Rating: 
Summary: Help me Jebus and Dan Brown - HELP ME!
Review: Since my life consists of sitting around here on Wackoff Ave doing nothing but watching old PORN and writing review after review of this book, I reluctantly decided to let go of my wang (2 fingers baby - all the way!)and write yet another review.People, this book is consuming way too much of my precious time. I've got to figure out a way to leave it go. I will soon die. (I really should write 'let it go' but us unedumacated types don't know no better.) JEBUS AND DAN BROWN, SHOW ME THE WAY!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read
Review: Interesting theories, and a very entertaining read.
Rating: 
Summary: Eh...
Review: Besides boring you with the background of the author / book, the details of which most of you know already, I'll start out with the positives. As far as mystery novels go, I suppose this is average. I don't know enough about the genre to accurately criticize, but I know that I had to keep reading to discover the answer / solution to any of the given puzzles presented. At the worst, you can say it's brain candy. Some of them you could see a mile away, other ones you would need to be steeped in the esotericity of secret societies (assuming they exist as Brown presents them). It got tedious after a while, because Brown put a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, and THERE ARE OVER ONE HUNDRED OF THEM. Anyone being punched in the jaw repeatedly and with such frequency would start to lose feeling. The ending, which most people have a problem with because it's open-ended (stupid Hollywood ruins everything) was interesting. I won't go into the glaring historical and religious inaccuracies that are obvious to most people who retained their Sunday school lessons. More learned people give apt criticism on amazon.com. My gripe is with Brown's premises themselves. To Brown, everything in the world has pagan origins. Any conceivable geometric shape (even triangles and circles, the number 2, and the iambic pentameter are somehow pagan? Yeah, he went there), number, name, painting, architechture style , flower, my boogers, can all be traced back to prehistoric tree-hugging nymphomaniacs. Besides the fact that this assumption is horribly wrong, there is a faulty conclusion you can draw from this. If everything is of pagan origin, then you're probably going to assume that anything that comes after that is a perversion of the the pagan worldview. This is especially true if you have a huge anti-Christian bias like Brown does (he throws Christianity a bone near the end, clerically absolving the Catholic church of any wrongdoing in the books event...gee, thanks). In Brown's world, that would mean a ham sandwiches and window panes are offensive to paganism, by the very fact that it came after. The other option, instead of being a symbolic pervert, is that, in using the symbols, you are secretly passing its original (pagan) meaning. Neverminding the fact that this destroys the meaning of what a symbol is entirely, Brown's world looks like this: 1- Everyone uses symbols.
2- All symbols have a pagan origin.
3- If you use a symbol, you are either perverting the original pagan meaning, or passing on its original meaning secretly.
4- Jay just drew a circle.
5- A circle is a symbol.
6- Pagans used the circle to represent the sun.
7- Therefore, Jay is either perverting paganism or passing on the pagan idea of the sun (and so are thousands of unwitting children in the classrooms of the world). On page 172, Brown's narrator say that one of the perils of being a symboligist (someone who studies symbols, a somewhat fictitious career) is that you can make connections where there are none. Brown destroys his premise with this one sentence. Inconsistencies aside, the other irritants in this book are Brown's obvious stereotyping, and hangups with Christianity. All of the college students in his protagonists classes are horny frat boys or women pining away to be considered literal goddesses. He equates Christianity with Catholicism, and takes the usual cheap shots (pedophile priests, the Inquisition, "secret murders", etc.). Brown plays religions like a syncretistic proto-feminist's wet dream, hoping that someday all faiths can agree (*yawn*). This, combined with lousy character development, makes for bad art. Read it for its suspense and as an alternate, pagan wishful-thinking reality, but disregard all of the historical, symbolic, and logical inaccuracies.
Rating:
Summary: This is a Novel, Not a Historical Text
Review: The readers who are art historians and take issue with this work should re-read the cover, particularly the word "novel." I read this work of fiction as closer to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings than Elaine Pagels' Gnostic Gospels. As to the veracity of Dan Brown's interpretation of The Last Supper, etc., I do think he provides some interesting (and not unknown) speculation about the divine feminine.
Rating: 
Summary: Super Book
Review: This book was so interesting. I learned a lot and it was a book you can really get into. I have read all of Dan Brown's books because this one was so good. A must-read for anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Better than expected
Review: "The Da Vinci Code," has created quite a bit of fanfare within the reading community of this nation. Everyone is talking about it, everyone has read it or is reading it and practically everyone is urging others to read it. On that note, any avid reader will naturally raise an eyebrow and question whether any book can possible be that good. To this end, I must honestly report that Dan Brown's book is actually better than expected. In a nutshell, this book is a thriller. The reader will be entertained from beginning to end. Brown has authored a masterpiece...it is polished...and has no weaknesses. Consequently, I urge any business person who is taking a long trip and will spend many hours in airports and flying...to pick up this book. I don't think its fair to share the plot with you. I don't want to spoil the fun. Of all the books I have reviewed for Amazon to date..."The Da Vinci Code" is by far the most entertaining. Highly recommended. Bert Ruiz
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, engrossing, fast-paced and unique - A must read
Review: This book, in short is about "Holy Grail" and its frenetic chase by 2 parties. The book starts by describing the murder of curator of the famous Louvre museum in Paris (Jacqueas Saunere). At the murder scene, the curator, while in last dying moments, leaves a very curious encrypted message, presumably for his granddaughter Sophie (and an American symbology professor from Harvard, Robert Langdon. Since he openly leaves Langdon's name but having never met him before, Police take him as their prime suspect so there is a bit of police chase too). Langdon discovers that Saunere was a member of a very prestigious ancient secret sociery called "Priory of Scion", whose previous grand-members included greats such as Da-Vinci and Newton. In short, Scion guards an ancient secret, so powerful and explosive in nature, that it could rock the foundations of modern church and christinaty. This secret is related to "Holy grail". The church wants to find this grail and its references to destroy them to save their skin (and maintain their powerful stature) and they have made such attempts in the past. The Scion, a natural adversary of Church, guards this secret. However on the ominous day of Saunere's murder, all the 4 prominent members of the Scion are killed by someone (presumably in Church's payroll) endangering the loss of this secret forever. In order to make the secret hiding place of "Holy Grail" as uncompromisable as possible, Saunere has designed a "keystone" (hidden in a locker of a swiss bank), which holds the map to this secret place. This keystone is a double layered cylinder of 5 attached pieces and each piece has letters A to Z on its rim. Each layer can only be opened by a password (by aligning all 5 pieces correctly), which can be derived by finding answers to his mystique and symbolic verses. (Note that due to ingenious design, one cannot just smash the keystone and hope to retrieve the map). Langdon, who is faced with murder charges and Sophie, must race against time, away from the Police and a shodowy adversary (who is also after the keystone) to find this secret location. On the positive sides, the chapters are short, fast-paced, intricately woven within each other and interesting. The author takes his time to slowly divulge many important details, which keeps your curiosity burning. The book is full of tremendous general knowledge, both interesting and mind-boggling. You get a crash course in the history of church, paganism, works of da Vinci, symbolism and much more. On the drawbacks side, I was left with a few apprehensions in the end. We know who kills Saunere and other Scion members but it wasn't clear how he knew their names through such secrecy? Also in the end, though Langdon knew the secret location, the story ends right there (with Langdon getting a kiss and a date from Sophie - how predictable and Hollywoodish). At least some allusion to something interesting (like Langdon becoming Scion's grand master or he revealing the sacred secrets etc etc) would have been nice. What was the point of all this odyssey if this secret remains secret forever (It is told in the end that this secret will never be revealed as assumed otherwise)? It looks as if Robert Langdon won himself a French chick for all his toils and endangerement to his life...hardly a worth price. It left me with an empty hollowness. Maybe the author wanted to show (again symbolically) that Langdon, who through his manuscripts "obliviously" staggered around the pieces of the truth (through the story, it is revealed that Langdon almost knows the truth - he knows all the pieces like the Scion, the holy grail, the mystique symbology etc etc) only connected this jigsaw puzzle in the end and saw the truth in its pristine light. Maybe all this ordeal was great for Langdon, the true historian, who for this shred of immensely important historical knowledge would happily risk his life. But books are not written for characters, they are written for readers. As a reader, I was totally dissatisfied with the end. There are also flaws in the character behavior. Some brief examples are Sophie's estranged relation with her loving grandfather (Saunere) for a full 10 years, Langdon's decision to run when he knows he was falsely framed in Saunere's murder rather than surrender and take much better odds through legal means, the bank's manager's (Vernet) helping to Sophie and Langdon to avoid the police just to keep his bank's name out of the news - in all these instances, characters behave unnaturally. However this is a "must read" because its good parts far outweigh a few anamolies.
Rating:
Summary: Fun Mental Candy
Review: This book is like watching a really interesting program on the History channel. It presents a number of thought-provoking historical and theological concepts which many people may not be familiar with. As a story, the plot itself is somewhat trite and the characters are made of cardboard. Nevertheless, the ideas and puzzles presented through its staccato-pacing are what make the book worthwhile. Religious fanatics should probably avoid this book. It uncovers uncomfortable truths about Christianity. Come to it with an open mind, and remember that this is a work of fiction. Dan Brown likely stretched facts (all well within the range of poetic license), but many of the ideas are plausible. You will probably find yourself googling for the information presented in the book, just to learn more for yourself. Possibly, this book will be your gateway to other fiction in this domain, including such works as Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. In my opinion, any book that triggers you to think, learn and read more is a success.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost his creative spark . . .
Review: After the first 350 pages (which were great), we find out that "the butler did it". From that point on the book is hollow. Where's the punchline? Where's the crescendo? It seems that there was so much creative energy expended up front, that the author had nothing left for the ending. He lost his creative spark and the book sputtered to a contrived, plastic ending. I can understand why this book sold well. The first three quarters is well written, fast moving and interesting. In the end, it felt like they rushed it out with little thought to the last 100 pages. Sorely disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: What a waste of time
Review: This novel is very poorly written, I could hardly stand to read it. Save you time and money.
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