The Da Vinci Code

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: Almost impossible to put down!
Review: "The DaVinci Code" is probably the best book I've read this year. I'd recommend starting it on a Friday evening, so you can finish it quickly--it's really difficult to put down once you start to read it. Dan Brown really masters the art of keeping the reader on pins and needles in this work.

Rating:
Summary: This is a great book!
Review: 'Are you sure that you're going to finish a book this time?' I've heard many versions of this same question since my interest in Freemasonry first began by reading 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' over ten years ago.

My wife is the first to remind me that out of my entire book collection, which is quite extensive, I rarely finish a book before becoming sidetracked by another. My library, like most who are on their quest for more light has become a hodgepodge of religion, philosophy, esoteric materials, Gnostic gospels, and volumes of Masonic works. Some fanciful, others, as near as I can tell, historically factual. Almost all, controversial to my family and friends. My library is an oddity to them, yet deeply personal to me, and last week I added yet another book to my every growing collection.

I normally don't read novels. I enjoy the facts and generally feel that novels are a waste of good study time, however, as I was surfing Amazon.com one day a title grabbed my attention; 'The DaVinci Code.' Now'I just had to read the description, and am I glad that I did!

Dan Brown is a superb author! He has spun a web of fiction on the bedrock of historical fact. The story centers around a leading Symbologist named Robert Langdon and the granddaughter of an elderly art museum curator Sophie Neveu.

Sophie's grandfather is killed, and Sophie, a Cryptologist for French law enforcement, teams up with Robert Langdon, a Symbologist for Harvard University on a quest to find his killer, escape capture under false pretences, and discover the true hiding place of the Holy Grail!

Quite honestly, this is one book that is difficult to set down and my wife was pleasantly surprised when I told her that I had finished The DaVinci Code. It was as if I had been thrust into this story with the characters! I lived every heart pounding minute. With heroes, villains, knights, maidens, secret societies, and ancient truths to boot, this is a real barn burner! The twists, turns, and energy put into this book will keep you turning the pages for more action and answers! Every free thinker should grab a copy of this book and indulge himself in a fact driven gem of fiction in pursuit of Truth. This book may challenge some people's preconceptions of history, but it will stretch your mind to new dimensions from which it will never return to its former state. This book is bound to thrust the reader onto a path of new discoveries.

Don't just buy this book'Read it! Start reading early, grab a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair because once you start reading The DaVinci Code you'll have a difficult time setting it down!

Rating:
Summary: Oh My G_d will you lighten up?
Review: (...)Unusual book in many ways: The beginning was not that great. Some of the writing made me roll my eyes. The dialogue is embarrassing at first. The ending is a bit weak too. It's almost like Mr. Brown couldn't resist a nice tight Hollywood ending. By the way, contrary to what the 'reader' said, there is absolutely no sex in this book at all, which is a clear indication that Mr. 'As a Christian" didn't even read the book he claimed to read.
So why do I still give this best seller four stars?
The middle of the book is absolutely awesome. I couldn't put the darned thing down. Brown interlaces a lot of cool ideas together. His articulation about the significance of Mary Magdalene is incredible. And the bottom line is that a lot of it rings truer than what the Catholic Church has doled out for the past two millenia, I am sorry to say.
And the book also makes you want to go and rent two movies:
The Last Temptation of Christ (which was an excellent film, by the way, and much much better than the current Mel Gibson fiasco) and

Eyes Wide Shut (the last film by Stanley Kubrick, a real moviemaker, unlike, you guessed it, Mel the Smell-as in, I smell MONEY).(...) Enjoy. Review to your hearts content.

Rating:
Summary: False Doctrine, False teaching, FALSE BOOK
Review: (1)If your Roman Catholic like I am, DON'T read this book. If your a devout Christian like I am,DON'T read this book. This book in its entirety is anti-Christian, anti-pope,and a "twisted" history in it. Dan Brown,whose name sounds like a hundred bells ringing, writes a "true-false" book; he has some truth about some of the things in this book but, he puts some "made-up" things in there too.
(2)The plot itself is wrong also. The clymax comes right after the first two pages and stays there for eight more pages.
It is a shame the a newley discoverd author (Dan Brown) would makes such a false book.
P.S. The star I put for the rating is for the publishers. I work for them.

Rating:
Summary: What's all the fuss about?
Review: (Continued from the Authenticator review)

Where does The DaVinci code fall into all this? In the middle, sort of. Dan Brown falls right into the conjunction of the axes; his writing is readable, though not engaging or compelling enough to make me stay up late reading it (as did Lehane's); his research is decent, if not thorough. Normally, the latter wouldn't be a problem, but in this case Brown seems to have overlooked a few pieces of scholarship that undermine his whole novel (for example, about the nature and location of the holy grail, neither of which has been much of a secret for seven hundred years; it's just that no one thought to look in Ethiopia).

Still, if you can overlook the factual problems and take it as a straight novel, it's good enough for government work. Robert Langdon (the hero of Angels and Demons) returns, this time summoned in the middle of the night to the Louvre, whose director has been murdered. Thanks to cryptologist Sophie Neveau, Langdon learns he's the prime suspect of the French police, and if they're going to find the real killer, they need to get out of there fast. The resulting chase, taking place over the next twelve hours, give or take, ropes in secret societies, cloudy family trees, assassin monks, the Catholic church, and, of course, the supposed grail mystery.

Here, unlike the previous two books [ed. note: in this review, not Brown's two previous books], we have an unpredictable mystery; Brown throws us more than enough curveballs to keep us entertained (though the final whodunit does end up being a little predictable, thanks to Brown's dearth of red-herring characters). And yet, still, Brown's writing style isn't nearly as engaging as Lehane's. It's good, but it's not keep-you-up-at-night good. You will, of course, read it to find out what all the flap is about. But don't be expecting an instant classic, or you're likely to be disappointed.

(Dennis Lehane, ) Shutter Island: ****
(William M. Valtos, ) The Authenticator: ** ½
(Dan Brown, ) The DaVinci Code: ***

Rating:
Summary: Just another novel
Review: (Its a fascinating exercise, looking up books that you love (which this one isn't), and reading the reviews sorted Lowest first. Try it sometimes...)

I have to admit, I bought and read this book largely in spite of all the low ratings and accusations of anti-christian sentiment. I'm a bit of a puzzle-nut, and I thought this might be an interesting read, despite the reviews.

I agree with many that its not a fabulous work of literature, to live on for years, and I doubt that Dan Brown intended it to be. If he did, well, that a different story, and has nothing to do with a review of this book.

I agree that its certainly going to ruffle the feathers of people who don't actually have faith in their faith, so to speak. Heck, I had no problem with "The Branch" by Mike Resnick, "Behold the Man" by Michael Moorcock, pretty much everything by James Morrow. But I recognise that those things, like this book, are stories. Not truth. Not something to live your life by. Stories.

Actually, I don't see anywhere in this novel where Brown suggests Christ didn't die on the cross, and *thats* the fundamental tenet of Christianity, that God became man, and died for your sins.

Whilst I don't believe it happened the way Brown describes it, I don't have a problem believing that Christ did all the things that normal men did. That was the point - he was a man. Son of God, but man.

I do sometimes wonder at why we place blind faith in some books, and distruct others, especially given the whole "eye of a needle" thing (look it up sometime). Translation is such a tough topic, and requires so much context, that you wonder how any of these things survived the illiteracy of the past. Did you know that "boy" used to mean "a child of either gender" ? Thats how the Greeks used it, at least thats what I've read. Imagine the historical documents you might need to rethink taking that into account...

Another thing other reviewers focus on are the supposed attacks on the Church, and Opus Dei in particular. Did any of them actually read to the end of the book where its revealed that "surprise, as institutions, they weren't involved in this after all" ?

I think its probably *not* a good book to recommend to people coming to grips with Christianity, nor is it one to pass blindly to teenagers without making quite clear to them that its fiction, not fact, not based-on-fact. In fact, I doubt I'd recommend it to anyone unless they asked about it. (ie, don't read it because I gave it 2 stars, read it because you think you might enjoy it)

My main objection to the book is the fundamental premise that there is a secret society that has had,and kept, a secret for hundreds of years, and yet there are all these "cryptic crossword clues" left lying around the world pointing at the secret, in such a trivial fashion. And so simplistically...

For example, ask yourself why the scroll saying "The trail stops here" deliberately put its guardian in danger. Why didn't it say "go dig up the underground" - the guardian would still see the clue being exhumed, but would be in no danger whatsoever when she gave the signal.

When push came to shove, the conspirators just weren't that convincing. Combine that with comic-book villians, and thats what killed it for me.

Rating:
Summary: Not As Good As Everyone Says...Maybe
Review: **
Much has been written about this book in the over 2100 reviews that come before mine. I thought that I would try to help in this review with who the book would appeal to and who it might not appeal to, as it did not appeal to me.

I think that you would enjoy this book IF you are interested in conspiracy theories, have a religious faith that is perhaps a part of your life but not the CENTRAL part of your life, or have no religious faith at all. If you are interested in paganism, animism, or the occult, I think it will have an appeal. In addition, I think that if you read mostly fiction, and very little nonfiction, it might tend to appeal more to you also. In my book club many intelligent and educated people liked it, which was a little surprising to me; however they were people open to ideas such as the goddess religions, animistic and pagan religions, etc.

I think you will not enjoy this book if your Christian faith (especially if you are Catholic) is THE central defining part of your life. You may even find it offensive, as I did. For example, the main character spends time explaining in a question and answer format with naive questions from his supporting female character how Christians throughout the ages have been deceived by the Catholic Church (which of course was the only Christian church until the Protestant Reformation) and how all educated academicians in the know realize this. This way of writing, this particular literary device, being used by the author to further his negative beliefs about Christianity and his belief in conspiracy theories and paganism---it just bothered me.

Other parts of the book are spent explaining (in the context of the story) how certain pagan symbols that some of us find so offensive (like pentagrams, or ritualistic sex as part of our religious faith) are actually perfectly natural and quite misunderstood by the Christians of today, those of us who have been deceived and just can't understand the truth. If this ideal is provocative and compelling to you, you will LOVE this book! If you are like me and think "I don't think this is how I want to spend my time" then you will probably give the book a strong thumbs down.

I kept wanting it to get good, or interesting, or for it to be a "page turner". I had bought it for myself in hardcover and for my father too (a Catholic) for Christmas. I wanted this book to be good...but it fell so far short for me. The hugest letdown was at the end, because I felt like it really didn't deliver on any level. I want to be fair, because people are raving about it everywhere, but I can honestly say that I don't know why. I read about five books a week, and this is the worst one I've read in a long time. I stuck with it because it's #1 on Amazon.

I guess the only good thing I can think of to say about it is that if you want a good reason to think that fundamentalist Christians or devout Catholics are silly, uninformed, and a little stupid, and at the same time, you're interested in integrating some pagan/animistic thinking into your life, you've found an explanation, albeit a kind of boring one, to read about.

Rating:
Summary: Does it really matter . . .
Review: . . . if you give this book a one star review and venomous criticism? Clearly, Mr. Brown, whether you like it or not, has tapped into a hot-button topic with this story; the book has sold millions of copies and will surely be remembered as one of the top-selling novels of the decade. For all the naysayers out there--this is fact, whether you like it or not. If you can write so much better than Mr. Brown (and I would hope that you can, as you seem to be such insightful critics), write your own book, sell a few million copies, and shut up. Nuff said.

Rating:
Summary: A little learning is . . .
Review: . . . more than you will get from this book. Yes, it is a very engaging page turner, and everybody loves a good conspiracy theory. However, it seems to have the effect of leaving middlebrow readers with the impression they now understand art history. Nonsense. A much better read, which covers the same turf but leads the reader to a much more surprising ending, is Umberto Ecco's Foucault's Pendulum.