I have to admit, I only really read The Da Vinci Code out of curiosity. After all, few books in the past century have created as much fuss as this one. Seen by some as a beacon of truth and others as a scandalous attack on Christendom (particularly the Catholic Church), it's obviously not a book that one can be indifferent to.
Er… well actually, I think you can. Certainly I was. Despite the fact that most people seem to either passionately love or violently loathe The Da Vinci Code and indeed Dan Brown and his other novels, I finished it feeling that it was really nothing more than a slightly below average thriller. (Admittedly this is not a genre I particularly read a lot of. My opinion based on what I have read is that Tom Clancy is unequalled among modern thriller writers, though I do dislike the amount of profanity in his books.)
The book opens with several pages of acclaim for the book / author, followed by a short message that all the secret societies mentioned in the book do in fact exist. I think it is this single statement that has caused much of the controversy - perhaps some people thought along the lines of, "if the secret societies are real, then why not the rest of the book?" Others may read it that this is what the author / publisher is trying to imply. In actual fact I think that this statement, along with the highly controversial nature of the book, were simply a flash of genius by either Brown himself
or someone in the Marketing Department- create scandal, and it creates its own media hype. Which is, after all, what has happened. (Incidentally, I felt that the statement was rather self-defeating - I mean, if it's a secret society that everyone now knows about, is it really secret anymore??!?! :-D)
Fans hail it as being a well researched exploration of what could well be the truth, while critics love pointing out a myriad factual accuracies in the book. If either of those is what you're after however, stop reading my review right now. The Da Vinci Code is a novel, ergo a work of fiction, and the basis upon which I am going to review it. (Without the public denouncement by the Catholic Church it would, no doubt, have remained relatively unknown, or at least in comparison to what it has become.)
It's not going to be easy setting up the plot without spoilers, but I guess you already know that it's something about a code embedded into the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and something to do with the "true identity" of the Holy Grail. It also has a lot to do with Jesus Christ not being who many people think he is / was, and also Mary Magdeline having a more important role in things than anyone thought. That much you probably already know. The rest of the plot I won't delve into here - it's enough for you to know that it delves into secret societies and rites, a series of cryptic clues leading to something the Knights Templar have been keeping hidden for many centuries, and that there are people around who are so intent on uncovering this secret that they are prepared to kill for it… indeed, the story begins with a murder…
So what of the writing style? Despite the fact that apparently Mr Brown has taught Creative Writing at a prestigious university for some years, I found his writing rather heavy-handed. He falls into the old, old trap of telling rather than showing in almost every page, rendering an otherwise intriguing plot premise slightly tiresome as it feels more like you are attending a lecture than reading a novel. The characters aren't too badly drawn, with the main character, Robert Langdon, being quite likeable and indeed very sympathetic to the viewpoints of others, including church members. His token love interest (sorry, companion thrown into his life by fate… or something) is Sophie Neveu, a talented cryptologist with the French police. On their tail is bulldog-like Police Chief Bezu Fache, single-minded and rather ruthless. Among the people they meet on the way are eccentric English knight Leigh Teabing, the most celebrated Grail historian of his time, and his long-suffering French man-servant Remy They are fairly interesting characters, but by far the most interesting (to me) was Silas, an albino monk with a criminal past… but to tell you more might ruin it for you.
We are led through a series of chases and workings out of codes, which is standard thriller fair and I found it rather uninvolving. There were few characters you could really identify with, and one of the main characters goes through a massive personality change near the end for no apparent reason, which didn't come across as very realistic. The biggest problem I had though was with Brown's writing style - he artificially tried to create suspense by telling you that something was important but not telling you what it was. And then for a few hundred pages kept reminding you that it was important, and still not telling you what it was. Admittedly this is not exactly an uncommon literary device but he does it so often that it really becomes annoying. On the other hand, he patronises his reader by feeling the need to frequently state and re-state the blindingly obvious. It's the literary equivalent of holding up boards saying "Clap", "Laugh", "Cheer", "Boo" for live TV audiences, as if they couldn't work out for themselves what emotion they were supposed to be feeling at the time. It seemed like a rather sledgehammer approach to thriller writing and didn't work for me. The locations felt a bit flat too - like almost everything in the book, it read like the result of internet research - which I strongly suspect it was. There were some moments of humour, which I enjoyed, and a strange phenomena of some chapters being ridiculously short. (Not a major problem, just odd.)
Overall, I felt that The Da Vinci Code could really have been a lot better. It's not terrible, but for a thriller I felt it had a pronounced lack of suspense. It did improve considerably about half-way through, but not enough for me to give it more than 3 stars or to recommend it. (I was thinking more in terms of 2 stars until it started coming to life.) The ending (well, both endings in fact) felt like a cop-out too, which also made me feel that I'd rather wasted my time reading this. There are plenty of people who think this book is wonderful, of course, and plenty more that hate it, but I'm in neither group - it left me almost completely unmoved. As I borrowed it at least I didn't lose any money, but if I'd paid the RRP for the paperback of £6.99, I would have felt quite aggrieved.
Factoid # 1 - the plot of "Angels & Demons" looks almost exactly the same as this book, and I have been told by people who have read both that this is basicall y the case!
Factoid #2 - the ratings of this book on an American website I also write for seem to have been much higher than on Ciao, with most of the lower ratings coming from... you guessed it - the British writers on the site!
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A very carefully considered and well put together review. I've read it and found it somewhat hard going in parts, but enjoyed the audio version. :-)
kitty17 26.10.2005 20:55
Good review, I enjoyed reading this book, but like you simply read it because of the hype, and although I did enjoy it I have heard enough to know that other books of his are remarkably similar and so have left off his other novels. Enjoyed reading your review. Ellie.
Coloneljohn 23.10.2005 11:51
A refreshing review of this book. Very well stated. John
Oct 20th, 2005
(Oct 21st, 2005)
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