(A-) 80% | Very Good
Notes: Excessive exposition and ludicrous writing discolor an otherwise captivating, thought-provoking, page-turning read.

Dan Brown - image from USA Today

A real page-turner, about a Holy Grail quest. It is replete with oodles of interesting little items about church history, the true meaning of the grail, secret societies through the ages, Opus Dei and architectural details.


Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou as Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu - image from Rotten Tomatoes

In this fast-paced adventure an American art expert is accused of killing a director of the Louvre. Rescued by the deceased's granddaughter, a police cryptologist, the pair flees from both French and British police. The tale is enlivened with characters such as Silas, an albino ex-con who has seen the light and been taken in by the head of a Catholic extremist cult, Leigh, a British knight obsessed with finding the grail. Great fun!


Paul Bettany as Silas - image from Rotten Tomatoes

(Rotten Tomatoes gave it only a 57% rating, but I liked it a lot.)


I also reviewed Brown''s
-----Angels and Demons
-----The Lost Symbol and
-----Inferno

I remember when this book hit the Arabian markets around 2003 and how everyone was aghast by it and what it suggested, I didn't know anything about it except the title and who Da Vinci was, my mom bought a copy, I think she and dad talked about it.



In 2006, the movie was released, it was prohibited in many countries, THAT intrigued me! It wasn't sexual, or political... it was religious, and I have always been fascinated by religions. I remember watching it, and it scared me, especially Silas. I felt weird about the whole thing. I decided it wasn't for me.



Sometime later, my interest in the occult and cults aroused again, I watched it and it made me think. Some years passed and when I watched it on TV I loved it deeply, now I watch it every month or so. It became a favorite. I love the mystery, thriller aspect to it, (and I love Audrey Tautou) it is a crime story but it's also about two religions, Judaism and Christianity. Priory of Sion is Zion, and it's with a constant war with the Vatican, both of them are ready to kill for what they believe is the truth, and it all revolves around the Holy Grail aka Mary Magdalene, who they believe carried the daughter of Jesus. Opus Dei, another secret society has one goal, kill the heir! So the Vatican can stay safe. I think the author is not into Christianity at all. i get why Christians felt insulted by the movie/book.



After watching the movie, I researched extensively the known cults and secret societies, and I feel that these people are so lost from the point of life. Isn't it very tiresome to live this way? One question that keeps nagging at me, did Robert contact Sophie at the end and tell her the location of the Holy Grail? After the four great masters were killed the secret is supposedly buried with them, right? The priory wouldn't know where it was?

Caveat Academics!!!
I won't belabor the obvious, as it's been done quite well by other reviewers, but I just couldn't stand not to add my own "hear hear!" to the fray. If you're going to create a character who is an expert, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you check your facts! Whoever edited this drivel ought to be sewn in a sack with a rabid raccoon and flung into Lake Michigan.

And just as a matter of good taste - your expert should not be an expert in everything under the sun. That's one of the hallmarks of poor writing.

Even if I were not a practicing pagan, I would find it stretching credibility that every single item the characters run across is a symbol of goddess worship. Five pointed star? Goddess worship. Chalice? Goddess worship. Porcelain toilet bowl? Goddess worship. Pilot ball point pen? Goddess worship. You get the general idea. Not only is every item part of the mythology of the divine feminine, but every number is also part of the divine feminine. Hello? Is a cigar NEVER just a cigar?

And some of the claims of symbolism are just plain wrong, as the editor would have found out if he'd bothered to do some fact checking. Remember those military chevrons that, because of the way they were pointed, represented the female divine and those poor slobs of soldiers had been running around all these countless centuries with goddess symbols flaunted on their uniforms without knowing it? The only problem with that premise is that the chevrons facing in their current direction is relatively recent - according to my military historian husband, they faced the OPPOSITE direction for quite some time before being reversed (for what reason, I have no idea...unless the generals all got together and decided they didn't have quite enough goddess symbols on their uniforms and needed it fixed post haste).

My theology professor ended up traveling around the country giving talks about this book to thousands of interested people. He loves the book if only because he's now giving pretty much the same information that he used to give to dozing freshman and sophomores to packed theaters of interested listeners. He tells a story about being somewhere in southern Ohio and making a joking remark about the celice being something that all Catholics wore and how now the secret was out, and there was a lady in the back row who elbowed her husband and said "See? I told you so!" The increased interest in history is about the only positive thing that's come out of this book. Honestly, you don't need to make anything up about the Catholic church to point out that it's been the source of some horrible things.

I could go on about the poor research and editing in this book, but others have done a pretty thorough job of finding the problems with it.

If you want a decent page turner, go for it. If you want something well researched and accurate, give this one a big ol' pass.

This book, and everything written by Dan Brown (to varying degrees), represent much of what I most dislike about pop literature. First of all, Mr. Brown, despite teaching English at Amherst College, is a bad writer. This is not to say that I am a good writer. But I recognize a person who can't "show" you vivid scenes, he has to "tell you". Various characters wear expensive clothes. How do we know? The text says they're expensive. How do we know Mr. Langdon is brilliant? The text makes no bones about telling us. Langdon is also famous. Blah.

Furthermore, Mr. Brown's books are ridiculously formulaic. Every single "thriller" that he has written to date begins with the murder of a key character at the hands of a shadowy and "terrifying" assassin individual/group. This group is controlled by a larger group with dubious intentions that generally have to do with world domination. The protagonist is introduced as an "expert" whose credentials relate to the matter at hand, and who takes the job of hunting down the bad guys. He enlists the aid of an extremely avuncular, wise, benevolent helper. This person provides assistance as the protagonist (with a love interest) finds clues to the murder, attempts to find the bad guys, is pursued by the assassin(s), all while TIME IS RUNNING OUT. The avuncular father figure turns out to be pulling the strings of the assassins, is behind the original killing, and provides a forgettable monologue at the end where he pleas for understanding. But our hero takes him down. The end. I'm sorry if I just ruined all Dan Brown's books for you.

Finally, Mr. Brown likes to write about what he sees as religious conflicts. These conflicts take place between believers and non-. Unfortunately, he proves unable to adequately and convincingly describe these conflicts, because he reveals a striking inability to understand why people believe, in the first place. His highly religious characters therefore invariably turn out to be crazed nutjobs. I don't like stories that exploit religion for entertainment, and then use the attention that they draw to this entertainment to subtly undermine the reasons for faith.

But by all means, read the Da Vinci Code. People say it's smart. Others describe it as a fast-paced thriller with historical and theological implications. It could've been in the hands of another author.

بغض النظر لو اتفقنا مع الموضوع ام اختلفنا فالعمل في حد ذاته مشوق كعمل بوليسي و كعمل تاريخي مع الحرص على العود الى مراجع اخرى للتأكد من المعلومات التاريخية الواردة فيه..هي رحلة عبر الفن من عصور التنوير و ما صاحبها من قمع و سلطة بابوية الى العصر الحديث مع بقاء هذه السلطة بشكل آخر..دان بروان اختار لنفسه نهج سبقه اليه آخرون في الكتابة الفاضحة التي تعري حقائق قد يرد البعض اخفائها و قد لا توجد اصلا انما اراد الكاتب لفت القارئ لعمله. يستحق القراءة

Illuminati and Club of Rome. Is Dan Brown illuminated or enlightened?
He is a good researcher that is for sure.

If you like Dan Brown.


Check out Crooked Gold by Carl Knauf.

I really enjoyed this book. It's the first time I read Dan Brown's book. I think he can write while making every page gripping in some way.

Exciting news for the blind and partially-sighted community, as the publishers release a Braille version:

For the most part, it seems that people either passionately love this book or they passionately hate it. I happen to be one of the former. For my part, I don't see the book so much as an indictment of the Catholic Church in particular but of religious extremism and religion interfering in political process in general. The unwarranted political control granted to extreme religious organizations like the CBN is an issue that we will be forced to address one way or the other. To my eye, our political process has been poisoned by it and the danger of theocracy is quite real. Furthermore, Brown's indictment of the Church for removing or suppressing feminine divinity figures is justified and needs a much closer look. Women do not have enough of a role in religion, religious practice, heroic myths, and creation myths, nor are they portrayed as divinity figures enough. In short, our religious systems and institutions lack balance and have a bias to suppress issues, stories, and roles that empower women to live as equals to men. Finally, Brown wrote his story simplistically, in my view, to spread his tale to as broad an audience as possible. Though it is not as pristine a narrative as, say, Umberto Eco, the message it conveys is one that needs to be heard. More obscure books on the matter are not as accessible as Da Vinci Code and if someone were to write an accessible book of genius on this subject, I would give him/her all due praise. In the meantime, Dan Brown is telling a story that needs to be told. It is one that has been kept quiet and in the dark for far too long.

Was that the book that made the Vatican tremble? This detective story builds like a TV movie where a handsome guy and a girl strive to solve a schoolboy's riddles to discover the scandalous secret that everyone already knows. The fact that Jesus was a man, that he fucked Mary Magdalene and impregnated her (why not?), and that he was not God's son. Dan Brown was ignoring, in a novel that uses and abuses the notion of mystery, the mystery of the identity of Christ, true God, and true man.
Let's move on. The Da Vinci Code is nothing more than a new version of Indiana Jones, in the American style, with the initial murder, the police error, the (so little) incredible escape of the heroes, the betrayal of the good guy becoming Machiavellian, the hidden microphones, two or three deaths lying around, the reunion of the lost grandmother and brother and the final kiss, prudish, without the slightest trace of eroticism. Yet, simultaneously, the whole book applies itself to magnify the Sacred Feminine.
How, then, to understand the dazzling success of this novel? Let's face it: I let myself take. This feeling of collaborating in the truth's discovery upsets the world's order by deciphering anagrams. This satisfaction of feeling oneself the discoverer as if the solution of a sodoku could collapse an entire civilization. At this little game, the end of the book can only disappoint. Nothing. This scum. Virgo worms. That's to designate only the cup, the chalice, and the Holy Grail. The real mystery is undoubtedly there: by what miracle can a little detective story of nothing become a world affair? Revealing this secret seems much more complicated than Dan Brown's treasure hunt.

Back then everybode read that book! You won't regret reading it. It has quite a controversial theory to offer and is full of suspense!