The Da Vinci Code

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating page-turning mystery, but is it historical?
Review: I like to work logic puzzles and I love a good plot-filled mystery with lots of surprises, and this one had them in abundance. And the city of Paris in general and the Louvre museum in particular are made to order for heart-pounding thrillers, and this book is no exception. The symbolism is wildly fascinating,the characterizations are good, the pace is fast, and the twists and turns of the plot kept me on the edge of my seat.

However, I had two problems with the book -- or maybe I can say ONE objection with two aspects, and each objection cost it one star in my evaluation.

1. There are a lot of historical "facts" given here that challenge the teachings of Orthodox Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant). I won't go into detail about them here, but I'll say this: I wish the author had given some good, solid sources so that we, the readers, could have checked on the sources ourselves. One of the characters in the story states that many "respected" historian-scholars could corroborate the view about the "real" meaning of the Holy Grail and the "real" history of Christ. I would have liked to know who they were. I also would like to have known if the story's take on the life of Christ, the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail legend was an honest-to-goodness historical view or one invented by the author for the story's purpose.

2. I also felt like the author was "blaming" Christianity for the bad treatment of women. Maybe he wasn't, and I misunderstood him. But I feel it is important to mention that the church did not invent the bad treatment of women. This is important to know, because while the church(both Catholic and Protestant) has left a lot to be desired in its treatment of women, the view of women as inferiors (which is unBiblical, by the way) was in existence long before the church ever came into being.

Anyone who has studied Western Civilization and/or Far Eastern history will know that ancient cultures, many of whom had a plethora of female deities, still treated their women like dirt. The ancient Greeks held women in contempt -- just read Aristotle, who lived before Christ. Ancient and not-so-ancient India and China have historically mopped up the floor with women, female deities in their culture notwithstanding.

I know what an extreme patriarchal mindset some churches have -- as a woman I have been on the receiving end of it. But let's not blame Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular for causing it. Misogyny is extremely ancient!

The book is worth reading, but before taking any of its claims as truly historical, it behooves us all to check out our facts!

Rating:
Summary: I like it
Review: I liked it, especially in the middle section where all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by the sensation of... dare I say it?... an epiphany, a long standing question had been finally answered. In the following I will explain my own personal reason why I liked the book, and I hope you might find it interesting.

I am an immigrant to the United States. What I am trying to say is that I do not have a Protestant/Catholic background, or at least a background that would have given me some familiarity to the imageries/ideas of Christianity. (I might add, nor do I have any background in Judaism and/or Islam which would also have given me some understanding of Christianity.)

As an immigrant teenager in America, I attended a high school that studied fine art. As part of the curriculum, I studied "art history" which mainly meant "european art history" (or least it was the way two decades ago). As anyone who had taken a course in introductory Art History twenty years ago would know, the course work mainly focused on (or at least the most readily available and detailed information were on) Renaissance Arts. And that's precisely the area I had the most problems. Regardless of the fact that the Renaissance were a period of re-birth and a break away from Medieval time, a lot of the Renaissance paintings were still steep in images of angels and other Christian icons. I couldn't understand any of it.

Twenty years later, while I was reading Mr. Dan Brown explanations of the oddities of da Vinchi's "Last Supper," all of a sudden I felt as if I had a new insight to all those "Christian" paintings I tried to decipher long ago as a teenager. It requires more than a textbook's definition of "Christianity" to more fully appreciate the meaning and subtlety for the imageries I beheld years before.

In sum, I guess what I'm saying is that I find the "alternate Christ Gospel" Mr. Browns and others before him have provided somehow completes the pictures for me. Somehow the alternate story complements and completes the missing link for me. Somehow I feel as if I can understand those strange Bible stories that had confound me in the past. Somehow it is no longer so incongruous that the same God could act so benevolent at times can be so vengeful at others.

Rating:
Summary: Need some water to wash down that yummy marketing pill?
Review: I liked this book more the first time I read it, when it was called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The Priory of Sion, Leonardo da Vinci the occultist, Catholic conspiracies, this material has all been covered many times before, Mr. Brown's much touted "research" notwithstanding. The author's main achievement has been putting these polished little gems of Western religious counterculture in a briskly entertaining format with genuine mass market appeal, something that Mr. Eco and the authors of the aforementioned title lacked the marketing savvy (or desire) to do in their own efforts. So chalk this one up as a success in the emerging paranoid-religious-occult genre, the title keywords being Freemasonry, Rosslyn, Templars, Holy Grail, and so on and so forth. If you're looking for something a little meatier, I suggest the book I mentioned previously. It is especially delectable for the way in which the authors are manipulated by the propaganda they are researching.

Rating:
Summary: Great book.
Review: I liked this book very much. It gives good details about the art.I am not commenting from religious perspective.

Rating:
Summary: A little fun with the front flap of this book
Review: I liked this book, and noticed somthing to try out after you buy your copy- if you look at the front and back flap, you will notice that some of the letters in the text of the book's description are in bold, others are not. it's a code- They spell out a phrase, so have some fun decrypting The Da Vinci Code!

Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: I liked this book. It was interesting, fast-paced, and fun. On the downside, the book attempts to "teach" you the entire time, which gets a little patronizing and annoying towards the end. Still, the information provided is interesting.

Rating:
Summary: The DaVinci Code; a murder mystery
Review: I liked this novel because it's a book that you just won't want to put down. It's got everything from suspense to murder. The book starts out a little slow but towards the middle of the novel is when the book gets better. This book takes place in England and France. Some of the main characters include Robert Langdon, Sophi Neveu, and Fache. What I don't really like about the book is that the author jumps around from chapter to chapter. I found it to be distracting. My brother-in-law read this book and recommended this book to me. Despite the book starting off slowly, I would recommend it to anyone. I am not a big novel reader but if you like a murder mystery then you will like this book.The DaVinci Code is a page turner.

Rating:
Summary: A Tantalizing and Adventurous Read
Review: I listened to the unabridged version on CD, and it was fantastic. There was never a dull moment, and the mystery of both the murders and the quest were kept just out of reach so that you were always at the edge of your seat wanting more. Whether or not the subject of the book is even fathomable, it stimulates your mind enough to think of the possibilities and the what if's of biblical history. It was a sort of Indiana Jones adventure that was exciting right to the end. Lots of fun, and very enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Over-hyped
Review: I listened to this book on CD because so many friends recommended the book. I'm not a mystery reader but thought I'd give it a try. Why all the hype? The book includes one tired cliché after another (His blood ran cold. No wait! Now his blood is boiling!). And somehow at just the right time the main characters stumble across exactly what they need to advance their investigation.

And the audio recording? Egad. The reader outdoes Inspector Clouseau with the phony French accent, but this isn't supposed to be funny.

My advice: Skip it.

Rating:
Summary: listened on tape
Review: I listened to this book on tape on a long road trip - before I knew it I was at my destination. The book kept me so interested and attentive I hardly realized I'd been in the car for 4 hours straight. Very entertaining, educational, and suspenseful. I highly recommend for audio listening.