The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
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Book Reviews of The Da Vinci Code
Book Review: Lest you be confused by any facts, edutainment this isn't...
Summary: 2 Stars
Imagine a pseudo-intellectual murder mystery chase which carries the reader through the jungles of South America, past the Matterhorn and K2 all the way to the source of the Congo, encountering kangaroos, tigers, elephants, and various members of the Hmong, Ibo, and Lapp Indian tribes. Imagine someone reading it being genuinely impressed by the breadth of geographical knowledge displayed by the author. On the other hane, if you had any background in geography, it would be a quite annoying read, would it not? What if the characters were also semi-cartoonish and the various plot developments foreseeable? Well, you might want to keep reading just to see what everyone who liked it has been raving about or if your guess about who, what, and where turns out to be just what the author had in mind. Sorta like a crossword puzzle. Or you might put it down and wait for the intended movie starring none other than Harrison Ford. This is not the DaVinci Code, but, were you to futz around with history and Renaissance art - rather than geography - and inject into your story claims about Jesus, his disciples, and his church that were absolutely certain to be disputed, you would have the "literary equivalent" to the DaVinci Code. Fortunately I read a borrowed copy and only wasted my time. No way I'll pay to see the movie.The RC Church (particularly Opus Dei) gets slandered in Brown's book (which, of course, generates controversy which generates book sales) but after weathering centuries of scandals which were actually true, the Church can easily take care of itself in this silly affair. Indeed, I suspect Opus Dei will actually benefit from the attention and likely new members it gets. The book's real victims aren't the Church, Opus Dei, the Apostles, or devout Christians; they are the folks who have read this book and imagine that Dan Brown's "research" has actually produced anything worth learning, readers who not only don't know any history, they're too lazy to investigate the "facts" for themselves.
Maybe Brown wrote this thinking, like PT Barnum, "never give a sucker an even break," let's give 'em a putative "edutainment," wherein all the controversial "church-facts" fundamental to the story are not even "dangerous" or "heretical" because they are patently absurd to anyone willing to look into them. The more I think about it, the more I suspect just such a cynical ploy. Brilliant, actually. Put Jesus at the center of a sexual relationship with the Magdalene, grossly misrepresent the simplest historical facts about the Bible, the Church, DaVinci's depictions of various biblical scenes, etc. and when people point out inacuracies and absurdities, others will think that the Church really is "trying to hide something" about Jesus and Mary. Just like Barnum exhibited genuine animals to his audience, Brown does use genuine facts: Yes, there really was a DaVinci who painted the Mona Lisa, and it really does hang in the Palais Louvre in Paris (served, by the way, by Metro Line 7, aka "the Rose Line," - how did Langdon/Brown fail to mention that!?) There really were Knights Templar; there really is a Harvard University. There really was a Jesus of Nazareth and he really did love a woman, a disciple, called Mary Magdalene.
For those of you who loved the book and really don't want to be confused by real (or at least more likely real) facts, there's plenty more of this stuff out there that is better written. In addition to the other books cited (by others) as Brown's "sources," read DH Lawrence's, The Man Who Died. Hey, read the "suppressed" gnostic gospels for yourselves. Even though they've supposedly been "suppressed" for centuries, you can actually buy them and read them for yourselves! Don't read anything about the early Christian church, Constantine, the Council of Nicaea, DaVinci, the Crusades, and especially don't read that earlier best-seller, the New Testament, ("the canon") for yourself.
Book Review: Restores My Faith in Modern Fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
I came to Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE having recently read three other modern novels (Updike's THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, Crichton's PREY, and Uris' OHARA'S CHOICE), none of which was particularly captivating. Updike, while perhaps attempting a parody, achieves the ridiculous while losing the humor. Crichton merely rewrote his earlier novel THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN while changing nothing but the cast of characters. Uris' characters remain as conflicted at the end of his novel as they were at its beginning. A fourth modern novel that I struggled through a little longer ago, Naslund's AHAB'S WIFE, is so full of red herrings as well as characters endowed with neither reality nor purpose that it rates no further notice at all. My point here is that I came to THE DA VINCI CODE with a jaundiced eye, expecting yet another literary failure and even wondering why I was bothering to read anything written after the early 20th century.
I was in for a wonderful surprise. Mixing real, historical secret societies with fictional characters and plot, Brown pilots the reader down a veritable race course of a book. The action, intrigue, and mystery gallop at breakneck speed from beginning to end. Religious symbolism is artfully interwoven throughout the plot, and the heavy debt that Christian mythology owes to Pagan beliefs is brought to light in skillful narrative and dialogue.
Yet, for all of its originality and captivating action, the book is not entirely new. Several scenarios and bits of dialogue here and there are derivative of the Indiana Jones movies starring Harrison Ford. I am thoroughly convinced that author Brown watched INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE quite a few times before beginning to write THE DA VINCI CODE. Numerous parallels exist between Brown's Robert Langdon, a Harvard academician specializing in symbology, and Indiana Jones, an academic archeologist. Once they have been drawn from their classrooms into the field, however, both Langdon and Jones give James Bond a run for his money in the "action hero department."
One other character in the novel may be derivative. At least, he constantly reminds me of a character whom I met some time ago in another film. In the novel, the character is Silas, an albino monk and a fervent believer in the Opus Dei, a reactionary Catholic cult. Brother Silas is continually flagellating himself, the mutilation and pain being self-administered punishments for his sins (such as multiple murders, but then I don't want to give away the plot by describing his grievous transgressions in too much detail here). Silas reminds me very much of another monk who also flagellates himself for his sins in THE NAME OF THE ROSE, a spell-binding murder mystery set in the time of the Holy Inquisition. As in THE DA VINCI CODE, extreme religious belief and murder intertwine to form the plot, and it is not stretching the point too far to suggest that Brown may have also been influenced by THE NAME OF THE ROSE, though whether in its book or its movie version is impossible to tell.
That the influence of other works on Brown's novel can readily be seen is not a grievous weakness by any means. Certainly the bulk of Brown's work appears to be refreshingly original, and THE DA VINCI CODE goes far to restore my faith in modern fiction. If we can imagine mixing Indiana Jones with James Bond while throwing in a goodly measure of truly fascinating church history, religious fanaticism, and worldly scheming, we will have created a pretty accurate description of THE DA VINCI CODE. To describe a book as a "page turner" has become trite through unwarranted overuse, but in Dan Brown's novel, it is highly accurate. I've already begun to read his other novels based solely upon my delight with this one, and that is perhaps the highest recommendation I can make for partaking of his creative and imaginative stories.
Book Review: Conspiracy Theories
Summary: 1 Stars
Everyone loves a conspiracy, says Brown. Well, obviously many do from the way this book is selling. The problem with conspiracy theories is that they always have to torture the truth as this book does. It does for history what "Chariots of the Gods" does for archaeology. The Dossier Secrets were not "found" by the Bibliotheque Nationale, they were deposited with them where they were judged to be forgeries and there is no substantiated evidence that the Priory of Sion was anything other than a modern invention of very creative minds. The account of the demise of the Templars in the book is a great example of history prostituted for the sake of a conspiracy theory. The real story is much more fascinating. In brief, the Knights Templar were extremely wealthy due to monopolies in banking and Near East shipping. Their vast wealth caught the attention of the King of France, Philip the Fair (a reference to his appearance, not his character) whose dreams of empire were going unrealized due, in part, to the bankruptcy of his treasury. He had confiscated the property of all the Jews in France and devalued the currency, but was still a little short of funds. He had also kidnapped and disposed of the previous pope for standing in his way and exerted enormous influence over Pope Clement V, who understandably did not want to suffer the same fate. Clement never made it to Rome, by the way. He was installed at Lyon and got as far as Avignon - the beginning of a period in papal history known as the "Babylonian Captivity". Philip first tried to get himself made head of the Templars. They made the mistake of rejecting him - probably realizing his intention was to rob them. So Philip rounded up all the Templars in France, trumped up charges against them, tortured confessions out of them, and seized their wealth. I could go on with reference to other misrepresentations of history in this book, but it would take pages.
OK, it's a novel. It does not need to be historically accurate. True. The book would just be good fun, except that the characters are completely unbelievable, the plot is transparent and the prose is about 5th grade level. I suppose Mr. Brown is unaware, or unconcerned, that red-eyed mammals are visually impaired and often blind? A rather cumbersome handicap for a hit-man, don't you think? As soon as I read that, I knew I was reading a made for Hollywood script. We have a Harvard symbologist who apparently does not know any foreign languages - a man who has studied Grail lore without any knowledge of French. He is a well-traveled, mature bachelor who is scandalized by the Bois de Boulogne and seems devoid of any sexual or romantic feelings. In fact, he seems devoid of any feelings at all. He does not express outrage at the police trying to pin a crime on him or real fear at being a fugitive. He is strangely removed from the events happening around him. Perhaps he has been in academia too long. Maybe he is just jet-lagged, which is kind of how I felt reading this. Then we have a Parisienne who does not know the meaning of "clef de voute". It is a common French term for the stone at the top of an arch, ie a keystone. When you find out what she saw that made her stop speaking to her grandfather for a decade, you really have to wonder what kind of repressed thing she is.
The puzzles are ridiculously simple. It is hard to believe that two supposedly intelligent people could not grasp the riddle of "Newton + orb + rosy flesh + seeds within". I got it in seconds. The ending of the book is apparent about half-way through and the big secret that would shake Christianity to its foundations just isn't such a big deal. As Sophie says "I wouldn't mind". After all, the same situation did not stop Siddhartha from becoming Buddha.
Really the whole thing is one big yawn.
Book Review: Leonardo in drag
Summary: 1 Stars
Some of my fellow reviewers wrote that this was a book they couldn't put down. But once I started it and I did put it down, I found the book hard to pick up again -- my mind just filled with so many other things I'd rather be doing. About half way through I gave up the fight and didn't even try to start reading again.It isn't that the book is dense or difficult to read. To the contrary: I'd say that at first glance, author Dan Brown is a compelling storyteller, adept at seamlessly leading the reader from one scene to another. Sure, his constant foreshadowing is more often than not heavy handed, and some of the peripheral characters seem a little two-dimensional. But those are (unfortunately) common flaws and not the reason I was so displeased by the book.
What really bothered me was how much Mr. Brown got wrong. The first example is the book's title: "da Vinci" isn't Leonardo's family name, it is a reference to his illegitimate father, which is a reference to the father's home town of Vinci, just west of Florence. In Italian, "da Vinci" just means "from Vinci." No, Leonardo, like his contemporaries Raffaello and Giulio Romano, like Giotto, like Caravaggio, like Rembrandt ... like modern day Cher or Madonna, is correctly referred to by his given name. The book should have been called "The Leonardo Code" or "The Leonardo da Vinci Code."
Inside, there is more of the same. The author refers to some invented speculation that the "Mona Lisa" is really a portrait of Leonardo himself in drag. Proof? Mr. Brown narrative says that computers show that key facial features are the same as those in contemporary portraits of Leonardo and that without this explanation the identity of the model is a mystery. The truth? No contemporary portraits of Leonardo exist, while the identity of the model in the famous painting is extremely well documented.
There is more: Leonardo's "Last Supper" is not a fresco, as the book says. And the idea that Mary Magdalene somehow dressed up as a man and appears in the painting in lieu of one of the apostles is more than a little far fetched.
I know that a novel cannot be taken as a historical document and that by definition, events are fictionalized in any work of fiction. But they have to be fictionalized in a context that is real or at least believable. If that doesn't happen, the structure of the story crumbles because we no longer know what means something and what doesn't. A more specific example: the "Mona Lisa" carries with it certain information, who the subject was, what the painting means, who painted it, and its place in the West's cultural canon. Those factors are part of the package that simply cannot be jettisoned. If the author wanted a painting (or an artist) that didn't carry those exact meanings, then he would be better off selecting different subjects, or just making them up from scratch.
If a novel set in modern times included a character who drove a '78 Ford Pinto, we could draw certain conclusions about him. Maybe he doesn't have much money, or he has a bad taste in cars, or he has been forced to use this unfortunate vehicle. But if the story is written so that the Pinto is candy apple red, that it attracts "oohs" and "ahhs" from people who see it, and can race down the highway at 200 mph, then we scratch our heads. Why did the author call the car a Pinto? Wouldn't it be easier and better to have called it a Ferrari?
When I first started to notice these kinds of incongruities in The Da Vinci Code, I wondered if they were early clues that Robert Langdon, the main protagonist, was a bit delusional, or at least too free and easy with the facts. But it didn't take long to understand that the one who was too free and easy with the facts was the author.
Book Review: Eh...
Summary: 2 Stars
Besides boring you with the background of the author / book, the details of which most of you know already, I'll start out with the positives.As far as mystery novels go, I suppose this is average. I don't know enough about the genre to accurately criticize, but I know that I had to keep reading to discover the answer / solution to any of the given puzzles presented. At the worst, you can say it's brain candy. Some of them you could see a mile away, other ones you would need to be steeped in the esotericity of secret societies (assuming they exist as Brown presents them). It got tedious after a while, because Brown put a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, and THERE ARE OVER ONE HUNDRED OF THEM. Anyone being punched in the jaw repeatedly and with such frequency would start to lose feeling. The ending, which most people have a problem with because it's open-ended (stupid Hollywood ruins everything) was interesting.
I won't go into the glaring historical and religious inaccuracies that are obvious to most people who retained their Sunday school lessons. More learned people give apt criticism on amazon.com. My gripe is with Brown's premises themselves.
To Brown, everything in the world has pagan origins. Any conceivable geometric shape (even triangles and circles, the number 2, and the iambic pentameter are somehow pagan? Yeah, he went there), number, name, painting, architechture style , flower, my boogers, can all be traced back to prehistoric tree-hugging nymphomaniacs.
Besides the fact that this assumption is horribly wrong, there is a faulty conclusion you can draw from this. If everything is of pagan origin, then you're probably going to assume that anything that comes after that is a perversion of the the pagan worldview. This is especially true if you have a huge anti-Christian bias like Brown does (he throws Christianity a bone near the end, clerically absolving the Catholic church of any wrongdoing in the books event...gee, thanks). In Brown's world, that would mean a ham sandwiches and window panes are offensive to paganism, by the very fact that it came after.
The other option, instead of being a symbolic pervert, is that, in using the symbols, you are secretly passing its original (pagan) meaning. Neverminding the fact that this destroys the meaning of what a symbol is entirely, Brown's world looks like this:
1- Everyone uses symbols.
2- All symbols have a pagan origin.
3- If you use a symbol, you are either perverting the original pagan meaning, or passing on its original meaning secretly.
4- Jay just drew a circle.
5- A circle is a symbol.
6- Pagans used the circle to represent the sun.
7- Therefore, Jay is either perverting paganism or passing on the pagan idea of the sun (and so are thousands of unwitting children in the classrooms of the world).
On page 172, Brown's narrator say that one of the perils of being a symboligist (someone who studies symbols, a somewhat fictitious career) is that you can make connections where there are none. Brown destroys his premise with this one sentence.
Inconsistencies aside, the other irritants in this book are Brown's obvious stereotyping, and hangups with Christianity. All of the college students in his protagonists classes are horny frat boys or women pining away to be considered literal goddesses. He equates Christianity with Catholicism, and takes the usual cheap shots (pedophile priests, the Inquisition, "secret murders", etc.). Brown plays religions like a syncretistic proto-feminist's wet dream, hoping that someday all faiths can agree (*yawn*). This, combined with lousy character development, makes for bad art. Read it for its suspense and as an alternate, pagan wishful-thinking reality, but disregard all of the historical, symbolic, and logical inaccuracies.