Rating: 
Summary: very interesting book
Review: The plot in a (very small) nutshell: A unusual murder in the Lourve drags Robert Langdon into a larger plot than he could have imagined involving a 2000-year-old conspiracy and mystery.
Dan Brown obviously did tons of research for this novel and put a lot of work into it, and it shows. The book is well written and Brown explains the the background information well and in an interesting manner, even to someone such as myself who has little familiarity with the New Testament. There are quite a few holes in the plot and many cliches, but I chose to ignore them as much as possible and just be swept away by the book. I will admit though that when it was revealed who the "Teacher" was, I was thinking, "huh?" and everything kind of came ot a crashing halt for me for a bit. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and all of the background information about the Priory of Scion, Mary Magdalene, etc., and found it to be quite thought-provoking. I highly recommend this book for a few hours of good entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: A Decent Read
Review: The plot is not as good as one would hope. The best part about this book is that the theories about the Holy Grail, whether they are true or not, are interesting to read.
There is a lot of insight to how references to the Grail and the lost feminine are hidden in art, like Da Vinci's and other painters. The facts are interesting to read, but sometimes Brown's history lesson takes away from the story. At points in the book he goes on for pages that are just about religious history. The result is the story was not as good as it could have been.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as I thought....
Review: The plot is really tiresome. Very disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the worst books I have ever read
Review: The plot of this looked so intriguing and had the potential to be an entertaining, educational thriller. What it emerged as ,however, was a sophomoric waste of time. I found myself angered at the predictable, ridiculous plot and the thin characters. Without exaggeration, this book would be great for a junior high student looking for an adverturous novel. As a well read adult, I was appalled that this poorly written garbage would ever get published.
If I could count the number of times a hidden code was magically deciphered through a simple "Oh my God, I've got it!" it would outnumber my digits. I am apalled that people are not only buying this [...] but enjoying it. Funny thing is, I bought it with the intent of reading a mindless, entertaining novel. What I got was a waste of time and money. [...]
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Please...
Review: The popularity of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code just proves that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Beyond the fascinating concept relentlessly driven home throughout the book and the fun, treasure hunt atmosphere, the characterization was awful--it was hard to care about the main characters at all, there was really no plot, and the obvious good (Priory of Sion) vs. evil (Catholic Church) was so overdone that it is hard to justify the book's popularity without attributing it to the basic premise of the story. Read this book well armed with facts before you read.
Many are accepting fiction as fact based on the characters' scholarly retelling of a myth that originated with the Freemason Society in the 17th century (see The Templars, by Piers Paul Read; 2000, 303-306)
There is absolutely no mention of Jesus or Mary Magdalene in the Dead Sea Scrolls (see The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls by Gaza Vermes; 1997, 21-22) as Brown's protagonist insists; and, if Leonardo DaVinci was a grand master in a secret grail society trying to preserve a message for future generations via "The Last Supper," why would he use painting materials that ended up deteriorating even in his lifetime? (see Authors and Artists for Young Adults, vol. 40, Gale Group, 2001)
Read this book to enjoy the treasure hunt, but don't accept it as truth.
Rating:
Summary: Popcorn poppycock.
Review: The premise of Da Vinci Code is fetching: a series of murders, a secret set to shake the foundations of Christendom, and a series of (sometimes too easy) puzzles -- a "Whereisit" grafted onto a "Whodonit" connected to a "Whatreallyhappened." While Brown has no styllistic or descriptive talent whatsoever (you'd never want to read this book twice, that's the test), it did keep the juices flowing for me one time through. (So long as I pushed the "suspension of disbelief"meter up to its highest setting.)
The books many inanities and historical blunders are hard to overlook, however. Brown doesn't know (what one embarrassed pagan historian pointed out) that fear of witches was a traditional part of European paganism, that this fear was squelched by the Church during the "Dark Ages" and then revived during the Renaissance; that tens of thousands, not "three million" witches were killed; or that these crimes occurred mostly in small towns on the margins of State and Church power, not in the shadow of the Vatican. Ironically, Brown himself exploits the psychological mechanism that launches witch hunts in his choice of villains. I myself am neither Catholic, albino, nor physically handicapped; but I find Brown's inability to rise above such pernicious type-casting rather unfortunate. And his attempt to get inside the minds of his characters is marvelously shallow. One half expects them to say, "Hang on! If I were this stupid, how did I get to be a Harvard professor / Catholic bishop / successful criminal?"
As for Brown's chatter about early Christian history, lost Gospels, Church conspiracies, and the coverup of Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdelene, which he and some rather breathless reviewers manage to take seriously, I admit I found the premise mildly entertaining. For the record, though, the Dead Sea scrolls do NOT contain any Gospels (one scholar claims to have found a few words from the Gospel of Mark in one cave, but that is disputed). As for the so-called "Gnostic Gospels," Philip Jenkin's Hidden Gospels is a good place to start. Discovery of the Nag Hammadi documents rather proved the wisdom of the early Christians in dumping the bogus 2nd and 3rd Century writings to which people like Brown feel such an attraction: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John show every sign of historicity (as well as socially constructive thinking), and they do not. Still, in a particularly mindless mood, it is possible to enjoy this book. Author, Jesus and the Religions of Man
Rating: 
Summary: Too predictible
Review: The premise of the book is intriguing and the history presented made it a real page turner. The big disappointment for me was figuring out the final cryptex code well before the book's noted symbiologist, historian, and crytologist.
Rating:
Summary: B-grade novel made worse by moot premise
Review: The premise of this book is that the "Holy Grail" contains all kinds of information which would invalidate the male-centric teachings of the Catholic church and that the Church wants this information badly to maintain their "control" and historical destiny. The trouble with this premise is that the Catholic church's teachings have already been invalidated for centuries; Coperenicus and Galileo at least started this trend 5-600 years ago. As for the role of the feminine, women's role in society is as good as it has been in thousands of years, and is arguably increasing. The power and influence of the Catholic church is (barring conspiracy theories) only a fraction of what it was. So tell me why the church or anyone else is willing to kill people to "expose" the church's teachings, limit the church's powers and increase the importance of women in our society? Unfortunately for the reader, in addition to having a premise that doesn't make logical sense, it's also written in airport-book-kiosk B-grade prose; a tolerable time-killer if the premise is even halfway logical. It would have been a more interesting book if it had been set in the 1870s instead of the current era, as the premise as it relates to the historical political and theological situation would have been much more believable.
Rating:
Summary: The Well-Written Piece of Historical Fiction
Review: The premise of this book, a search for the mythical "Holy Grail" and the subsidiary premises - 1) that the Grail is not a "thing" but a person and/or relationship and 2) that a secret society has kept secret the location of this person and information for several centuries, is a little much to believe. Dan Brown has a very good grasp of history in regard to the Grail, the Knights Templar, Freemasonry and the semi-legendary mythos surrounding these entities, but its clear that he hasn't really delved into the theological inconsistencies of adopting the theories espoused in his book. To make the case that Mary Magdalene was the "Holy Grail", that she rivaled Peter for the leadership of Christianity after Jesus' death, that she and Jesus had an intimate relationship that yielded children whose descendants are alive today, calls into the question the entire basis for Jesus' mission on Earth. I can't think of a single main-line Protestant denomination that would accept such an idea - obviously the Roman Catholic church would reject it outright. Such a scenario creates too many inconsistencies, in fact, to make possible the belief in Jesus as divine. So what this book really ends up promoting, as an (un)intentional consequence, is unbelief. If you're like me, you tend to think that ideas with little merit die-out rather quickly while those that bear strong elements of truth and believability survive. The ideas espoused in this book have been around for a while, but never accepted by anything but a lunatic fringe of conspiracists. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic church continues to add members to its ranks worldwide 2000 years after the death of Christ. You make the choice.
Rating:
Summary: POORLY WRITTEN AND TEDIOUS
Review: The premise that the established Church has made every effort to bury the truth about the humanity of Christ is interesting and I admire Brown's imagination (or erudition). Unfortunately, The Da Vinci Code is not a well written novel. The short "cliff hanger" chapters were tedious and the characters were one dimensional (and unbelievable.) The book did motivate me to learn more about the history of Christianity and for that I am grateful.
|
