The Da Vinci Code Book Review.doc

The Da Vinci Code Book ReviewThe Da Vinci Code is, in a manner of speaking, two books in one. The first is a very good suspense thriller. Author Dan Brown must either play or at least be aware of computer games; the plot has a computer game feel to it. The protagonists are dropped almost immediately into a situation of peril and must extricate themselves by solving a series of puzzles, with one puzzles solution granting the privilege of looking at another puzzle, which also requires a solution.There are two protagonists, Robert Landon and Sophie Neveu - Robert an expert on religious symbology and a Harvard professor, and Sophie a cryptologist and Parisian police agent. Both have skill sets, not by accident, which allow for great success at solving puzzles - at least the type of puzzles presented here.The opening chapter is a grabber. Jacques Sauniere, the curator of the Louvre museum, is shot in the stomach by an albino monk named Silas and left to bleed slowly to death. Jacques Sauniere is, as chance and the author would have it, the grandfather of Sophie Neveu.The time it takes Jacques to die is time enough for him to set up the first of the puzzles to be solved. His body is found naked, arms and legs splayed, with writings (written by Jacques in his own blood) which are meant to be secret coded messages to his granddaughter, Sophie. Robert Langdon is drawn into this murder (and its startling aftermath) as the Inspector on the case, Bezu Faches, believes he is the killer. Sophie, knowing Robert is innocent, helps him escape from the Musee du Louvre, and the chase (and puzzle solving) is on.The plot turns are suspenseful, the mysteries and their solutions clever, even ingenious in some cases. This is a true nail-biter. The problem is with the second book incorporated into this first rate thriller. The plot here revolves around an intellectual belief that Jesus (yes, the Christian Jesus) had a love affair and/or was married to Mary Magdalene, who was in fact pregnant with Jesuss child at the time of the crucifixion - a fact supposedly known by the Church and covered up. The thing everyone is being chased and killed for, is the secret of the location of the holy grail, a location known to many who belonged to a secret society throughout history, including Leonardo Da Vinci. No, the holy grail is not, under this theory, the cup Jesus drank wine from during the Last Supper, but rather a metaphor for Mary Magdalene. She is the cup that held Jesuss child: she is the true holy grail.Da Vinci (and many others in history, including Walt Disney) have made allusions in their works to the truth of the grail. Da Vinci knew the truth. How do we know? Dan Brown has a grail expert named Teabing tell us. See Saint Peter in Da Vincis great work The Last Supper? That is clearly not a man, but a woman. Not only a woman, but it must be Mary Magdalene!Sure, who else? Another of the authors expert characters says: Finally, Teabing said still in reference to Da Vincis The Last Supper, if you view Jesus and Mary Magdalene formerly Saint Peter as compositional elements rather than as people, you will see another obvious shape leap out at you. He paused. A letter of the alphabet.Sophie saw it at once.an enormous, flawlessly formed letter M. What does this compositional M mean? Does it stand for the other Mary (Jesuss mother)? No, does it stand for Master of the Arts, which Da Vinci no doubt believed himself to be? Did Da Vinci divine the future, see Walt Disneys work, and create a great M as tribute to Mickey Mouse? Or is this M merely a compositional element in a great work of art? Anyone who has taken art history and art theory in college knows that Xs and Ws and, yes, Ms are common compositional techniques to balance a painting. But this particular M must mean only one thing as far as Teabing is concerned. It means Mary Magdalene gave birth to Jesuss child and Da Vinci knew it!This kind of conclusion is only possible when someone already has a conclusion and is looking to invent reasons to support it. Not very scientific, nor very logical. It is the intellectual equivalent of beer drinkers believing they were picked up by aliens and taken for a ride in a spaceship. The author might as well have had everyone running around searching for the secret location of a box of alien bones, proof of visitors from outer space.And all of this theory is presented in a pedantic tone which slows down the action, although the author does do a good job of not letting it slow it down too much. So, four stars for the action/suspense/puzzle plot and one star for the silly theory that is the reason why everyone is killing everyone. That rounds out to about 2 1/2 stars.Book Review: The Da VinciCodeHarvard symbology professor Robert Langdon is awakened in the middle of the night in his Paris hotel and begins a wild ride that starts as a murder mystery and soon finds Langdon, with the help of French police cryptographer Sophie Neveau, finding clues and solving riddles, many of which were left by artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci, that promise to unlock one of the greatest secrets in Western civilization.This thriller focuses on Robert Langdon, a Harvard University professor of symbology, who is in Paris on a speaking engagement. He is awakened in the middle of the night by the French police and implicated in the murder of the Louvre Museum curator. With some help from a French police cryptographer, Sophie Neveau, who feels that he is being wrongly accused, he manages to escape and together they embark on a quest to find the real killer. That quest leads to clues, puzzles and riddles that link back to an ancient society tasked with protecting the truth about Jesus Christ and unlock the greatest secret in Western civilization.Plenty To Think AboutWhile the book is a work of fiction, Dan Brown has done an exhaustive amount of research to ensure that his explanations and depictions of history and the ancient societies that are featured in the book are as accurate as possible. I felt like Brown did a good job of researching computer encryption algorithms and network security for his book Digital Fortress, but that research pales in comparison with both the depth and scope of the research for The Da Vinci Code. There is no shortage of critics of Browns research or his depictions of events. When you introduce evidence and arguments which, if true, shake the foundation on which the entire religion of Christianity is based, there are bound to be skeptics. In Browns defense, he is a writer first and foremost, not an art historian or theologian. In defense of Browns research, he is not a heretic who thought up the concepts he describes. There are plenty of resources that agree with the version of history and events described in The Da Vinci Code. Frankly, even an art historian or a theologian in my opinion can not state for certain how things are. That is why it is called faith. Browns book gives you plenty to think about though in exploring the roots of that faith.Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is in Paris attending a conference. Late in the night, he is rudely woken up by the hotel management and is taken to a murder scene. The curator of Pariss most famous museum, The Louvre, is dead. The curator, Jacques Sauniere, was to have met Langdon earlier that evening, but never made it. Langdon is seemingly roped in to cash in on his skills as a symbologist; the old man, it turns out, left a lot of clues around just minutes before he died. However, Langdon is considered the prime murder suspect by the French police. Enter Sophie Neveu, an attractive, brainy cryptologist in the French Police division, and, as it happens, granddaughter of the murdered curator. She believes that Langdon is innocent and that he can help her solve the mystery of grand-peres death. Sophie is convinced that her grandfather has set out a treasure hunt for her and that the trail, when followed, will lead to answers and possibly rich rewards. So it happens that Langdon and Neveu team up together, break codes, and chase trails. Their investigations lead them into the territories of secret ancient societies. The Priory of Sion, which included many famous personalities such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Isaac Newton, is one such. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Browna summary and book reviewThe Da Vinci Code is a novel written by American author Dan Brown and first published in 2003 that has become a worldwide bestseller with over nine million copies being sold.The plot of this book concerns the attempts of Dr. Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of Jacques Saunire, the curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris, after Saunires body had been found inside the Louvre naked with a cryptic message written on his torso in his own blood and posed like Leonardo da Vincis famous drawing, Vitruvian Man:- The plot continues in ways that combine the detective thriller and conspiracy theory genres with Saunires murder being attibuted to powerful forces that wish to preserve ancient secrets relating to Jesus having been married to Mary Magdalene and having been the father of their child. The interpretation of hidden messages inside Da Vincis famous works, including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, figure prominently in the solution to the mystery. The solution itself is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail and to a mysterious society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Templar. The Catholic organization Opus Dei also figures prominently in the plot. It transpires that Saunire was in fact the secret head of the Priory of Sion - an organisation that was devoted to preserving certain secrets about the location of the Holy Grail. The cryptic messages on his body being his own dying attempts to leave an important message to his grand-daughter, Sophie Neveu, who was employed by the French state as a cryptologist. According to the novel, the secrets of the Holy Grail, as kept by the Priory of Sion, are as follows: The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namely Mary Magdalene, who helped to carry the bloodline of Christ into the following ages. Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was a slander invented by the Catholic Church to obsc