The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
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Doubleday (New York): April 2003. Hardcover: 454 pages. ISBN-10: 0-385-50420-9 Suggested retail price: $24.95 (US) Tags: art; Catholic church; Holy Grail; Leonardo da Vinci; made into movie; Mona Lisa; Opus Dei; religion; Thriller Tactical strength: [7/10] |
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Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology, goes to Paris to give a lecture and ends up with an adventure. The French police suspect Robert of murdering a senior curator of the Louvre, but Sophie, a police cryptologist and granddaughter of the curator, helps Robert escape police custody. Sophie's grandfather served as the head of a secret society, the Priori of Sion, that has protected the Holy Grail and kept it hidden for centuries. (The title The Da Vinci Code comes from the fact that Leonardo da Vinci once served as the head of the Priori.) Robert and Sophie follow the clues left by her grandfather in his dying moments, and they evade the police and a cleric assassin determined to get to the Grail first.
Overall, Dan Brown has created a fast-reading mystery story with some interesting speculation about the nature of the Holy Grail and the origins of the Catholic church. I liked the story, but Brown uses a particular writing style that really annoys me. He creates suspense with a technique I call delayed gratification, in which he tells the reader about an event or some information, but then puts off giving you details about the event for an number of pages. For example, Brown tells us early on that Sophie witnessed some mysterious secret ritual at her grandfather's summer home, but we don't learn the details of the ritual for literally several hundred pages. Literally every chapter ends this way. I don't mind this technique in moderation, but apparently Brown doesn't have many other tools in his writer's toolbox. Fortunately, I found the story interesting enough to keep me reading, and overall, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code.
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