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The Da Vinci Code
Books: CookBooks: Good Food: Item 6
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The Da Vinci Codeby Dan Brown
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811 of 1024 people found the following review helpful: The post-literate novel, August 4, 2004 Reviewer:Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - Seventy pages into Dan Brown's surprisingly putdownable potboiler, the inevitably green-eyed, French-accented code cracker Sophie Neveu sighs, "This is not American television, Mr Langdon." Oh, Sophie, if only that were true. You know a book owes too much to the screen when an albino assassin appears on the very first page, and rather than taking the time to construct an original variant on the intelligent-action-man hero you're simply instructed to think of Harrison Ford - in tweed. This is a movie, pure and simple: a thinly plotted, strongly visual, mildly entertaining Hollywood chase movie about cardboard characters (replete with sappy childhood flashbacks) and with enough Opus Dei-bashing to make it a fast-acting antidote to "The Passion of the Christ." Crammed full of supposedly arcane revelations about mathematics, religion, symbolism and art - most of which read like verbatim downloads from Google - the "intellectual" content won't be dazzling or new (forget accurate) to anyone even slightly inquisitive about these topics. Worse, it's presented with a juvenile fascination for "connections" that would embarrass the most seasoned New Age charlatan. It all moves at a cracking pace, of course, and has enough scope and colour to hold your rapt attention for a few winter nights, and enough Catholic conspiracy theory to warm the heart of an atheist. But it's so devoid of literary merit, so apparently committed to the squandering of every opportunity to do anything interesting with the material - rather than just ape the narrative grammar of cinema - that it truly beggars belief. The characters are just names on the page, huge swathes of deadpan "I'm glad you asked"-style exposition pad out the clunky plot shifts, and because it's all so closely modeled on the rhythms of Hollywood nothing ever comes as a surprise - not a word, not an image, not a moment. This is post-literate prose at its direst, plugging directly into pre-fabricated scenarios, characters and images, absolving the reader of the need to imagine anything - which is why it's such a famously easy read. This is reality as a simulacrum of television, a copy of a copy, and about as convincing. It's an odd stylistic choice in a novel which takes as its theme the notion that great art depicts truths which evil empires would suppress. My advice? Save your time, and wait for the movie, i.e. wait until this story is presented in its natural form. I'm actually really looking forward to it. Seriously. I quite like the story, I just dislike the way it's presented here. It's fundamentally a puerile novel, but as a Hollywood movie I'm sure I'll be tickled by it. In the mean time, if you want to read the kind of novel this purports to be, get yourself a copy of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" or, better yet, "Foucault's Pendulum". If those don't grab you, at the very least try Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" - nothing to do with the Grail, but it's certainly more deserving of the "intelligent thriller" label than this. Is there really nothing better to be said for "The Da Vinci Code", as novel? Sadly, I'm with Harrison - I mean Robert: "Langdon considered it a moment, then groaned." (p.93)
Product Review
With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown (Angels and Demons) has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh
From Publishers Weekly
Brown's latest thriller (after Angels and Demons)is an exhaustively researched page-turner about secret religious societies, ancient coverups and savage vengeance. The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre's chief curator, whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown's last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn't found. Brown sometimes ladles out too much religious history at the expense of pacing, and Langdon is a hero in desperate need of more chutzpah. Still, Brown has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please both conspiracy buffs and thriller addicts.
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