Rating: 
Summary: Don't be fooled by the hype!
Review: Argh.I was very intrigued by this book - at first. Da Vinci. Code. Murder. Conspiracy. Mmm, tasty. Then I read it. Initially, I put up with some of the initial very contrived plot points (some events are just WAY to convenient). And then I tolerated the characters' overwrought inner monologues ('Wait! How could he possibly know that? Yes, that happened to be my grandfather's secret little favorite thing to do that no one ever knew about and now convienently allows me to tell you something I could not possibly have known otherwise that enables this ridiculous plot point to actually work out!'). But I just can't keep going on. This book reads like a bad TV movie, or worse, like a bad soap opera epsiode where *every* inner thought of each character is revealed as though we were idiots. Revealing subtle plot points is one thing; beating the reader over the head with a club of patronizingly innane dialog is entirely another. Not to mention the contrived 'cliffhangers' at the end of each chapter, conveniently developed because a character insists on concealing information for no other reason than to conceal information to develop a cliffhanger for the chapter. The whole thing reads like a really cool idea for a rough draft as told throught the eyes of a high school student. The book reads as though the author stumbled across some wild research by someone else and decided to make a book that used that research without really knowing what it was all about. The plot is so stinkin' contrived that I found myself on *numerous* occasions rolling my eyes and shaking my head in disbelief that the author actually expected me to buy what I just read. It seemed as though the author realized he had boxed himself into a corner after creating a weird twist that he just thought was cool, so instead of reworking the twist into something more plausible, he just manipulated things into a convenient resolution that suddenly made everything 'okay' (like a convenient backstory about a certain logo on a certain key plot piece that justified a certain childhood nickname ). Please. Some of the stuff might 'make sense' for the moment and serve to keep things afloat (though gasping for breath) and temporarily block a gaping plot hole with duct tape and a wad of Bubble Yum so the reader doesn't completely lose it and run sreaming for a refund, but they ultimately only serve to pacify the need for something deeper and more substantial, much like drinking sugar water. Sorry, I'm just not into this kind of thing. Fun reading is one thing, but I can't do this. I just can't do it. It's mindless summer reading that requires no thought by the reader to engage it. The reader is told what to think and where to think it. In fact, someone could zone out for several chapters and not really miss anything, much like skipping a few weeks of your favorite soap opera. Even with all the mysterious conspiracy theories that the author attempts to weave into the book, it still reads (literally) like a rough concept draft that would need serious revision before ever going to press. Sure, as a novel it has all the classic elements (no blaring plot contradictions (they're all conveniently resolved, remember?), multiple parallel story lines, hero vs. villain, good vs. evil, etc., etc.) that at the very least make it competent (thus the 2 stars), but the writing is choppy and juvenile with participial phrases out the wazoo. You're time could be just as well spent reading the latest issue of Cosmo. And at least then you'd walk away with potentially applicable information... I must admit I am surprised this book sits atop the bestseller list. (But then again 'Kangaroo Jack' was the number one movie the first week it was out.) If you are considering this book, please, please, please be aware of what you are getting yourself into. It's not a fantastic work of literary insight. But if you enjoy literature that patronizes you into a corner of disbelief, then by all means, pick up your plastic page marker and dig in!
Rating:
Summary: Killer-thriller
Review: Artfully written thriller, intelligent and lucid fiction based on... History?! It is the best possible comment to the book "History:Fiction or Science?" that proves consensual History itself to be a complete FICTION!! I enjoyed the reading, but the ideas behind the "Da Vinci-Code" are erroneous and misleading. Why should we allow to be made a fool of?
Rating: 
Summary: remember that it's ALL fiction
Review: As a Bible teacher in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches and author of several books on the Bible, I get many questions about this book, so I had to read it. All I can say is that one must remember that it is a work of FICTION. Any resemblance between actual history, whether of the church or of Europe, is nearly completely coincidental. The book has major bloopers of "fact" on nearly every page where there is reference beyond the immediate plot. The "repression" of the sacred feminine goes back at least as far as Israel's prophets. The divinity of Jesus was established by the early second century as an article of faith, and has nothing to do with Constantine. The hieros gamos was practiced as a ritual by kings to establish their own royal authority, not by ordinary people. Etc. Etc. Further, I'm surprised so many people find it so well written. The characters are almost identical to many stock thriller books, including, most recently, the popular young adult fiction series, "Artemis Fowl." The Grail story has been told and retold in countless novels, many better written than this book. There is one way to explain the popularity. In the words of one of the book's characters, "everyone likes a conspiracy."
Rating:
Summary: pickin' cherries
Review: As a child I spent every summer picking cherries for 5 cents a pound in the warm valleys of the central Rocky Mountains. Maybe I could use my experience doing "research" for Dan Brown,
because that is exactly what he has done in the Da Vinci Code. It also appears that many of those (and you know who you are) who are touting this book as the truth have done the same thing in their reading, choosing to accept that Jesus was married, but ignoring Brown's "research" that supports that He was not the Son of God. Brown appears to have adopted the highly suspect and questionable theories laid out in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "The Gnostic Gospels." Both of these texts used cherry picking research to support their thesis. There is little doubt that historical Christianity has not always treated women equally, but there is little evidence in the so called Gnostic gospels of Phillip, Mary and Thomas to support Brown's outrageous claims, on the contrary, the last verse of Thomas includes this peculiar and anti-woman exchange: when Peter says, "women are not worthy of life." Jesus responds, "I myself will lead her in order to make her male...for every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Brown seems to have ignored this contradiction. I would like to hear Brown's response to the many objections that have been raised concerning his "research," but alas he seems to be A.W.O.L.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable malarkey
Review: As a Holy Grail adventure, this book is every bit as entertaining as "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," though maybe not quite as good as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." As scholarship, though --- weeeeeell, put it this way: Da Vinci is not Leonardo's name. It's the description of where he came from. Calling him "Da Vinci" is rather like those scenes in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in which the time-traveling heroes address Billy the Kid as "Mr. The Kid." Still, if you can accept the existence of an alternative universe in which serious art historians refer to "Da Vinci" and Harvard pays people good money to teach new-age "Symbology" and French scholars leave elaborate paper-chase clues in doggerell English verse, then this is an enjoyable if totally improbable thriller. (A sedentary, bookish man can go without sleep for 48 hours and still outwit the most sophisticated law-enforcement agencies in Europe?????) But I do hope that people who read this book won't believe that Mary Magdalene was "the Holy Grail," generally regarded as a crackpot theory, or that the tomb of Mary Magdalene can be found where the book claims it can, which will be a major headache for the poor custodians who supervise that actual location. I won't give away any more of the plot, except to say that if you know Roger Ebert's "law of character economy" you will be able to figure out who the mysterious master-mind is well before the end. But if you want to read a REALLY scholarly (albeit deadly dull) novel on themes like the Holy Grail, the Goddess, and the Knights Templar, read "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco.
Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining, but utterly predictable and simplistic
Review: As a lapsed Catholic, I couldn't help but find the premise of this book somewhat intriguing. I didn't know much about it beyond some references to "The Last Supper" and some secret involving the role of women in the early Church, but it all sounded like good historical fun. The book, however, is a disappointment. The first problem is that all the characters are essentially looking for a trunk full of "secret" documents, the contents of which are already public knowledge. To build suspense, Brown sets up a series of implausible events, none of which are really necessary beyond their mechanistic contribution to the plot. The codes and puzzles are obvious, and the fact that you as the reader can figure them out well in advance of the characters, who are allegedly experts at this sort of thing, makes you wonder why you should care about such transparently obtuse people. There's quite a bit of simplistic wordplay and a series of final "surprises" that are neither surprising or especially clever. Brown is such a poor mystery writer that he telegraphs everything many pages ahead. It does not help that Brown has no ear for the English language. His style is awkward and leaden, and his characters say truly awful things no human being would ever say in real life, unless he or she were reading this book aloud. There is also a great deal of empty-headed posturing about the "sacred feminine," in a first-year Women's Studies class kind of way. Tiresome.
Rating: 
Summary: Dan Brown is simply a genius!
Review: As a literature teacher married to a theologian, I've often been accused by friends of "seeing things that were not there." (symbology). Now, as a result of reading The DaVinci Code, not only can I gloat that I am aware of more symbols than the average person, I also know there's a name for those who study symbols, (symbologist). One of the nicest things a sixth-grade student wrote about me was, "Mrs. *** LOVES words, and she knows how to use them." As a word lover and lover of symbology, I was enthralled with the story. His subtle sense of humor and discreet allusion is not to be missed either. Often I'd find myself laughing out loud. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Oh Dan, do you really take Da Vinci?
Review: As a matter of fact I was attempted to the book because of the press hurray, and, actually thrilling at the beginning the book ends much lame. Maybe the author should have read something more profoundly than the usual popular bogus. Especially the claims about Leonardo are twisted and they are also misleading the general reader, as a matter of fact, unfortunately we have a lot of self-proclaimed Da Vinci experts here in Turkey right now because of it. About the religious claims: In a society where the Christian faith and practice is not well known, this book made some interesting effect and now everyone awaits the much hyped Gibson's movie. What a coincidence :-) I'll have to read Eco again; as a "real scholar" he writes better "fiction" than this.
Rating:
Summary: did Emperor Constantine speak English
Review: As a matter of fact the only good thing about this book is that I got it free. Its ridiculous inaccurance and lack of cultural reference is overcome only by the predictability of the plot.
As a reader I would feel offended by somebody who would so badly mistreat my thinking capacity.
Two good examples:
Does Mr. Brown know the correct spelling of the English name for Leonardo's famous portrait? It is MONNA ( double N) hardly rearranging into his poorly chosen AMON, on the other hand not without a hilarious effect since MONA ( single N) indicates the female genitals in the Venitian dialect
Does Mr. Brown actually considers that Emperor Constantine knew and spoke English so as to give the name of SUN - DAY to the seventh day of the week, honouring the abandoned cult of the sun, as he states in his novel? Amazing, since the name of that day in all latin languages is derived from Dies Dominicus, day of the lord ( domenica, dimanche, dominga) and even more amazing an English speaking Roman Emperor.
In my opinion Mr. Brown should do a lot more reading than writing, for histoy's sake.
maria russo
Rating:
Summary: Decoding the Conspiracy of Culture
Review: As a member of a secret society similar in structure and intent to the Priory of Sion, an organization pivotal to the plot, I heartily recommend this book to all students of the Mysteries. Under the guise of writing a detective novel, Dan Brown explores the mysteries of the uncanny role played by Phi and the Fibonacci number series in organizing Western conceptions of art and nature, the dominance of authoritarian patriarchal religious systems such as Judaism, Chrisitianity, and Islam during the last millenia and a half, and the re-emergence of feminine conceptions of the divine in an age of transnational corporations and nuclear weapons. Guaranteed to shake up your world view. To shake it up even more, read The Christ Conspiracy by my friend, archaeologist, historian, mythologist, and linguist, Acharya S. Her book assembles an enormous amount of startling evidence to demonstrate that Christianity and the story of Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion.
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