The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - Review and Spoilers

[illbill]

http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?p=2565

<snip>The Da Vinci Code is a novel written by American author Dan Brown and published in 2003 by Random House (ISBN 0385504209). It is a worldwide bestseller with over 44 million copies sold. Combining the detective thriller and conspiracy theory genres, the novel has helped spur widespread popular interest in certain theories concerning the legend of the Holy Grail and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity—theories that Christians typically consider to be heretical. It is a sequel to Brown's 2000 novel Angels and Demons.<snip>

http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?p=2565

[Kathy in Cambridge]

1. Not sure if this is the right forum for a piece of fiction

maybe post in one of the DU literary groups?

[illbill]

2. ehh... you're right.

Please mod move to theological section... or fiction.

[xultar]

5. It is FINE to discuss it here. I don't get your post. Groups are for

donors and not everyone has the means to donate. So, why not be nice and just ignore the post or contribute to the discussion.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

7. I didn't realize groups were for donors

so that's why I made the suggestion.

[ThorsHammer]

34. Fictional books section is available to non-donors

Lobby -> Non-Political Forums -> Books:Fiction

[Liberal In Texas]

26. Be the wrong forum to me too....

do we have actual mods around here...????

[xultar]

31. So where do non donors post then? Groups aren't open to them.

guess you didn't know that did ya?

[The Magistrate]

3. It Looks Like Fun, Sir

We shall see what people make of it....

[EVDebs]

4. Please don't move it.

The viewpoint of the book is that either the Holy Grail is the 'san gral' or holy blood-- Christ's progeny--or, as in the book The Sign and The Seal by Graham Hancock, the Holy Grail is really the Ark of the Covenant (in Axum, Ethiopia), plays right into the hands of End Times 'futurist' eschatology that is prevalent among Bush's evangelical voting bloc.

They'll blow a gasket if they read Steven Wohlberg's End Times Delusions book, which posits an 'historicist' eschatology.

[Jon_da_brockman]

6. Just finished reading the book

Very interesting book. Dan Brown blends Fact and Fiction masterfully. One can almost understand what causes hardline christians to get a stick up thier collective asses.

Still, quite the pageturner.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

8. Davinci Code was a great read, but remember it's FICTION

I read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" back in the '80s, and like that book, "Da Vinci Code" plays loosely with the facts.

[seventythree]

9. I loved it

I hardly ever read fiction, but that book kept me turning the pages. I wonder if things that were in it, like the story behind the Mona Lisa, are true. I am currently reading Angels and Demons --also very good. I started it during the conclave so it was very serendipitous for me. I also purchased "Deception Point" to read on an upcoming long flight and trip. Years ago, I read "Beyond God the Father" and "When God Was a Woman" -- and I really like that someone is bringing forth the Catholic Church's role in the subjugation of women. What is so subversive about a theory that the Holy Grail is really a blood line? I think the Church is having a tizzy because of the stuff on Opus Dei and the fact that women have been on the Church's hit list since the beginning.

[spindoctor]

25. and that's the bottom line

But yes, it was a good read.

[Liberal In Texas]

28. I so agree with you Kathy in Cambridge....

It's a bloody book...fiction, escape, fun.

When writing, you mess with the facts, bend reality for the sake of the story. (And this pretty much negates my last post, lol...)

[EVDebs]

32. Please read "The Sign and The Seal" by Graham Hancock

which posits the Holy Grail legend as code for the whereabouts of the Ark of The Covenant, the Lost Ark.

Factually based, you are then going to be drawn to John J. Robinson's work on the Knights Templar, currently mentioned in movie "Kingdom of Heaven". His book Dungeon, Fire and Sword : The Knights Templar in the Crusades plus his earlier book Born In Blood, about how the KT morphed into modernday Freemasonry, can help explain a lot of modern day problems. Did you know that the CIA's early make-up was mainly of Knights of Malta, the Knights Templar enemy from Crusader times 1300s ? 'Wild Bill' Donovan, James Jesus Angleton, etc. etc. all KOM members. That also leads to Catholicism, with KOMs background. KT was excommunicated and was mainly of Reformation roots after 1307 and the Catholic church's double-cross of the KT, especially Jacques DeMolay.

This then leads to modern-day eschatology based upon the Jesuits 'futurist' model. Read then Steven Wohlberg's End Times Delusions and see who the anti-christ/beast was believed to be until just recent times.

This is a VERY timely topic and deserves its place on the General Discussion board, IMHO.

[Zynx]

10. Book is total fiction and hokum

Just keep that in mind. I don't like it even as fiction, but there's no accounting for taste.

[Cleita]

11. I thought the "Da Vinci Code"

was badly written. He uses the thriller's trick of making in into a page turner. What you do is make each paragraph or even sentence have a question in it that has to be answered. I winced everytime I read the phrase of the girl's olive green eyes. Surely, he could have described her eyes differently without having the image of a martini rising in the reader's mind.

I was also disappointed in the plot, which he covered over with all the information he threw in. This information is pretty much generally known in grail circles, especially writers who like to write about Authurian legends. So to us, who knew this stuff, we are still looking for the story.

[Jon_da_brockman]

12. Probably true

But I think he wrote the book for the Layman, and most people dont realize these theories are out there. I found the book facinating, being an ex-christian.

[Abelman]

13. Indeed

I couldn't put it down, it was very engaging. But as far as writing goes...

Well, I didn't find it very well written myself. But I did enjoy it quite a bit.

[jayctravis]

22. If you like DVC, try FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM

by Umberto Eco...some slightly similar ground is covered in that. I read really fast and well, and I found it moderately difficult, but beautifully done.

[spindoctor]

24. Hardly in the same league

And being a fast reader helps with Eco's (brilliant) literature by the pound ;)

[Liberal In Texas]

27. Eco is brilliant. Dan Brown pretty much makes great story with

a little here and then of reality.

I was especially annoyed with Brown when he had the camera crew going underground with live transmissions.

Unless they had line-of-sight to some microwave antenna (usually on the live truck) the "live television" isn't going anyplace.

That alone made me wonder about the rest of Brown's scholarship.



So...Magistrate...this still is OK for GD, SIR?

[spindoctor]

29. The worst "fact" is about the "Priory of Zion"

I believe this is even the only part of the story that Brown specifically states as a fact. The whole Priory of Zion hoax was dismantled years ago.

But again, it is a fun book to read. It is not literature, it is not fact. I also enjoyed the hidden codes on the jacket. That was a nice twist.

[Liberal In Texas]

30. My wife and I enjoyed the puzzles too, and the website...

I'm pretty fond of puzzles, so that was fun, she was a bit annoyed.

But that's all the book is, it's a bit of fun.

And now, I'm curious about how the movie will turn out.

[jayctravis]

36. I also appreciated the puzzles.

I was proud that I solved one before the characters, remembering Newton's shrine in Westminster Abbey.

So maybe that's DVC's popularity...the reader is involved.

I also liked HOUSE OF LEAVES for it's dizzying array of typography fantasy, but beyond the gimmick of the book the story makes you work to unravel. Offputting to some, I suppose.

[jayctravis]

35. Dan Brown can tell a good story, but...

Digital Fortress has the unfortunate penultimate scene of millions of "hackers" and people on the internet trying to access a government database as a series of...oh...five firewalls go down in dramatic sequence. This is all of course represented graphically onscreen where each "hacker" is shown as a tiny dot eating in toward the center. This inspires the characters to breathlessly comment as someone feverishly works on the fix. He didn't research the internet as thoroughly as he did DaVinci Code. Too bad... The novels adapt well to screenplays a la Michael Crichton.

[TahitiNut]

14. Well, it's not "Great Expectations."

:silly: But imagine how many people who read it will find out that Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa and it's hung at the Louvre and the Louvre was once a palace ... people who never got out of Bumphuck, Texas.

[Cleita]

15. I have never been to France myself, but I

always knew the Mona Lisa hung in the Louvre and that the ceiling of the Sistine chapel was painted by Michael Angelo after I went to college. I guess a course in Art History needs to be taught to everyone, doesn't it, so that they know these things?

Very few literary works are "Great Expectations", but if I would have handed in even one chapter of this book to my English writing class, I would have gotten a "D".

[TahitiNut]

17. I think Art History and Music Appreciation should be required courses.

... in high school, at the very least. :shrug: I sure wish I'd had it.

[Astarho]

16. I agree

The style comes off as amateurish with all the infodumps and even a few incidents of headhopping. And I guessed pretty early who the Teacher really was.

But if this can become a bestseller, hopefully some of the novel's I'm working on can do pretty well.

[Cleita]

18. Just keep the page turning factor up and they will do well.

I do this a lot and when I put it up to my writer's group, they get mad at me when I stop my submission with questions to be answered. When I do this, then I know have succeeded in the "keep them turning pages" part of fiction writing. You also need strong characters that people reading the story will like and identify with.

[flygal]

23. "Info-dumps"

YES!! That's how to describe it! I'm reading Angels and Demons and I just laugh out loud at some of the dialog exchanges. It's so blatantly trying to get the info out - like the two BBC reporters - BAD BAD BAD!!

That said - it's a quick fun read - hard to do much else in my case with two small children at home. Good escape stuff. I am dreading the impending love scene since most of the stuff leading up to it so far is really Harlequinesque.

[EVDebs]

33. I read Angels and Demons too and felt much the same but it is GOOOD

If you want more good ol dog-shit reality please read post #32 of mine above. The book The Sign and The Seal will make way way way more sense.

BTW, if you look at Washington DCs street layout it's on masonic grids

<G> and the main one, with the Capital, WhiteHouse, Lincoln Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial has the Washington Monument's Masonic obilisk as the "G".

[Brian Morans]

19. It was a page turner, but

the characterization was weak as hell.

[Astarho]

20. self delete

...

[Desertrose]

21. I think the point was to get the ideas out to the masses...

....as far as a great piece of writing..well..I'd keep looking. But as far as I'm concerend, its the ideas that are the important thing.

As for those who claim its all fiction & lies, well I strongly disagree.

There are enough other books that were written long before Da Vinci Code that have done some incredible research that Brown based his book on.

"Bloodline of the Holy Grail" and also "Woman withthe Alabaster Jar" will give you more info on the "sang real" theory.

This is not new information to me but it certainly is time that the sacred feminine is brought into the daylight to balance the patriarchy of the Catholic & Christian religion.

[jayctravis]

37. Got to be careful with fiction to "get ideas out"...

I know a lot of people whose lives were changed by THE CELESTINE PROPHECY but I could barely get through it, only skimming because I had nothing else to do at work.