The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Introduction

Book review of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

The book that I am going to review is The Da Vinci Code written by the American author Dan Brown, originally published in 2003 and it is a thriller-fiction.

The story starts with a dead man, Jacques Saunière curator of the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the story leads to a lot of churches and monasteries, most of them in France and in the UK.

Characters

Main character
Harvard professor Robert Langdon, famous professor of religious symbology. When he visits Paris he becomes suspected of  murdering the curator of the Musée du Louvre.

Sophie Neveu, agent from the DCPJ’s (Direction Centale Police Judiciaire) Cryptology Department and grand-daughter of the murded Jacques Saunière. Langdon and Neveu have to prove Langdon’s innocence and solve the mystery behind the murder.

Other important people

Captain Bezu Fache and Lieutenant Jérôme Collet, two police officers from the DCPJ and responsible for the investigation of the murder of Jacques Saunière.

Bishop Manuel Aringarosa, connected with Opus Dei and with the headquarter of the Vatican.

Albino-monk Silas, once upon a time safed by Aringarosa, Aringarosa was at that time a simple missionary from Madrid. Silas faithfully follows the will of Opus Dei. All he does, he does in the name of God.

The Teacher, a mysterious voice who tells Silas what to do.

Sir Leigh Teabing, a famous British Royal Historian. His life passion is the Holy Grail.

Content

The story starts with a dead man and a lot of symbols. One clue leads to the next clue and all the time Landon and Neveu are wanted by the police. Langdon is  wanted for murdered and Neveu is  wanted for helping a murderer.

What message did Jacques Saunière tell his grand-daughter?

Is the Christian Church telling lies about Jesus and Mary Magdalene?

Is the patriarchal Church leaning on a lie?

Is the explanation which had lead to the women’s non-part in the organization of the Christian Church, just a lie?

And what is the big secret that Jacques Saunière carried, and wanted to tell after his death?

The scene is the Grand Gallery of the Musée du Louvre:

“Saunière looked remarkably fit for a man of his years…and all of his musculature was in plain view. He had stripped off every shred of clothing, placed it neatly on the floor, and lain down on his back in the centre of the wide corridor, perfectly aligned with the long axis of the room. His arms and legs were sprawled outward in a wide spread-eagle, like those of a child making a snow angel… or, perhaps more appropriately, like a man being drawn and quartered by some invisible force.

Just below Saunière’s breastbone, a bloody smear marked the spot where the bullet had pierced his flesh. The wound had bled surprisingly little, leaving only a small pool of blackened blood.

Saunière’s left index finger was also bloody, apparently having been dipped into the wound to create the most unsettling aspect of his own macabre deathbed; using his own blood as ink, and employing his own naked abdomen as a canvas, Saunière had drawn a simple symbol on his flesh – five straight lines that intersected to form a five-pointed star.

The pentacle.”

Form - message

There are words for a lot of symbols, organizations and religious rituals, everything with at least one meaning, making the story sometimes complicated to understand.
The chapters are short and most of them end with a cliff-hanger.

Along the way, Langdon educates Sophie as well as the reader in large amounts of information concerning religions, symbols, history, and the story of the Holy Grail. The author does it in the same way as when you read a good spy thriller. All the time you wonder if the story could be true, the possibility that the story could have been true or it is fiction and nothing but fiction. Most of this kind of secret societies never leave any comment. It makes it easier writing about them and the reader doesn’t know what to think.

There are organisations named in the book that you didn’t even know existed. Opus Dei, the Priory of Sion, the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon (more commonly known as the Knight Templar).

Opinion

It’s a book full of surprises. When there are problems, the solution sometimes turns up from nowhere, bad guys and good guys changing roles. Persons you thought where a bad guy, unexpectedly turns into a good guy and contra wise. This means that you don’t know in which direction the story will go on.

It’s a book full of religious conspiracies and secret societies and the quest for what might be the ultimate mysteries of Christianity.

It’s a very thrilling book, between the true, the probability and the fiction. And you don’t know when and what belong to the different categories.

Even if you don’t recognize all the words, and maybe miss some connections, you still want to continue reading this book.

Written by Alf