Rating: 
Summary: Sadly could have been so much better
Review: Thank God it's not just me! I thought this book had a great premise, but was such an insult to the reader's intelligence. I felt like I was 17 again, reading a Sidney Sheldon novel. Dan Brown must think the average reader is a sheer idiot. He spends several pages at a time uncovering what are supposed to be clever plot twists (the tracking device in the bar of soap, the "semitic" writing that baffles the supposedly erudite characters). It's no fun reading a book when you're several pages ahead of the author. I put it down with 50 pages left and don't care what happened. Several hours wasted that I will never get back!
Rating: 
Summary: Book of the Year
Review: Thank you Dan Brown! Thank you! Finally a book in 2003 worth telling people about. Due yourself a favor run out now and get it. If you love word play, anagrams, puzzles, and enjoy when modern religion is confronted with uncomfortable facts -- you need to read this book. Best I've read in a while.
Rating:
Summary: most incredible book in years, you will keep as treasure
Review: Thank you Mr. Dan Brown for writing this marvel and bringing to life a book that is classic worthy to be kept for a life time. There is so much commercial writing nowadays that a book like this is an event that an avid reader should celebrate as a holiday. I am forever grateful to have this gift and be inspired of knowing that high literary art lives on!I am sure the writer was as much exhilarated working as I was reading.
An incredible experience worthy reading Onore de Balzak, Alexander Dummies, Leo Tolstoy, Feeder Dostoyevsky, Dickens and all the heavy weight classics. Forever your fan and folower!
An incredible experience worthy reading Onore de Balzak, Alexander Dumas, Leo Tolstoy, Fedor Dostoyevsky, Dikkens and all the heavy weight classics. Forever your fan and folower!
Rating: 
Summary: Good, Interesting, Not accurate
Review: That's about it. There are too many other reviews here for me to feel it necessary to continue. I liked the book, its quite interesting and well written. I'm an academic student of religious history, and his connections are liberal and speculative yet presented as fact.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: The "Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown is an amazing novel that left me sitting back in my chair, amazed and dazed about what I just read. Brown's extensive research on western society and the Catholic Church's history shows numerous times throughout his novel. He touches on people's knowledge and dares to write about and change history as we know it. In reading this book, I was unable to put it down but when I did, it was for practical reasons such as sleeping or school. Throughout the book, I found myself going on-line looking up Da Vinci works such as "Madonna on the Rocks" or "The Last Supper" to see if what Brown was writing about was true. Although, in the middle of the book, the suspense slowed and became a little dry, the desire to know what becomes of the characters keeps you motivated to finish.
Rating:
Summary: ....Great story, by the way.
Review: The "Da Vinci Code." Brown bases his story around the history of the Holy Grail and the Priory of Sion. Since there has been much controversy with "Brown's history", I decided to find out what some of the greatest thinkers of our time thought about this thing we call "history":
"History, history! We fools, what do we know or care." -William Carlos Williams
"Imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and what is imagination but the projection of the author's personality." -Pieter Geyl
"The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values his honesty; for if he cares for his truths, he is certain to falsify his facts."-Henry Adams
"History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten." -George Santayana
"Very deep, very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?" -Thomas Mann
"[History is] a graveyard of aristocracies." -Vilfredo Pareto
"In analyzing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"History is, indeed, an argument without end."-A.M. Schlesinger, Jr.
I hope this makes you think about what it is you call "history."
I can summarize the wake the "Da Vinci Code" has created in one word: ridiculous. Like many others with a strong opinion of this book, I should mention that I am not Christian. Why people feel they have to include that they are a Christian when giving their view on this book is obvious, and it made me think about my beliefs when it comes to religion. Among them, what I'm not religiously is an individual with the illusion that someone is making a direct attack on my beliefs when he says something that contradicts it. That is, being as blunt as I can, what the radical Christian does not realize. A radical Christian believes anything that questions his sacred Bible is slander and an attack on his "code of life." He, like many others, has an antisocial illusion that people with different beliefs are only out to ruin them when one raises a question on his religion; he is the one who turns a deaf ear to something he will not take the time to think about--simply because he is horrified to realize a truth in what before he had not realized. A radical Christian does not realize, or will not listen to, contradicting history. Even his Christian history, is not fact, but only fiction. For what is fact? Fact is only based on perception. Does that not make it uncertain? But yet some people are not capable of understanding what I have just said, and those, I feel, are the same people who shun this book off when they call it anti-Christian, or anti-History. Those who cry "anti, anti, anti" are the same one's who do not think about the quote Brown included in his book: "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." That's what this book makes you think about after you've finished. That's a reason why I enjoyed it....That may even be Brown's thesis!
And as for the "history" in this book, what Brown stated as "fact" (used in its everyday sense) is true. The Priory of Sion and Opus Dei do exist, and the "descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals" in the novel are, quote, "accurate". Everything else, past the first page, was never called "fact, or accurate" by Brown. Those who said Brown is biased on some of the history in his story are not mistaken. They are right only in some cases. But I will never understand why some think Brown tried to trick readers into making non-history, history. But I do know that those who make that argument are very wrong, and need to re-read what it is they are criticizing. The first page in the "Da Vinci Code" was written for a purpose, one of those being to rid the book of the criticism with its "history." Again, Brown uses the word "FACT" in bold face, in large font, on the very first page, for a reason. It is quite obvious.
We call some books "thrillers." And the "Da Vinci Code" is a thriller. It is a great beach book, entertaining and easy to read. There is a reason for all the good reviews this book has been given, and it's one of the best thrillers I have read in the past year. If you enjoy a good lay-read book, I recommend picking this one up before starting another.
...One thing "stood" out at me while I was reading some reviews, it was--to wit: "There was no way I could just sit by quietly while so many people are making all sorts of judgements [sic] and opinions about my God and what He stood for." This was a long review, very criticizing, and the reviewer claims to be a devoted Christian. But how devoted is he? Do you not see the problem with what he said...."My God and what He stood for." The key phrase is "stood for", and I highly doubt that this is a typo since his entire review is grammatically correct. The problem with "stood," is that it's past tense, meaning God is dead. A true Christians knows he is not. And if he meant Jesus, who is not God (another problem), still he should not use the word "stood." Again, a Christian knows Jesus rose from his grave on the third day! Is there "no way" that he has not heard of Easter? This is what I am taking about! Ridiculous. What's more, there are many others just like it! This is the sort of garbage ignorant mongers create. Makes me wonder if he himself might actually be "anti-Christian"?
Rating:
Summary: A Code Worth Cracking Open
Review: The #1 job of a novelist is to keep the reader turning pages, and Dan Brown succeeds with The Da Vinci Code. Brown builds a story that races from one plot twist to another with breathless action: the over-used moniker "page-turner" applies in this case. The plot is tight and lean, showcasing Brown's greatest strength: his ability to feed the reader new nuggets of information every few pages, while stringing along a number of other mysterious threads. This gives the reader a sense of constant discovery, while building anticipation for answers to come. I have a few quibbles with the book, and they really are quibbles more than anything. First, Brown seems to have a penchant for beginning his sentences (especially in action sequences) with participial phrases: "Turning now and scanning the room, Sophie's eyes...", "Walking toward the bare wooden wall, Sophie...", "Feeling around the edge of the panels, Sophie..." "Heart pounding, she placed her finger..." And so on. Like salt, a little bit of this technique adds flavor; also like salt, too much ensures you can't taste anything else. A hundred pages in, I found myself starting to count the occurrences. I think his editor could have been a bit more ruthless in this department. Second, Brown manages to interrupt his own sparkling narrative flow on a number of occasions. Many times, his characters reflect back on some past event: the dreaded flashback. Again, no big whoop when used here and there, but Brown does border on overuse. At other times, Brown interrupts the narrative for lengthy author intrusions. That's probably my biggest complaint, come to think of it: Brown pushes too far to explore his basic premise. Before the book has ended, he has told you everything from iambic pentameter to Disney movies to Swiss banking is an admirably subversive attempt to keep paganism alive in today's society. (Read the book and you'll understand.) Well, Gee, Dan. Sometimes an architect uses circles in her designs for aesthetic reasons, and not because she's trying to make people worship the pagan sun symbol. In instances like these (as well as instances where hotly-debated issues of New Testament scholarship are cited as fact: Mary Magdalene's role in the early church, the existence of the "Q" document, and so on), the reader might rightly feel the characters are speaking more for Dan Brown than for themselves--and sounding a wee bit shrill in the process. But hey, it's Dan Brown's book, and he controls its universe. It's his prerogative to explore whatever issues he wants, however he wants. Whatever misgivings you may have about the content (and most Evangelical Christians and Catholics with have major misgivings), you can't fault the guy on his craft: he knows how to put together a damned good read.
Rating:
Summary: Disconnected
Review: The "glue" is missing. Good time filler. Not his best.
Rating:
Summary: More, please. Even though DaVinci was straight...
Review: The action, intrigue, and trail of puzzles in this book made The Da Vinci Code one of the best I've read this year. As long as you can willingly suspend disbelief when it comes to trails of "hidden" knowledge, this book will keep you turning pages all the way to the (not surprising at all by then) end.
Rating:
Summary: Liked the premise but...
Review: the actual story was predictible. The theories were interesting and somewhat thought provoking but the story itself was mediocre at best. The short chapters got very annoying after awhile and the constant cliffhangers at the end of all the chapters seemed like elementary writing. I was very excited to read this book, but then let down. At least it is a quick read so you don't waste a lot of your time!
|
