Review: The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, Published by Doubleday, 2003

by Tyler Carey

I went into The Da Vinci Code with the cynical notion of "don't believe the hype." My first exposure to the book was in its New York Times book review a few months back. While the review was fairly positive, the reviewer tried to explain what the book was about, which muddled things terribly. All that I remember are the words: Harvard, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Secret Society, and Cabal. It sounded like a bad update of an H.P. Lovecraft novella, so I gave the book not another thought. Then The Unknown Hobo's wife's friend spent an entire road trip reading the book non-stop. She in turn passed it on to The Unknown Hobo's wife, who read it addictively. The Unknown Hobo then gave it a whirl, and quickly passed it on to me. This is the perfect book for kicking back and reading over a rainy weekend. I discovered that a six-pack of those foaming pints of Guinness Stout and a box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts made the experience spiritual. (Not the plain chocolate donuts, but the ones with those crunchy bits of streusel that look like rat turds on 'em.)

The story is actually the second in a loosely connected series by thriller writer Dan Brown. It concerns a secret society uncovered by a Harvard professor, and the ensuing murder investigation that occurs when his contact in the society turns up dead. This sounds like the set up for a bad Robert Ludlum novel, and indeed there are passages that just seem to be a knock-off of Bourne Identity chase scenes, but the story is much fuller than that of your standard dime-store novel. For one thing, the book is extraordinarily well researched, examining "real-life" secret societies, Renaissance trivia, the Gnostic gospels - books of the Bible that were discarded as the Roman Catholic Church formed in the fourth century. The characters exist in factions that are either trying to re-form Christianity in the image of the early Church fathers, trying to forge a new order of Christianity, or trying to reinforce existing papal doctrine. Despite the convoluted nature of the plots and sub-plots, it was fairly easy to keep up.

For some readers, this has not been the case. There has been much discussion on Internet chat boards about how much of the book was researched versus how much was fabricated. It kind of amazes me, because most of the contentious bits are things that many of us were, or should have been, taught in any intro to comparative theology or art history course. What I actually enjoyed the most about the book was how its public reception has mirrored the anticipated reception of the book that the protagonist has written in The Da Vinci Code. His editors fear that revealing the "true history" of the Church will result in protests, while the protagonist knows that most folks will just ignore his book as scholarly ramblings. Conversely, The Da Vinci Code is a fictionalized story - a "What If?" - based upon conjecture revolving around the early church and Masonic symbolism. This book is not a threat to the tenets of anyone's faith, but going by some of the comments on amazon.com's customer review boards, you would think that the author had conspired with Marty Scorcese to shoot a porno re-make of "The Last Temptation of Christ".

I highly recommend reading this book just for a fun, enjoyable read. If it does pique your curiosity at all, there are plenty of books that present revisionist histories of the early church with much more aplomb, such as Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels. If the book does piss you off, forget about it - it is just a story. One that is populated with Harvard professors, albinos, Masons, and a knight who is suspiciously similar to Elton John. Now doesn't that sound threatening?