| |
Book Review:
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci - clues visible for all to see - yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.
THE DA VINCI CODE
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 454
Publisher: Doubleday
Publishing Date: March 18, 2003
Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion - an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.
In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret - and an explosive historical truth - will be lost forever.
As we speak, The Da Vinci Code is still the best selling book in North America, having garnered top honours since white bread was invented. Perhaps Bill Clinton's success of My Life will eclipse that of Dan Brown, but we will never know since they're neatly and conveniently placed in separate categories.
The success of The Da Vinci Code is baffling at best, if only because everyone who will ever read this book will have already owned a copy at this point. It's like a blockbuster's release - you can't really expect to have it at number one every weekend for the next six months because everyone who could possibly want to see it, once, twice, twenty times even, has already done so. I suspect that The Da Vinci Code exists in a warped universe, wherein each book that is sold is somehow tripled by the time you get home. Yes, that's right - if you own a copy of this book, expect to see at least two more somewhere in your house. Pretty soon, The Da Vinci Code will be like a television set: every household will own at least three.
I've found, since reading this book, that there exist two camps on the matter: people that simply adore the book and will gush over how good it is until the cows come home (me included), and people that abhor any hype over anything and will simply refuse to concede, simply for their principles (I normally fall under this category, I swear). And to add fuel to the fire, the book is currently being optioned for a film; in talks are Ron Howard (Opie!), Russell Crowe, and Kate Beckinsale. (Update here.)
So, for the five people out there who want to read the book but haven't had a chance to, is it really worth all this fanfare?
Well, yes.
It's hard to describe The Da Vinci Code in the way that people would want you to. It is a thriller, it is a murder-mystery, it is a historical drama of sorts. It is gripping, fast-paced, and exciting. It is all these things, but not for the usual reasons you'd expect.
Brown has a penchant for cliffhangers, and there are cliffhangers aplenty in this tome. I haven't read his prequel, Angels & Demons (also a bestseller), but I imagine that it followed in the same narrative vein. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is irritating as hell. It reminded me a lot of watching the "American Idol" results show.
Let's say that we strip away all there is The Da Vinci Code - the gripping storyline, the immediacy of the situations, the little twists and turns revealed in snippets. Let's say that we ask Dan Brown to write a totally different book, one about a young boy growing up in 1930's Alberta, whose only friend is a cow named Bessie. I'll be darned if Brown didn't put you to sleep within the first five pages. And it's not because that would be a very boring book to begin with - it's only because Brown's writing skills only go so far. The Da Vinci Code is peppered with historical facts (or fiction, whichever way you want to look at it), which Brown handles quite well for those of us who haven't been to Paris or a Master's Art History class. But otherwise, Brown's storytelling is rather quite flat and, at times, too sterile. As a historian, Brown would exceed in keeping our interest, but compared to his peers, there's just something lacking.
Having said that, The Da Vinci Code manages to conceal Brown's lackluster writing with a detailed, well thought out tale of deceit, mystery, and age-old secrets. Upon investigating the Louvre murder, Langdon finds out that he's the prime suspect, and along with hottie agent Neveu, must race against time to clear his name and find the origins of a very sacred artifact before the bad guys do. All right, I'll give you a clue - it involves Da Vinci, secrets concealed by the Catholic Church, Jesus, and the Holy Grail.
The Da Vinci Code posits theory after theory that has been in controversy since the book's release. Would Da Vinci roll over in his grave if he knew what was being said about his Mona Lisa, The Virgin of the Rocks, or The Last Supper? Perhaps. Some say Brown is a conspiracy theorist, an anti-purist, while other historians have long believed Brown's fictionalized accounts. The theories contained in the book are certainly fascinating, and make up the bulk of the credibility of the plot, but like any speculation, a grain of salt must be added.
Even if The Da Vinci Code may sensational in its ideas, it is still a great read. Brown raises the bar for thrillers, and it was well overdue. C.Ho.
THE DA VINCI CODE:
