The Rule of Four

Rating:
Summary: Not the Da Vinci Code! But still good
Review: Do not expect to read a nail biting thriller. The comparisons to the Da Vinci Code are very few. They both deal with a historical mystery, end of comparison. This is a good book though. It is worth a look if you have an open mind.

Rating:
Summary: An over-hyped, supercilious disappointment to this reader
Review: How do these books get to be? Comparing this to the DaVinci Code is not only indefensible, it is sorrily misleading. It will be a long time bfore I believe in a Dial book again. PW should not have joined in the chorus, as this is a poor book, weakly written and about as suspenseful as -- maybe -- a new episode of Big Brother. The narrator has no grasp of self or reality. The roomies are each drawn as one dimensional simpletons, the codex itself ill illutstrated and read. The history re Savarnorola is so well known that for these alleged students to have to dig for it is laughable. Princeton must be a hopeless place, populated by egocentric goofballs who go off getting burned in steam tunnels (led, no less, by a brilliant black med student pledged to the preservation of health!). The eating clubs, the conflagrations,the absolutely dramaless murder reflect a level of incompetence overhwhelming in puffery and pedantic portrayal. Looking at the acknowledgements it would seem this book was written by a committee large enough to resource a major book of history, which this is not. And the idea that it would take six years to write is as improbable as the motivations, behavior and denouement of this silly book. If you had a category for NO STARS that would have been awarded. A big disappointment

Rating:
Summary: No Way Near The DaVinci Code!
Review: I purchased this book because it was tauted as The DaVinci Code for 2004. NOT! Where the DaVinci Code engaged the reader in the problem solving and code breaking, in The Rule of Four, the reader is spoon-fed the answers. I was very satisfied with the DaVinci Code, esp. when I would get the answers to the cyphers correct. I am so disappointed in The Rule of Four, that maybe I will just set it on fire too, though I doubt anyone would martyr themselves rescuing it...

Rating:
Summary: Suckered
Review: I thought there might be a good reason Amazon.com was selling this thing for only $14, and I was right. It's a L.O.S.E.R. Now, if I can just figure out how it climbed onto the Best Seller List. Believe the others who scorned it; their comments say it all. Aimless plot, trivial insight and sensitivity, sophmoric character development, and really bad writing. Which took these guys six years to write? How did they even get an agent? I read the "Da Vinci Code," and yes it's for 8th graders, but at least it delivers a story. This book? Gives you nothing but 300+ pages of quasi-nuanced dialogue and narrative. Pee-you!

Rating:
Summary: Cerebral Suspense Thriller
Review: If you're looking for a mindless summer thriller, with two-page chapters, cookie cutter heroes and prose that goes down as easy as a People Magazine article, look elsewhere. But if your tastes in entertainment run more toward the cerebral, and you aren't put off by the idea of a genre-defying suspense novel that mixes the philosophical and romantic musings of an ivy-league narrator with the seemingly impenetrable mysteries of a five-century-year-old tome called the Hypnerotomachia, I recommend giving The Rule of Four a whirl.

Set on the campus of Princeton between Good Friday and Easter, ROF chronicles the culmination of a grueling intellectual assault by two seniors on a Renaissance text that has stymied a host of literary geniuses coming before them, including the narrator's dead father. The code-breaking escapades of narrator Tom and his best friend Paul are cleverly interwoven with the coming-of-age concerns of their circle of friends on the cusp of graduation. This narrative structure allows the authors to explore themes of friendship, love, obsession, father figures, maturation and destiny in a way that resonates beautifully with the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia itself.

The novel has its flaws. It employs lengthy narrative flashbacks that regularly interrupt the flow of the plot with back-story and exacerbate the authors' tendency to tell rather than show. The authors also go overboard in places with their literary allusions and academic trivia, as if they were trying to weave in every tidbit of their Great Books courses. And the climax succumbs to the obligatory thriller elements of over-the-top violence and mayhem, weakening its believability.

Nonetheless this is an original suspense novel with some beautiful metaphors and philosophical passages that will linger with readers much longer than the chase scenes and ridiculous plot twists found in most of today's best selling thrillers.

Rating:
Summary: No label applies
Review: This is not a thriller; nor is it a coming of age novel; nor is it an exercise in literary intellectuality. But it is enough of all three to present an interesting and singular read. If you look for the thriller you will find the book pretentious and trite of plot. If you look for the coming of age book you will find it lacking in characterization and depth of feeling. If you seek intellectuality you will find it too much of a hodge-podge. Stripped back to essentials there are two 70 page novelettes and a short masters thesis or compendium of the pompous opinions of intellectual youth. These are held together by flashbacks, discussion of code cracking (rigorously encryption), and other matters largely unrelated plot-wise to the three basic efforts. In particular there is too much Princeton, almost none of which contributes to plot. I speak as an alumnus.

I had all this figured out by the end of the first 50 pages and went ahead to see how the authors managed to string this all together and come out the other end with a whole. I also wanted to know what had so charmed the literary arbiters. I discovered that the authors had managed their combined tasks, as a combination, rather well while incorporating all the biases of the humanist literary establishment without being pushy about it. It's unfortunate that there is no appropriate name for what the book is. So there is no particular approach to take in reading it. Together, this is an almost guaranteed recipe for effete reviewer approbation.

On no level is this a ripping good read. But neither is it boring. It passes the Ha-ha test of "I want to know what happens next" with room to spare. But it leaves too many questions unanswered, questions raised in the novel to no particular purpose. And it often presumes that the reader can fill in the blanks of sketchy conclusions or dropped plot elements. And, sin of sins in the world of Agatha Christie, the authors continue to raise new issues practically to the last page.

Read this book with an open mind and you will likely not be disappointed. Expect anything in particular and you may not get very far before putting it in the "to be finished later" pile. If you are upset by the pretentions of pressure cooker intellectual teens you will be offended here. If you are the product of such an environment you will chuckle as you stretch forgotten intellectual muscles and replay memories.

Meanwhile I'm taking bets that the movie script sticks to the thriller with minor excursions into the exercises of adolescent libidos.

This is one or those rare works you must begin to read before deciding whether or not to read it. I suggest you try.