Rating: 
Summary: just plain dumb
Review: Some have called The Da Vinci Code blasphemous. I would suggest that in order to qualify for such an accusation the book would have to achieve some level of credibility. It does not. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the book is just plain dumb. Indeed it is moronic, puesdo-history, pop culture crapola.If you thought the half-time show during the superbowl had artistic value, this low-level junk might appeal to you. Indeed, I believe that the intellectual vaccuum that is the Da Vinci Code, could actually make you dumber having read it. Especially if you are gullible enough to buy into it. Regrettably it seems many readers are. Dan Brown is a hack and worse dishonest. Unfortunately it remains possible to make lots of money feeding junk food to the suckers amongst us. Wake up people. Just say no to the Oreo, Big Mac, revisionist history pushing fiends. Yes, wake up and smell the clean fresh aroma of nourishment for the body, soul and spirit. Seek the truth and you will find it.
Rating:
Summary: Leonardo in drag
Review: Some of my fellow reviewers wrote that this was a book they couldn't put down. But once I started it and I did put it down, I found the book hard to pick up again -- my mind just filled with so many other things I'd rather be doing. About half way through I gave up the fight and didn't even try to start reading again. It isn't that the book is dense or difficult to read. To the contrary: I'd say that at first glance, author Dan Brown is a compelling storyteller, adept at seamlessly leading the reader from one scene to another. Sure, his constant foreshadowing is more often than not heavy handed, and some of the peripheral characters seem a little two-dimensional. But those are (unfortunately) common flaws and not the reason I was so displeased by the book. What really bothered me was how much Mr. Brown got wrong. The first example is the book's title: "da Vinci" isn't Leonardo's family name, it is a reference to his illegitimate father, which is a reference to the father's home town of Vinci, just west of Florence. In Italian, "da Vinci" just means "from Vinci." No, Leonardo, like his contemporaries Raffaello and Giulio Romano, like Giotto, like Caravaggio, like Rembrandt ... like modern day Cher or Madonna, is correctly referred to by his given name. The book should have been called "The Leonardo Code" or "The Leonardo da Vinci Code." Inside, there is more of the same. The author refers to some invented speculation that the "Mona Lisa" is really a portrait of Leonardo himself in drag. Proof? Mr. Brown narrative says that computers show that key facial features are the same as those in contemporary portraits of Leonardo and that without this explanation the identity of the model is a mystery. The truth? No contemporary portraits of Leonardo exist, while the identity of the model in the famous painting is extremely well documented. There is more: Leonardo's "Last Supper" is not a fresco, as the book says. And the idea that Mary Magdalene somehow dressed up as a man and appears in the painting in lieu of one of the apostles is more than a little far fetched. I know that a novel cannot be taken as a historical document and that by definition, events are fictionalized in any work of fiction. But they have to be fictionalized in a context that is real or at least believable. If that doesn't happen, the structure of the story crumbles because we no longer know what means something and what doesn't. A more specific example: the "Mona Lisa" carries with it certain information, who the subject was, what the painting means, who painted it, and its place in the West's cultural canon. Those factors are part of the package that simply cannot be jettisoned. If the author wanted a painting (or an artist) that didn't carry those exact meanings, then he would be better off selecting different subjects, or just making them up from scratch. If a novel set in modern times included a character who drove a '78 Ford Pinto, we could draw certain conclusions about him. Maybe he doesn't have much money, or he has a bad taste in cars, or he has been forced to use this unfortunate vehicle. But if the story is written so that the Pinto is candy apple red, that it attracts "oohs" and "ahhs" from people who see it, and can race down the highway at 200 mph, then we scratch our heads. Why did the author call the car a Pinto? Wouldn't it be easier and better to have called it a Ferrari? When I first started to notice these kinds of incongruities in The Da Vinci Code, I wondered if they were early clues that Robert Langdon, the main protagonist, was a bit delusional, or at least too free and easy with the facts. But it didn't take long to understand that the one who was too free and easy with the facts was the author.
Rating: 
Summary: Here I go again, lowering my Amazon rating.
Review: Some time ago I discovered people don't like negative reviews, but... What the heck! I have to comment on this book! The Da Vinci Code was surrounded by so much hype I was eagerly waiting for my wife to finish reading it to start. I went to the web pages in both English and Spanish, and tried to solve the mistery. The disappointment started to creep in when I had to answer a question asking the name of the police chief according to the book... Anyway, let's talk about the book. I started enjoying the book greatly. I had visited Paris and London on my honeymoon, and the book descriptions brought back welcomed memories. The book gets two stars instead of one because of this, and the fact I was able to finish it. I had heard the Catholic Church was angry because of this book, and was expecting some deep research and shocking truths. Instead, I found some ludicrous propositions, such as saying that patriarchal societies started 2,000 years ago, at the same time as Christianism. It also goes on explaining the golden ratio, expressing views that go against "The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number" by Mario Livio, who does an in depth (if somewhat dense) recall of the golden ratio. It talks about cyphers, and for that, you could read "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh, which is great, again more in depth and, unlike the Code, believable. And then, the author sense of thriller is too soap-opera style for me: "You know, I have a terrible secret I could tell you, but I'm not doing it now!". Please! I'd rather take my suspense from Stephen King, Michael Chrichton or Peter Hamilton any day. Maybe I would have liked better the book if my expectations had not been so high. It is a teen book, without much substance.
Rating:
Summary: its about marketing-stupid
Review: Someone suggested that you sit down with a glass of wine when you read this book. I would suggest a bottle of vodka or better yet get a hold of the hallucinagenic drugs that Brown must have been on when he wrote this junk. I take it back, if he had been on mind expanding drugs, he might have written something creative instead of this low level pulp. Indeed, he would have had to have been completely sober to put together such a contrived story (screenplay) so obviously aimed at the masses. For his success at so cleverly exploiting the current anti-religious public sentiment he deserves the accolade of "genius" so liberally handed out these days to the likes of Madonna, Britany Spears, Justin Timberlake, 50 cent and every other wunderkind of marketing. If you don't demand too much in the way of literary talent in your choice of reading, are ignorant of history and or have a huge capacity to suspend disbelief you may enjoy this novel. If not then give it a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating puzzles, mediocre writing
Review: Something about symbols in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, that's what I heard about this book. It was said to be an erudite mystery. That alone was not enough to keep it at the top of the bestselling lists for over a year, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. My first, and a lasting, impression of THE DA VINCI CODE is of utterly graceless, styleless writing. Sentences, though mostly grammatical, clunked about like a bag of rusty old plumbing parts. Here is the author's idea of character development: our hero looks like Harrison Ford. Back stories are inserted regularly, like someone heaving rocks off a moving truck. And we begin with the death of a contemporary curator at the Louvre, who, shot in the stomach, has the presence of mind to realize that while loss of blood won't kill him, leaking stomach acids will in about 15 minutes, so in the time left to him he strips, uses his own blood to leave several lines of an encoded message devised on the spot, draws a circle and lies in it, and voila, becomes a facsimile of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. After a while, say after the first 200 pages or so, that death scene no longer seems so very incredible. Things finally begin to take off as the symbology and codes that had been variously meted out begin to come together in a cannily connected vision of an alternative Christian history, one that has antecedents in generations of historical research. Dan Brown did his homework. It's that part that makes this book matter; otherwise it is a thriller that reads more like the description of an action movie than an actual novel. It's like riding in an old Jeep off road at 80 MPH without seatbelts or shock absorbers. As for the denouement: it is a lot better, more credible than that in THE INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST, another "erudite" entertainment that had a lot of good writing going for it but cheated big time with a climax that gave new meaning to deus ex machina. Brown gets himself out of his box in one piece, without stepping on too many sensitive toes and without entirely selling out his research and its premises. His puzzles are fun, if not a little obvious at times, and it is no doubt for those that this book continues to bob at the top of the bestselling lists.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok But Not Revered
Review: Sometimes you wonder what makes a book such a best seller. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has some suspense and intrigue. However the complicated symbols and coding does not come over too clearly. Also, it relates to a small audience. Furthermore, the character development is mediocre at best. The reader gets a very basic idea of what makes each character tick. I will admit that the ending is quite creative. There are a few interesting non-predictable moments as well. However, the scope seems for fans of mystery and intrigue. Nonetheless, there must be a lot of fans for that type of novel because this book is selling quite well.
Rating:
Summary: Christian Mumbo Jumbo!!
Review: Sorry folks, I know this is supposed to be a great book and I'll admit it did keep me interested but all through the book I kept thinking is this story totally fabricated or is this really based on some factual data somewhere. Ok, so now I finished the book and in hindsight, from all the hype, I was expecting something a little more interesting. It's not a bad mystery, suspense novel, if you don't take it serious but it's not a great one either. Le Setting: Paris France Le Main Characters
Robert Langdon - Symbolologist
Sophie Neveu - French Police Cryptologist and granddaughter of Sauniere
Silas - An albino monk of the order Opus Dei
Captain Bezu Fache - Chief police investigator
The Teacher - an unknown conspirator
Jacques Sauniere - Louvre Curator and Grand Master of the Priory and murder victim.
Bishop Aringarosa - founder and leader of Opus Dei
Leigh Teabing - expert on the Priory and it's functions Le Plot The Da Vinci Code is a novel based upon The Priory of Sion, a secret society, whose previous members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others. The Priory is entrusted with the preservation of mysterious archives from the life and death of Christ including the protection of his direct descendants. Silas now possesses the knowledge and telephones the Teacher with the location of the Keystone, the legendary device from which the location can be derived of the long sought holy treasure, The Holy Grail*. * lest you be confused, The holy Grail, in this story, is a euphemism for the above mentioned archives and more, that were discovered by the Knights Templar under Solomons Temple during the First Crusade. The Priory is the modern day extension of the Knights Templar. More confused? Sorry! Silas is confident of his information, for it was obtained from each of the heads of the Priory, including the Grand Master himself, before he separately shot each of them. But Silas has been deceived! So begins this convoluted tale of suspense and intrigue that has obvious religious connotations. la Story Robert Langdon, a renown Symbolologist, is woken in the middle of the night and driven by a Police sergeant the the Louvre at the request of Captain Bezu Fache, ostensibly to aid in the murder investigation of the museum's Curator, Jacques Sauniere, whose nude corpse has been symbolically laid out and marked. It seems that Sauniere was scheduled to meet Langdon earlier that night but didn't show. This and some other items have Fache convinced that Langdon is their man. Police Cryptologist Sophie Neveu and the granddaughter of the victim, thinks otherwise and she barges in on the investigation, surreptitiously informs Langdon of his plight and enables him to escape. Before he and Sophia escape though, Sophia who believes her grandfather left a secret dying message for her, locate a mysterious key behind a painting from which they eventually locate the real Keystone and from there, while fleeing from the police, follow a path as laid out to discover the true location of the Holy Grail. Therein commences an extraordinary race through Paris, London, and beyond. Conclusion The author, Dan Brown, has a pleasant easy reading style somewhat like other great suspense novelists such as Tom Clancy or Stephen Coonts. As I mentioned the reading went smoothly and this was an overall enjoyable read. I do think there were a lot of issues, however, that lacked closure. My problem with the book stems from overall believability. I felt in at least a couple places the author purposely misled the readers in order to draw them away from possible connections and had a tendency to stretch so called facts to further the story. An example is Brown's placement of Mary Magdlene is Da Vinci's Last Supper painting. Existing through hundreds of years of intense scrutiny, nobody had noticed this until Leigh Teabing pointed this out to Sophie.
This is something Clive Cussler might come up with. I realize that the author was taking artistic license and it portends a extraordinary postulate but it would be more believable if reality was stretched to but not beyond reality. The Da Vinci Code is a unique novel that should appeal to conspiracy buffs and religion phobes (me excepted). An ingenious postulation but with too little to back it up. Final Rating: 3.5 Stars, rounded up because.
Rating:
Summary: Not As Good As All The Hype
Review: Sorry to run counter to the rest of the reviews to date, but I've read better. The endorsements from "today's hot writers" should have been a dead give-away - only average books need that kind of hype (see also, for instance, James Siegel's "Derailed" - a disturbing, voyeuristic book with little to commend it but the "hot" endorsements found on the dust jacket). First, mechanics. The novel's structure is okay. Plot is fairly predictable, character development adequate. Plot resolution, to my mind, is a cop-out. I guess the ending is meant to be satisfying on some sort of metaphysical level, but I didn't like it either emotionally or structurally. So Mr. Brown, just what exactly is the Grail? What happens to the descendants of Jesus and Mary M., the Priory, etc.? Can it be that the "royal" Sophie will take a commoner for her mate...? As to the "Grail," there's nothing new here. We've heard all of this before (which Brown dutifully, but obliquely, states up front in the opening "fact"). In presentation I wish Brown had been a bit more subtle and less heavy-handed. So much in-your-face lessons on symbology that I thought I had died and gone to Joseph Campbell heaven. And if I read just one more reference to the "sacred feminine," I was going to go on-line, buy all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Avalon" series from Amazon.com and OD. Radical anti-Church feminists, Gnostics, conspiracy theorists - feel free to rejoice. You'll probably find this book a worthy addition to your library of "anti" polemics. Christians will do well to remember Romans Chapter 1 when they find themselves getting all riled up. As a novel and as a work of theology, I can't think of a better way to describe the book than to state "See Ecclesiastes 1:9." I should have borrowed the book from the library or waited for it to come out in paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Overated and predictable
Review: Sorry, I don't agree with all the hype. I found the book boring at times and to be honest about half way through the book I realized I didn't care what happened to the main characters. I only finished the book because everyone I know had read it...so I thought it would get better as I got to the end... It didn't! Some of the history of the Catholic church is interesting... but that is about it! Don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Boring mumbo jumbo
Review: Started very interesting, has too many boring, dull, ridiculous details that go on and on unnecessarily. Has a good ending, but the middle was so full of bull, I didn't think it would ever end.
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