Da Vince Code the Book

¶ … Da Vince Code

The book "The Da Vinci Code" by author Dan Brown is a controversial novel that was released in March 2003, by publisher Double Day. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has remained on it since, selling millions of copies. It is a thriller story involving secret societies, conspiracies, the Catholic church, and the fictional truth about Jesus Christ ("cracking," 2004). The author's summary is as follows: a renowned Harvard symbologist is summoned to the Louvre Museum to examine a series of cryptic symbols relating to Da Vinci's artwork. In decrypting the code, he uncovers the key to one of the greatest mysteries of all time...and he becomes a hunted man. There have been many numerous reviews this book. This paper will focus on the comparisons of those pros and cons.

The Pros

First of all, beginning with the pros, according to Greer, the chapters in the Da Vinci Code are short, usually not more than a couple of pages. Most of them end with a cliffhanger that immediately catapults you in the next chapter. So grab this book, sit back, and prepare to be entertained and educated. it's well written, it's intelligent, and best of all, its fun (p. 3).

According to MacEwan, Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code is going to make publishing history. Trust me. it's good. it's damn good. The Da Vinci Code has all the right ingredients to create a massive market share of the fiction sold during the next year. The characters are believable, the fictional premise intriguing, and it has two major components to insure sales -- the Knights Templar and the search for the Holy Grail (p.2).

Maslin states the word is wow. The author is Dan Brown. In this gleefully erudite suspense novel, Mr. Brown takes the format he has been developing through three earlier novels and fine tunes it to blockbuster perfection. Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase in coaxing them through hoops (p.1).

Blomberg mentions that the most important word in this book is "novel" (p.1). It is well written, fast-paced, with surprising turns of plot and intrigue regularly shocking readers, especially when they think they have figured things out. It contains all the elements of a good murder mystery, enough vivid portrayals that one can imagine the events depicted on location, especially if one is familiar with France and Britain, and bite-sized chapters that regularly end with a cliffhanger begging one to read more.

According to Taylor, you should dash right out to the bookstore and buy the book. Dan Brown's novel is an ingenious mixture of a paranoid art history lesson, chase story, and religious symbology lecture. it's the most fun you can have between the sort of covers that aren't 300-count Egyptian cotton (p. 1).

Crais states, "I would never have believed that this is my kind of thriller, but I'm going to tell you something -- the more I read, the more I have to read." In the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has built a world that is rich in fascinating detail, and the reviewer could not get enough of it. "Mr. Brown, I am your fan" (p. 2).

The Cons

According to "Cracking the Da Vinci Code," the reviewer mentions that the book takes great pains to create the appearance of factuality, including placing the infamous "fact" page at the beginning of the novel. Brown has stressed the ostensible accuracy of the book on his web site and in interviews. They have gone to great lengths to mislead people into thinking that the novel has a historical basis. They deserve especially sharp criticism for this, and when criticism is made they cannot hide behind the "it's just fiction" allegation after having made such efforts to convince the reader that it is not "just fiction. (p.15)"

Blomberg expresses that there is not a shred of historical evidence that Jesus ever married Mary Magdelene or ever fathered children. Another blatantly fictitious portion of the Da Vinci Code is the claim that "more than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament." Add up everything that was ever called a gospel in the first half-millennium of Christianity and you come up with about two dozen documents (p.2).