. Before his trip he was following his father's footsteps en route to financial success. He had started his own copy business in the neighborhood at the age of twelve and, later had done sales for a local contractor, eventually having his own crew of people working under him. Over all he had a hint of capitalism running through his blood and seemed to be good at it. On his trip he visited his hometown of El Segundo, California and discovered that his father had cheated on his mother with his first wife when Chris was a child. When Chris was two years old, Walt fathered another son with his first wife, and led a secret life. Upon finding out about Walt's dishonesty, Chris simply kept his feelings to himself and allowed his bad feelings to build and build. It wasn't until two years later that his true colors began to show. His anger started to seep out and the fact that he wasn't happy became apparent to his mother. Chris' father valued financial stability and the approval by society but this type of success wasn't important to Chris who he valued freedom and individualism. At one point in the book his ill feelings about money are discussed. Chris' mother Billie stated that the lifestyle they provided for Chris and his sister was one he was embarrassed by. "Her son, the teenage Tolstoyan, believed that wealth was shameful, corrupting, inherently evil" (115). Where did this attitude towards capitalism emerge? Some believe that Chris was influenced by his readings. Chris' opposition of money and societies materialism stems from his father's devotion to popular values. Chris' moral code derived from his lack of respect for his father; therefore, he rejected anything that Walt considered to be correct. In graduating from college Chris felt like he had fulfilled his requirements for his father and set off to lead a life disconnected to all that could resemble the life he knew. Had there been a better relationship with his father Chris would have been a different person. His ideas might have been more cognitive, cautious and less extreme. Yes I believe he would have still been one to seek wild forms of adventure, but perhaps he would have remained in contact with his family. Instead of traipsing into the wilderness of Alaska anonymously, Chris might have notified his family of his plans in case he never made it out. Chris entered the wilderness with an attitude that he would survive and if he didn't then so be it. If Chris had a desire to be apart of his families' lives then he probably wouldn't have been on such a selfish rampage; therefore, he wouldn't have been so daring and would've brought more supplies for himself. Loving his family could have given him something to live for, perhaps a sense of value. In order to feel like an individual the children feel the need to break away and find their "own way of living. In the case of Chris, his father clearly had a control issue. Even though it was not intentional, the over baring control and pressure he imposed on Chris truly ruined the potential of any sort of good father-son relationship. It was the act of his father's dishonesty that gave Chris a reason to despise his father and everything he did or thought. It is because of the reasons that I feel Chris McCandless decided to sever his ties with his family, seek validation through his readings and create his own reality and path for life. He let go of a capitalistic way of life, partly because he liked the idea of it, but mostly because he disliked his father's way of life.

*All quotations correlating to page numbers are by J. Krakauer in the Anchor Books edition of Into the Wild (New York, 1996

Rating:
Summary: The Da Vinchi Lies
Review: Save yourself the time and the $$$
This book lies all about Jesus and the apostles and Christianity entirely. Why has it topped the LA Times Best Seller List for Fictional works for 22 solid weeks?
GOD ONLY KNOWS, but I wish He'd stop it.

Rating:
Summary: Its popularity frightens me
Review: Scary, very scary. I don't mean to be nasty or holier than thou--I'm a guy who fully agrees with King about "get over intellectual snobbery in writing"--but holy cow.

Its scary how many copies of this book have been sold by word of mouth. It's got a mediocre-at-best concept ripped off from mid-80s conspiracy theories, and is absolutely, positively, and incredibly horribly written.

For example, in one passage, a cargo truck's tires "hum" quietly. But the very next paragraph describes "the truck roaring down the highway." Next paragraph: back to a gentle hum.

One character speaks a select phrase into a phone quickly---it says she "knows how to be precise"....for its time saving virtue. But when she speaks again, she pauses....for Brown to ramble on about some fact he almost left out.

This is what I mean...the book is so poorly written that the author often contradicts himself in successive sentences. The characters are laughably flat. The plot is so ridiculous it would rejected as sotry for a comic book. I really just don't understand why it is so wildly popular...do people really enjoy being treated like idiots? The book really does sound like it was written by an adolescent and intended for 6th graders. Do yourself a favor...pick up some King, Steinbeck, or Tartt instead.

And don't go see it when it graces your local theater either...it has already been optioned--go figure. Hollywood wants to make another brain dead thriller.

Rating:
Summary: Scooby Doo Ending
Review: Secret societies, albino monks, murder, mystery... what more could I have asked for? I should have asked for more! The background or pseudo-history of secret societies and hidden religions was very facinating. The writing style was horrible, though. As each chapter passed, I found the formula of *answer a question* then *find a clue* then *ask another question* then *turn to the next chapter* tiring. I doubt this entire escapade took only a day and a half! And the Scooby Doo ending to boot!

Rating:
Summary: An excellent test of one's faith
Review: Secular readers of "The Da Vinci Code" have been given a unique opportunity to "proselytize" amongst their believer friends; all they have to do is recommend this historical-fiction best seller to them.

By some stroke of good luck, I read the "Da Vinci Code" shortly after I had just finished "The Skeptical Feminist" by Barbara Walker. And while the Walker book was published in 1987 (million or so copies sold), I was totally unfamiliar with it until recently. I mention Brown's work at this time, because, if your readers really want to fully appreciate "The Da Vinci Code" reading "The Skeptical Feminist" first, will prove to be invaluable.

While "The Da Vinci Code" is historical fiction (as is the Bible) there is enough merging of "actual" history, with an engaging mystery story, to make this book an easy, enjoyable read.