an Brown, despite having perhaps the most boring name in the history of publishing, is currently a very hot author. So hot that they've reissued all of his early, unsuccessful novels in hard cover, they're all best sellers, and it's all due to the fact that his latest novel, The DaVinci Code, is such a gargantuan success. It's hard to argue that he doesn't deserve the success, after all, as I'm writing this review DaVinci has been the #1 bestseller for more than a year straight, which is quite a streak.

Unfortunately, The DaVinci Code isn't a very good book. It's not horrible, with a decent thriller plot that largely falls apart in the last 40 pages of absurd plot twists, but it's nothing special. What's turned it into such a huge publishing event is the religious aspect to the book, and the radical theories about Jesus Christ's life, marriage, and surviving children. Much like Mel Gibson's mediocre Jesus snuff film, the hype behind the Christian aspect of The DaVinci Code is what's pushing the sales, though in this book's case it's playing both sides of the line. Only loyal Christian supporters went to see The Passion, with the logic of "if Jesus endured it I have a responsibility to watch it." The DaVinci Code's appeal is wider, since it draws in the devout, the curious, and the agnostics. Loyal Catholics read it to denounce the lies and sacrilege, curious Christians read it for a new perspective on their religion, and non-Christians enjoy it for putting a burr up the ass of the cluelessly devout.

Theology and mythology aside, it's not a very good book simply because it completely rips off one of Dan Brown's earlier books. His novel Angels and Demons is basically the same book, to a degree you simply can not believe unless you've read them both. See the reader feedback below the review for more of a point by point comparison, but there are innumerable identical plot elements, and almost all of the supporting characters are essentially the same people, with different names. I thought Angels and Demons was a bit better than The DaVinci Code, but you're almost certain to prefer whichever one you read first, while thinking the other is a rip off.

To the scores:

The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown
Plot: 6
Writing: 5
Characters: 5
Page Turner: 6
Rereadability: 4
Overall: 6

If I hadn't read Angels and Demons a month before I read The DaVinci Code, I would have given DaVinci much higher scores. Since I did (see my review here) read A&D first though, I couldn't help but compare DaVinci to it. DaVinci is the sequel, taking place about a year later (in the book's timeline) and starring the same Professor/Scientist/Expert on Ancient Art and Symbols, but more than that, DaVinci is virtually a revision of A&D, with very similar plot elements, character types, etc. Ironically, DaVinci has a much less compelling plot, less of a ticking clock to race against, a much less important plot overall, less danger to the protagonists, fewer mysteries to solve, and far less interesting ancient history information. What it does have, and the reason it's been the #1 bestselling novel in the US for almost a solid year, is a semi-radical version of early Christian History.

Spoiler time!

This isn't a spoiler about the book's plot, which is far from its strongest suit. Go read Angels and Demons if you want a strong plot. DaVinci's starts off pretty well but peters out badly about 3/4 of the way through, after the huge religious-themed revelation comes about halfway into the book.

The revelation?

The whole book is basically about the search for the holy grail, but rather than the holy grail being an actual physical cup that Jesus drank from, the book reveals that it's code for Mary Magdelene, who was (according to teh book) Jesus' most valuable possession and closest friend. Even more than that, they were married, had kids, and their bloodline survives in Europe to this day.

That shocking revelation is spit out, abruptly, less than halfway through the book. It does tie into the plot and and it's important to the epilogue and afterwards, but it's not at all essential information at the time the reader receives it, and it's not at all the point of the book.  It is the big controversy in the book, and the reason it's getting so much reader and media attention, but it's related in the novel by a scholarly character who just tells it in historical context, 2x4 exposition style.

Conclusion

My theory about The DaVinci Code is that Dan Brown read about alternative perspectives on early Christian writing (the Dead Sea Scroll type stuff that was selectively edited into the Old Testament and later writings that became the New Testament) and got his idea for Jesus being married (which is far from an original idea in this book), having kids, etc. Brown thought it would be a cool plot element to put in a book and one that would surely draw controversy and attention to his novel, but he didn't want to write a book just about that, since he knew the scholarship wasn't up to snuff. He's not a theological scholar, after all.

He is a good thriller writer though, and he had a bunch of other research into DaVinci-era sculpture, and he knew about the Knights Templar. So he basically rewrote Angels and Demons with it set in the Vatican, threw in a ticking bomb subplot to make it a race against the clock, and then somewhat awkwardly shoehorned in the whole Holy Grail = Mary Magdalene issue, with a big chunk of it in the middle, and then a conclusion to it at the very end. The overall novel structure would have been essentially the same without the Christian controversy stuff, and that aspect of the book doesn't have much to do with the main plot line. It's essentially a bonus, and would actually be a major distraction if it weren't so controversial and therefore interesting to most readers.

So really, from a reviewer's POV, the content that has made this book such a huge success is irrelevant or even a distraction from the rest of the novel, and isn't smoothly-integrated.  From a book-selling perspective, it's the best invention since the printing press.

The DaVinci Code isn't a bad novel, and the ancient mystery/secret is an interesting one. If not for A&D, DaVinci would be quite good -- as it is the comparison pales it, and makes clear that DaVinci is the same book as A&D, with an inferior plot, far less suspense, and fewer interesting ancient mysteries. It's just got a huge Christianity tie in, which is what's making it such a success. And if you don't believe it, please refer to the overall quality of  The Passion of Christ and come back once you've had a look at its box office numbers.

Neither DaVinci or A&D is much on rereadability, since they're mostly plot and story based. Once you know what's going to happen, I can't see much reason to go through them again, barring some sort of amnesia or nostalgia on a long plane flight.

Christian Mythology

I didn't give much thought to the supposed Biblical revelations in the book, since I'm not a Christian and don't hold to their god, or those of any other religions/superstitions. To me, it's pretty much irrelevant if Jesus had kids or was married or not. He's just a largely-mythical character in a bunch of old fables written by people decades or centuries after his death and eventually collected into a series of writings that have been passed down, edited, corrected, and translated into the modern New Testament.

None of this is a surprise; most of the other stories in the Bible are adapted versions of legends and myths in other cultures; renamed and reused in the bible. Virgin birth, birth marked by a star, birth attended by kings bearing gifts, world-ending floods, and so on. They're all elements from other cultures and their mythos, all of which existed long before Christianity was invented.

Since I take all of those other, earlier legends as proof that the stories in the bible are fictional, I really don't care one way or the other if Jesus did or didn't have any kids. I've heard it argued both ways, and we do know that the current versions of the bible are much pared down from the original scrolls and writings, and have been edited and expurgated in numerous translations through the centuries.

The information presented in DaVinci is interesting though, and seems well-founded in the novel, and it leads to much more interesting speculation about ancient history; exactly what were the Knights Templars were hiding? (Proof of Jesus' marriage and family, according to The DaVinci Code) Are there clues to their treasure and to other ancient mysteries in works of art preserved from those ancient days? It's a ripe subject for fiction, as the DaVinci-inspired film National Treasure proved.

Additional Comments and Reader Feedback

April 12, 2004

In Saturday's blog, I reviewed and discussed Dan Brown's novel Angels and Devils. My comments generated an email on the subject that brings up a good point, something I wanted to discuss in more detail. Here's what Marty had to say.

Hey there,

I'm a long-time reader, first time writer (LTRFTW). I read your review of Angels &, and although I agree that it is an entertaining, engrossing novel, it's not as original as you might believe.

The plot of The DaVinci Code is identical to that of Angles & Deomons! In order to really see what I'm talking about, it's necessary to read both novels yourself, but I'll try to explain without giving away any of TdVC's plot. Please forgive the acronyms. As you said in your reviews, A&D features multiple ritualistic murders, the threatened obliteration of an entire country, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years and new scientific discoveries that will change the world. This is all well and good, but give TdVC a read-through, and you'll find that it features...multiple ritualistic murder, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years and new scientific discoveries that
will change the world. The only different thing is the lack of a threat to a country.

Another reason: TdVC has the EXACT SAME character archetypes as A&D. I read TdVC first, and I was able to predict the villain by page 75. Other archetypes include the confused female protagonist, the wise father of the aforementioned female, the tough, by-the-book policeman, and the knowledgeable companion. The list goes on and on. All of these characters interact in the same ways in both novels.

Don't get me wrong, I still love both novels...but they are pretty formulaic.

I can believe it, and I saw similar comments to this in the various negative A&D reviews on Amazon.  People saying it was basically Brown's test run for DaVinci, or that he obviously reused the same formula for his big later success.  I'm still interested in reading DaVinci, even though I feel like I'll pretty well know what's going to happen before it does. That might be a problem, since I though the surprising and clever and intricate plot of A&D was what made it work (since the writing and characters are pretty average) and if I don't have the plot pulling me along through DaVinci, and I'm not Christian or a religious scholar so I'm not really fascinated by the "redefining Christianity based on secret early writings" elements what does that leave me?

I guess I'll find out when I get my hands on a copy of the book, which should be by next weekend, with any luck.

March 16, 2005

Three years late, the Catholic Church weighs in on The DaVinci Code. Beware this article (but not the following comments about it) if you haven't read the book yet, since there are big plot spoilers.

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