[48] The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

Reading The Da Vinci Code is entertaining and breath-taking. I am floored by the riveting story that I turned the pages unusually quickly. The intrigue, menace, and intelligent twist of the story compensate the poor writing, which is ridden with cliche and disjointed, abrupt ad lib comments. Dan Brown certainly deserves credit for an amazing (not sure if it is genius like some critics have deemed) tale with enigma piled on secrets stacked on (word scrabbling) riddles. The novel is thoroughly researched, sources of which include the Louvre Museum and Paris's Bibliotheque nationale, and all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals are accurate. The mystery revolves around two important but esoteric historical facts:

1. The Priory of Sion, a very old secret covert brotherhood that was known for its fascination for goddess iconology, paganism, and feminine deities, founded the Knights Templar to retrieve a collection of secret documents revealing an explosive historical secret

2. Da Vinci was a member of this secret society and he was among the few who were savvy of this secret, which involved the Holy Grail and Mary Magdelene. Not only do the Dead Sea Scrolls and Coptic Scrolls confirm this secret, they also provide clues to the location of the Holy Grail. Da Vinci laid the secret of this mysterious chalice, which symbolizes the womb (womanhood and fertility) out in his art work.

These are the last clues Jacques Sauniere left for symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu. The elderly curator of the Louvre Museum had been murdered inside the gallery showcasing the famous Mona Lisa with a baffling cipher found next to his body. Obviously the curator, who was Sophie's grandfather, during the last few minutes of his life had summoned all his energy to arrange his body in a fashion that created a life-sized replica of the Vitruvian Man. He was revealing the key to the secret of the secret society to Langdon and Neveu. Series of word game, numeric cipher, and riddles were only prelude to a hidden message laden in the layers of paint. It becomes obvious that the curator was associated with the Priory of Sion and was the guardian of the secret the Church has contrived to hide.

I can understand why the novel stirs such an incredible gale of controversy. It touches on very sensitive materials and information that threaten the faith of many and most importantly, jolts the foundation that has inveterately shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today. Whatever the truth might be, after all, The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, and if we look at all the major religions today, every faith is more or less based on fabrication. We accept what we can imagine from metaphysical allegory. Faith is acceptance and trust of that which we cannot prove. The beauty of Da Vinci Code lies not in the language, but in showing how world, even over a chronological distance, is a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events.

Now I'm ready for the movie.