Book Review: The Da Vinci Code

I made reference to this review in my Northanger Abbey post earlier this week. I had heard so many things about this book, ranging from what an amazing page-turner it was to how it was the worst thing to happen to literature in the past decade. From the comments of many of the people whose opinions I respect, I was fairly sure going in that it would be unadulterated rubbish, but I was tired of being one of only fifteen people in existence that hadn't read it. I decided to pick up a copy from the library, and join the masses.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the concept, the book deals with the quest for the holy grail. Only, this grail is not like the one we have all heard about. We follow our hero, a symbologist from Harvard, on an elaborate treasure hunt laid out by the curator of the Louvre who has recently been murdered and whose granddaughter just happens to be an attractive cryptographer working for law enforcement in Paris, giving her intimate access to the case.

As our fearless protagonist runs around Europe attempting to interpret the clues left for him, we get to play along deciphering anagrams or shouting, "For crying out loud, it's an apple you morons!" at the book, when none of the characters seem to grasp the obvious. The author seemed to be quite enamored with himself and his cleverness throughout the book. He piles puzzle on top of riddle on top of anagram on top of massively absurd conspiracy theory. He even manages to put in a few hints in specifically for his readers--Thanks to Fashion Maven for pointing out that Bishop Auringarosa would translate roughly to Bishop Red Herring, which is exactly his purpose in the book (of course I thought it was that Communism was just a red herring, but that's way off task, sorry). If Brown were even remotely as clever as he believed, he probably could have come up with a plot that was more believable, and characters that made me care whether or not anyone followed through on the threat to shoot them. The end result of all of the plot twists and puzzles to be deciphered is a book as deep in plot and character development, about half as intellectually stimulating and not quite as fulfilling as a book of mind-bender puzzles from the bargain shelf at Barnes & Noble.

The writing style bordered on appalling, and much of the book was an exercise in exposition. A prime example of this is when we are introduced to Jacques Sauniere, curator of the Louvre, in the prologue of the book. We will have plenty of time to get to know more about him later, so is there really any reason to tell us in the middle of a scene in which he is being murdered about his exact age? Why not worry about getting the scene right and fill us in on the details later. I'm not saying that I am capable of writing anything better than Dan Brown. I'm not a writer, as this blog can certainly attest. On the other hand, I think that there are certainly many writers out there far more deserving of praise and publicity that he is.

Getting to the plot (this paragraph will contain spoilers about the book, so if you haven't read yet and still plan to read it, you may want to skip to the next paragraph), I found the premise to be more absurd and not nearly as Earth-shattering as the press had made it out to be. I have a hard time buying into conspiracy theories to begin with. I have an even harder time believing in conspiracy theories in which the conspiracy lasts for centuries and only about 1 or 2 percent of the population is not involved in the conspiracy in one way or another. Once the "big secret" of who/what is actually meant by the holy grail is revealed we are all supposed to gasp aloud that such a thing could be possible. (For the discussion of this we will assume that everyone agrees that Jesus was real and that he was the son of God, because if they don't the revelation is even less of a big deal.) The shocker here is that the grail is in fact referring to Mary Magdalene who was not just a follower of Jesus but his wife and the mother of his child. My thoughts at that point in the book were, "Ok...and?" So while he was not only deity but human, he got married and had a child. Does that somehow prevent his deity, if true? I suppose one could make the case that if he were deity and knew he was going to die at the age of 33, it might have been a poor decision to get married and father a child, but it would still simply be his choice. So we have a vast conspiracy over several centuries with hints hidden in plain sight in some of the world's most famous art all due to what would really amount to a historical or theological footnote. The real conspiracy here is the one that made this an immensely popular book, from which millions of people were "educated" about history, religion and art.

The most troubling thing about this book to me was what I found when I went to check it out from the library. While only one copy can be found of most books at the library, and a few may have two or even three, our local library had over 25 copies of The Da Vinci Code, of which only three were not checked out. In addition, there are multiple books and even DVDs available at the library to help everyone understand The Da Vinci Code. So many better subjects, so many better authors, so many other things to read and yet there are that many copies of The Da Vinci Code checked out. The lesson: If you hear about a book in the media a lot, it doesn't mean it's good. It just means the author has a good publicist.

The verdict: 0.5 stars. Avoiding is recommended.

As always, you should feel free to disagree with our opinions here at The Fount. You would be wrong if you did, but you should still feel free.

Until later...