The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is an international best seller that deals with a major cover up by the Christian church that spans thousands and thousands of years. Typically when you involve religion in the topic, it's bound to get many different types of reactions and feelings from the crowd and this is no different. I mean religion does sell right? This is the perfect example of an author cashing in on that aspect. However, when reading this book, I just took it for what it is and that is a book that is suppose to be highly suspenseful and an action thriller. Oh and of course, discovering the big mystery that is suppose to shake the Christian church to its foundation. The Da Vinci Code I can say without a shadow of a doubt, is an excellent book from start to finish provided that you take it for what it is. This can be very hard obviously if you yourself is a devoted Christian because you'll probably not like what the author says about your religion here in this book even though it's considered a fiction piece of work. If you can get past that though, this book is the ultimate definition of a page turner!

The Da Vinci Code basically is about what happens when everything is not as simple as we'd like things to be. We were always told the story of Jesus Christ through the Bible as it is suppose to detail an accurate picture of his life. But what if not everything we read is accurate and that the Bible is an actual cover up for the truth of what actually happened with Jesus Christ? Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory and The Da Vinci Code cashes in on that notion when members of an ultra secret brotherhood charged with protecting some important documents that reveal the actual truth about the life of Jesus Christ are murdered.

It's surprising to find out that the entire book takes place within the span of just one night. Not many authors can do this and I believe this author uses the same tactic with his other books as well. The problem here for many is that there just isn't enough time to develop the characters. Therefore, what I read from many reviewers is that due to shallow characters, they don't feel an emotional attachment to the story and that they don't care about the outcome. I usually promote strong character growth as well but I find the story in the Da Vinci Code good enough for me to give it a pass in this case.

The writing is superb from Dan Brown and this I believe is the first book I have read from this popular author. I find that the book immediately gripped me right from the beginning. I do admit that I had my doubts in the beginning. Like other readers, I usually find books on the best seller list as overrated but The Da Vinci Code is anything but that. The author really sets an incredible pace and he has a knack for not giving away too much all in one go. He slowly lures you in and you'll definitely be saying to yourself "just one more chapter!". Some might not like this as if I remember correctly, it's exactly at the halfway point of this book that the exact mystery is revealed to the readers.

As a thriller and mystery, you're going to get your usual doses of action set pieces and the author gives just enough to satisfy our thirsts without drowning us. What I also love about reading The Da Vinci Code is that the author sprinkles in a bit of historical education throughout the book. Those were definitely a blast to read through because typically, we normally don't relate or think about it from a historian's point of view. And believe it or not, you'll be rushing to your computer throughout the book searching for images that the author talks about. So not only are we getting a fantastic suspense thriller in the book, we are also educating ourselves in the process!

Whether you believe in what the author writes here is definitely up to you. Everyone loves a good conspiracy and I'm sure The Da Vinci Code stirred up a hornet's next when it was published. I personally am not a completely devoted and religious person but I do believe in a higher being. I definitely read this book with an open mind and it was pretty shocking to find what the author had to say although many others have reported that Dan Brown basically took the ideas of what other authors/historians have written in other lesser known books and used it here in The Da Vinci Code. Nonetheless, this book was a complete page turner and I could hardly put it down! I think this might take the spot for the fastest book read in my collection.

Occasionally I pick some work of "popular fiction" that I think might be fun to read; it's shock therapy for my brain, which is so crammed with science that it rattles as I walk. I'd resisted reading The Da Vinci Code since 2003, thinking that any book this popular can't be any good. Can you say SNOB? But when I saw this Special Illustrated Edition (and the incessant drumbeat of publicity and shameless media linkage to the book, like the History Channel's "Da Vinci Decoded"), I finally broke-down and read it.

Dan Brown's book is a taut page turner. It deals with several rather controversial assertions (to say the least) about Christianity. Whether you choose to believe them or not is a personal decision. Many are taken from another controversial book published in 1982, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. As Mr. Brown's book is a work of Fiction, I just went along for the ride and disregarded all the hoopla. As a thriller, it is one of the best I've ever read. It is intelligently written, with almost no excess material. Some of Mr. Brown's plot choices puzzled me; like the strange attack of "the dumbs" afflicting his 3 allegedly brilliant protagonists late in the book when they're unable to identify a very famous scientist from rather obvious clues. Or their inability to identify the food item associated with that scientist, something any school child knows. Crucial to the plot, obvious to the reader, their sudden obtuseness was the only real fault - if it is a fault - that I could find in this otherwise exciting novel.

What really compounded my pleasure in reading this novel were the carefully chosen illustrations, generously interspersed throughout the Special Edition. Resembling an Oxford University Illustrated History in size and layout, reading the Special Edition was like reading a really exciting textbook (How rare is that?). Every fact came alive, every clue was vivid. It was a totally immersive experience, like a turn-based video game. And when we reached The Last Supper in the novel, visually flipping back and forth from text to painting was viscerally exciting! Those mysterious visual clues Da Vinci inserted into his magnificent painting are literally seared into my memory. I had gooseflesh for three days!

The Special Illustrated Edition of the Da Vinci Code accomplished what I intended: my brain no longer rattles as I walk. Unfortunately, the book (and the fun) had to end. If you haven't yet read it, I strongly recommend this Special Edition. Even if you have, this experience is unique, unlike any reading adventure I've ever had. You might enjoy rediscovering the mysteries that make reading the Da Vinci Code so enjoyable!

Postscript: As for those of you who wish to censor this book; who even censor positive reviews of this book (the instantaneous negative votes for every single positive review of The Da Vinci Code here at Amazon is as creepy as anything found in Dan Brown's Book!): censorship of ideas has never worked and never will! It reflects a strange feebleness of mind and an insecure, even frightened, faith! One can enjoy this novel without subscribing to the extraneous conspiracy theories the plot is draped upon. It is merely a work of fiction, for goodness sake! Apparently, however, anyone with a viewpoint that's even nominally different must be silenced. Now, where have we all seen that before?!

Mike Birman

It's been years since this 'The Da Vinci Code' has been out, and I'm sure everything has been said that needs to be said about it, but I would like to share my own personal story about this book.

It was around 2004-2005. I was out of university and working. I was one of those Americans that didn't pick up a book after college at the time, you know, the majority of them. Maybe it was because there were no good books around, maybe I thought adult novels were too long, whatever it was, I didn't read. I don't know how I stumbled upon this book. I believe a lot of people were talking about it, a lot, so I thought, "why not give this one a try?"

It took a couple of weeks to finish as I like to savor every word an author has written. I read it as fast as I could with each chapter ending in some breathless cliffhanger. And like an episode of television, I didn't want to binge-watch like people do these days; I read a few chapters in each sitting waiting in anticipation for the next day to read more. I don't want to say anything about the topic of the book as I went in completely blind and ended up wonderfully surprised and immensely enjoyed it, and I would want the same for you. (An aside: I grew up Christian, but ended up being an Atheist). I do think an open mind, and some light background knowledge of Christianity will help in truly enjoying this book.

I've never read a book like this, if ever, at the time. It was thrilling, it was well-researched, it made me think this could almost be real. It is the definition of a must-read. That's all that should be said about this book. But what I would like to say is that this book was the spark that restarted my love for reading that I had as a kid. I read a lot as a kid, but sometimes we are forced to read things, and kids do not like being forced to do things (parents, that's a lesson for you). The forcing of reading could be a reason I was turned off of books for a few years, but if there was ever a book to get you started again, this is, the book.

Now, about Dan Brown's ability to write, I've read what others have said about his writing style, and I don't agree with them for this book. I wasn't conscious about it for 'The Da Vinci Code', but I can see and understand other people's perspective on it. However, if you've read one of his books, you've read them all. Dan Brown's books are like James Bond films, they all follow a formula with similar ingredients, but we still keep watching them because the formula works. I do recommend his other books starring Robert Langdon ('

I read this book recently with the latest media fuss in mind (and to get the story straight before seeing the movie). While it's true the book isn't nearly as intellectually satisfying as the fine works of Umberto Eco, it is indeed a page turner. Practically every chapter is a mini-cliffhanger. And yes, it is quite visual, but since we live in a movie/tv dominated world, is there any wonder? Forty million readers can't be wrong! -- and they aren't even all Frenchmen (or French movie-goers). I'd have to agree with them, too: Overall it's a good, and fast, read. But what I suspect has made the book so immensely popular is that it does do a nice job of popularizing (by way of the action/thriller genre) a griping spiritual, or at least psychosexual, truth that's been around as long as humanity itself (remember those well-endowed Earth Mother figurines they find in prehistoric caves?), though has indeed been systematically repressed by Christianity and the other patriarchal religions.

That said, some of the book's scholarship does seem sloppy. What actually happened at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. (the telling of which, by the way, the author, Brown, puts in the mouth of his most nefarious character) may well be a point of some contention with the Church. Brown should simply have added a long paragraph here, or even an extra page or two, to his 450+ pages to get things right and make his argument indisputable, instead of egregiously oversimplifying. The fact (readily confirmed by modern biblical scholarship) is that there certainly were many competing schools of Christian doctrine (including Christology), and many other scriptural texts (including gospels) that varied from the canonical texts. And these doctrinal and scriptural variants existed from the very beginnings of Christianity. The Church's claim that the winning theology's victory had more to do with "the Holy Spirit" than with politics can very ably be labeled the Church's, if not Western history's, biggest cover-up.

The book's plot is certainly not perfect either. For example, the ease with which the French police enter the territorial U.K. and do as they please (even as they couldn't do likewise in the British Embassy in Paris) was laughable. The answer to the riddle involving Isaac Newton, which gave the symbology and cryptology experts in the novel such pause, would have come to any school kid who knew only the first thing about Newton in two seconds or less (it only took me about three). One of the same experts' difficulty with DaVinci-esque backward writing (which surely everyone else in the world knows about) was a bit lame too.

The charge of Opus Dei bashing looks like a crock. Anyone who's read the book all the way through realizes Opus Dei is exonerated in the end. It's fictional (and inexplicably gullible) leader even makes rather substantial monetary amends for his mistakes. Most of the membership are even acknowledged as mainstream do-gooders. But the practices of some Opus Dei members are indeed accurately related, and any organization that sanctions such medieval masochism and misogyny should certainly be able to stand -- if not enjoy! -- some alleged "bashing."

Deciding to indulge in some low-brow reading, what better place to start than Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE.

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: the writing…is terrible. Astonishingly terrible. Make ESL students stitch 120,000 words together on their first day of class kind of terrible. I recommend wielding a pen while reading this novel, because you’ll constantly stop and underline sentences that are loaded with badness. My personal favorite: “The fond memory caused Sophie a pang of sadness as the harsh reality of the murder gripped her again.” Cliché sandwich with a side of corny triteness anyone?

But, as you may have noticed, this is a four star review. Why? Well, because it’s ridiculously entertaining. Condensing the plot into one sentence: a Harvard symboligist [not kidding!] finds himself framed for murder and running for his life as powerful, shadowy forces seek to suppress information that, if revealed, would shatter the foundation of the Christianity. Yet, the story is far from simple. Twist after twist, revelation after revelation, the plot becomes a tangled net of intrigue as the characters race toward a showdown where truths and identities are shockingly uncovered.

The book’s strongest quality is its ability to introduce esoteric history and facts without ever slowing down the pacing. While the history should be treated dubiously, Dan Brown does create an intriguing world on the page where the Catholic Church is harboring a profound secret.

As clumsy as the prose is - and it is epically clumsy - this book probably deserves all the popularity it received. If someone who had never read a novel in their life asked me for a recommendation for the one novel that might make them read more, I’d honestly recommend THE DA VINCI CODE. It shows how fun reading can be without taxing the brain.

The old joke goes that if you have a million monkeys typing on a million different typewriters, eventually they’ll write WAR & PEACE. I think if you put three monkeys on three typewriters and give them a weekend and some bourbon, there’s a good chance they could produce THE DA VINCI CODE.

But who cares - it’s a fun ride.