The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is an exciting and a compulsive page turner which has succeeded in raking up a lot of controversy in the Christian World.
Recommended to me by my friend, all it took for both of us was just one day to finish off the book in a single sitting. Well, I confess, it took me multiple sitting in one whole week :-)
What does a book on Da Vinci has to do with Christianity is what many
people would like to know. Since I am not knowledgeable about the religious
aspects of Christianity, I choose to read this book as just another fiction.
The Characters
==========
Robert Langdon is an American Professor from the Harvard, who is a well known personality in the lesser known field of Religious Symbology.
Jacques Sauniere is the curator of the world famous Louvre Museum in Paris.
Sophie Neveu is the grand-daughter of Sauniere, who is a master cryptologist in the French Police’s Cryptology Department.
Buze Fache is a no nonsense, tough, bull-like built chief of The French Judicial Police.
Aringarosa is the Bishop of the controversial Opus Dei, which insists that the way to God is through corporal mortification.
Silas is an Albino man, who’s built like a tower and a disciple of Aringarosa.
Sir Leigh Teabing is a British authoritative on Pagan Symbols
and a Religious Historian.
The Plot
=====
Jacques Sauniere is a master brain who is a devot admirer of the great
Leonardo Da Vinci. Apart from being a Da Vinci admirer, he is also a
master brain who loves setting up complex, cumbersome and interesting
puzzles. One cold night, he is hunted down and murdered inside his beloved
museum in the Denon wing by Silas. Silas is on a quest to find out about
hidden secrets and Jacques is one among the secret bearers. Aringarosa
hopes to get hold of this damning secret, so that he can become the master
who can control the workings of the Church. The reason being, the Vatican
wants to ostracize itself from the Opus Dei because of its questionable
recruiting methods.
A threatening Silas, manages to obtain some amount of information from Jacques, while revealing that the other three people who held this secret are already dead. Finally Silas pumps bullets into him. A
severely wounded Jacques knows that he has little time to live and it’s highly necessary that he passes on his secret, and that is when he writes a cryptic piece of text, lies down naked spread-eagled. The cryptic text reads 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5
O, Draconian devil!
Oh, lame saint!
(I could decipher that the first line is the series of Fibonacci Numbers. The anagram was way beyond my reach.)
Langdon is called in for two reasons. One, he is supposed to be good in
deciphering this and two, he had an appointment with the dead man for the
night. And a third reason, is deliberately hidden from Langdon. Fache,
takes Langdon to see the dead curator’s body. Langdon is as surprised as
anybody else and can’t just make out anything from the scene. Moments
later, enter Sophie Neveu who believes that her dying grandfather left her
a secret coded message asking her to find Langdon. She also believes that
Langdon will be framed for the murder. The scene where they escape from the
Louvre is well described. It’s best read from the book :-).
Once they escape from the Louvre, after decoding another anagram (So
dark the con of man), starts a wild goose, high voltage, thrilling saga
of how both of them start uncovering one secret after another. It’s like
putting up the pieces of a puzzle together from a treasure hunt and waiting
eagerly for the picture to show up. The clues left by Sauniere lead them to
various paintings of Da Vinci, a swiss Bank in Paris, a key embossed with
the fleur-de-lis and many more.
From here on, the book is like any other thriller wherein the protagonists
must fight for and find out the truth to save themselves. But the book
differs from other thrillers in many ways. Dan Brown states in the
beginning that All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and
secret rituals in this novel are accurate. Some of the lesser known
things protrayed in this book are about a secret society called The
Priory of Sion, which the author claims was founded in circs 1099. This
society has the task upon itself of guarding secret documents which holds a
vast different truth about Jesus Christ and Christianity. Another
cult which the author refers to is The Opus Dei, which is supposed
to be a Vatican prelature. Opus Dei’s goal is to make sure that the
Christianity religion does not get diluted in the modern world. They insist
on things like corporal mortification, in which inflicting pain upon
yourself brings you closer to God. Interesting in particular is the mention
of a sharp metal belt worn around the thigh called the celice.
Dan Brown also talks in detail about the pagan worship, the sacred
feminine, Mary Magdalene and the sacred feminine worship. The Priory of
Sion believes that the history about Jesus Christ has been distorted by the
early church to suit their objectives. These details are very interestingly
described in the chapters where the two (supposedly) fugitives interact
with the British knight Teabing. Just for the sake of curiosity these
chapters have to read carefully. Many of the facts mentioned here might
disturb the Christian faithfulls.
Dan Brown also describes beautifully, the Grand Hall of the Louvre, the two
inverted Pyramids built upon it, the Stat des Etats where the Mona Lisa is
hung, the Saint Sulpice church in Paris and the Westminister in London. As
I was reading through the book, the descriptions of the Louvre were clearly
floating around my head as I visited this very recently. The parts, where
Sophie & Robert try to decipher Jacques cryptic puzzles are quite
interesting. The cryptex devised by Jacques is similar on the lines of Da
Vinci. It consists of two cylinders and dials and to open them up, you need
to arrange the dials to the correct password. Try to break it open and the
parchment inside it will be dissolved by the Vinegar from the broken glass
vial. The book is very fast and I will have to leave out many more aspects
from the review. Those readin this might find it entirely incomplete, but
if I try to go into more details, it will result in revealing the plot of
the book. If thrillers are the stuff you live for, then devour this book in
one sitting for greater pleasure.
Finally I also managed to find more info about the plot of this book on the
Internet. A particular website goes into lengths to mention that The Priory
of Sion was not a real organization at all. It was ’invented’ by a French
Pierre Plantard whose intentions were highly questionable. The info
on Opus Dei seems to be corroborated by certain websites which mention
about the celice and other things.
All in all, this book is highly exciting to read. In the same vein it is
also highly controversial as it goes to the extent of questioning the
practises of the Vatican Church and the history of Jesus. From being an
unknown English Teacher to a millionaire author, Dan Brown has certainly
risen into the scene of best selle