This book has been blipping on my Personal Book Radar for some time. I finally caved in to get it from the library, only that it is constantly out.
So, while I am waiting for it to come in, I need a summary of the book to help while away the wait.
You can tell me any surprises or ending.
Okay, in this book, we have several key players: Robert Langdon, art history buff and conspiracy theory guy, bigtime. Sophie Neveu, cryptologist for the French police dept., and love interest for Langdon. Jacques Neveu, Sophie’s grandfather; member of a secret society that knows the location and exact nature of the Holy Grail; alos curator at the Louvre. Bishop Aringarosa, head of a fairly radical Catholic organization known as Opus Dei; if he doesn’t take some drastic action soon, Opus Dei is doomed. Silas, a big albino guy, member of Opus Dei; will do anything to help save the society; if they can find the Holy Grail, all will be well. Teabing (I forget his first name), a ridiculously wealthy British historian, who has devoted his life to searching for the Grail; he lives in France. Bezu Fache, captain of the French police.
In the very beginning, Jacques Neveu is killed; the manner of murder leaves him about 15 minutes to leave clues for his granddaughter and Langdon to find. For any number of reasons, Fache is convinced that Langdon is the murderer. Sophie Neveu is called on the scene, because of some coded writing that her grandfather left; for some soap-opera reasons, she hasn’t spoken to her grandfather in ten years. So, Fache is determined to capture Langdon, but Sophie is convinced that Langdon is the one who can help her find the real killer, so she helps him escape. Following clues Jacques left, Sophie and Langdon find a device that holds the key to the Grail, but they can’t open it. They flee to the outskirts of France to find Teabing (oh, yeah, his first name is Leigh). Langdon and Teabing have been friends a long time, and Langdon figures that if anyone can help them, Teabing can.
All of this is set against a backdrop of Bishop Aringarosa meeting with the Pope’s guys, and Silas killing people to try to find the Grail. Aringosa and Silas are both taking orders from a guy known in the book only as “The Teacher”.
Teabing flies Sophie and Langdon to England in his private jet, as the search has led them to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton.
At the tomb of Newton, it is revealed that Teabing is “the Teacher”, i.e. the bad guy; could’ve knocked me over with a feather; I’d been convinced (intentionally so, I believe) that it was Fache). All of this leads Sophie to find her long-lost family, and an affair-to-come between Langdon and Sophie is strongly implied.
It was a neat book, full of neat puzzles and riddles and twists and turns. You should read it. The Catholic church isn’t happy about it, though.
Thanks for the summary! This is why I love this place! Fast responses.
I will be reading it when my name comes up on the list at the library.
There are several Da Vinci Code threads on here you might want to read as well, including 1 , 2 & 3. Several have links to images and other sources you’ll want to look at if you read it (or if you just want to learn more about it).
Okay, I’ll ask – why?
My understanding of The DaVinci Code is that it’s one of those “appeal to the religious fundamentalist” titles, like Left Behind or The Bible Code, where all the answers are in The Good Book, and us unbelieving heathens are bieng secretly mocked by God for not seeing the wisdom He’s hidden from us.
Is The DaVinci Code more of this stuff, or is it actually worth reading for us heathens? 
Why he should read it or why the Church is upset about it? If it’s the latter, then it’s because the Catholic Church is portrayed as a woman hating oppressor - actively suppressing the “sacred feminine” and what not.
Plus, the nature of the secret is not a boon to Christianity in general.
I’m not sure where you picked up that idea. If anything religious fundamentalists would be extremely annoyed by it. In fact, the book paints the Bible has a giant lie.
And the Bible is not the source for any of the puzzles that I can read.
Is The DaVinci Code more of this stuff, or is it actually worth reading for us heathens?
[/QUOTE]
Sure, heathens are welcome. It’s not a great book, but it’s entertaining filler.
I for one thought it was boring and I only slogged through it to find out the secret… which I had figured out halfway through.
Thouroughly meh.
Why is it SO popular?
I enjoyed it all right, thogh anything available to be guessed, I guessed. I liked Angels and Demons better.
It’s so popular because different people like different things. Chances are excellent that there are movies I loved that you hated, and vice versa. You may have figured out the secret halfway through, but I didn’t, and neither did my husband. Of course, we don’t read mysteries too often, so that might have something to do with it.
What FilmGeek said. I was so unimpressed by this book. It wasn’t even well written. I don’t think you are missing anything by not having read it.
Right. So once again this book is mentioned on CNN this morning.
What the hell IS the ‘big secret’ that makes the bible untrue or whatever?
Well, there are a couple of things, one pretty secret, and one not-so-secret. The not-so-secret (in terms of people have been talking around it for as long as I can remember) is that the Roman government at the time was being overshadowed by Paganism, and they needed to turn attention away from Paganism; they accomplished this by holding Christ up as The Messiah, and adapting Pagan holidays to Christian Holidays. My own personal take on this is that this is not necessarily at odds with Christianity. The Romans didn’t have to choose the right reasons to recognize Christ as the Messiah. The fact that they had their own agenda doesn’t in any way trivialize Jesus’ ministry, IMHO. The “pretty secret thing” is the speculation that:
Mary Magdalene was The Holy Grail, in terms of being the mother of Jesus’ children, therefore carrying on the Royal, Holy bloodline. There is, as has been discussed before, plenty of evidence that seems to indicate Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have been married. Some Christians reject this, because, in their eyes, if Jesus actually had sex, He couldn’t have been Divine.
It was a little more than that norinew. IIRC,
[spoiler]It wasn’t just that Magdelene and Jesus were married and had kids, it was that Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Jesus and Mary fled to France and founded the Merovingian dynasty. This bloodline is the Holy Grail and is protected by the Priory of Scion. Moreover, the Catholic Church hates women and has gone out of its way to annihilate the “sacred feminine.” Why did the early Church demonize pagan goddesses and preistesses? Not because they were pagan, but because they hated women. Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, Opus Dei is trying to find this information, presumably to destroy the bloodline and secure any threats to the Church’s power. Oh, and DaVinci and other artists/philosophers/great men were members of the Priory and left clues as to the true nature of the Holy Grail in their works. Apparently pretty much every major figure in Western European history has been a member of the Priory.[/spoiler]
Neurotik, you’re probably right. I’ve read 2 more books since then, and my memory ain’t what it used to be. Come to think of it, it never was. . .
I’ll spoil it for you.
Don’t read it.
Very poorly written. As was Angels & Demons. I’ve resolved never to waste another minute reading any Dan Brown.
Shame, because he certainly comes up with some interesting topics, kind of stuff I like to read sometimes. And I walk through the bookstore looking for some kind of book for the weekend or whatever, and I come across a book and go “hmmm…that sounds interesting” and then go “oh, it’s that lame-ass Dan Brown again” and walk on. He’s just a terrible writer.
Super-duper extra-mega-hush-hush Spoiler:
Da Vinci Code blows. Don’t bother.
If you want to read a book about Holy Grail legends, read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”
If you want to read an interesting book about cryptoanalysis, read “Cryptopnomicon”
Davinci Code is the most poorly written book I’ve ever had the misfortune of spending money on.
Dan Brown is popular, in my opinion, because he’s good at pulling the reader along and making him/her turn the pages. His books are full of mysteries, riddles, puzzles, teasers, enigmas—not just Whodunnit but also Why did ___ happen? Where is ___ hidden? What did he mean by ___? and so on. Plus the old stand-bys: action, danger, suspense. Plus he throws in lots of ideas that sound intellectual and appeal to readers interested in culture, science, and history—though he gets a lot wrong.
Again in my opinion, his writing style is neither good enough nor bad enough to get in the way of the story. You’re not supposed to pay attention to his use of language; just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Oh good god almighty. I just visited Dan Brown’s website and went to the “Secrets” page for fun and amazing true facts about Dan Brown novels! What a load of horseshit.
Plenty of writers do that. Unfortunately, Brown is so bad it tends to distract from the storyline. The characters are cliche and cartoonish. But much, much worse than that is his use of Artificial Stupidity (a great phrase I am stealing from someone in another thread) in dialogue. Brown doesn’t trust his readers to understand anything.
All his main characters are supposedly very, very smart. Yet Brown figures the only way to explain anything is through dialogue. And he wants to explain everything. So what he does is make his characters temporarily, and obviously, stupid about something that they really should know.
Scene: two hardened, grizzled Homicide detectives, Jack and Bob, discussing a new case.
Average author writes this:
Jack: So what happened?
Bob: We got two bodies, GSW both, found last night.
Jack: Any witnesses?
Bob: Not yet. Got some .45 casings, three found so far, sent to the lab.
etc…
Dan Brown writes this:
Jack: So what happened?
Bob: We got two bodies, GSW both, found last night.
Jack: Gun Shot Wounds?
Bob: Yes, Gun Shot Wounds.
Jack: Any witnesses?
Bob: Not yet. Got some .45 casings, three found so far, sent to the lab.
Jack: A forty-five millimeter caliber bullet casing? The casing is what holds the bullet, you know.
I mean, I’m sorry, but most readers can figure out that GSW stands for Gun Shot Wound. And even if they can’t, what’s worse - not knowing what GSW stands for, or wading through obviously false dialogue? Knowing that these characters would never talk or act like this if they were real?
Anyway, to each his own. To me, there reaches a point where bad writing destroys the story.