Digital Fortress is yet another book of Dan Brown that I completed reading recently and found it as astounding and as gripping as his first book that I read (The Da Vinci Code). Dan Brown has deployed the same strategy of story telling in this book too – revelation of the suspense element in the middle of the story, concise chapters with adept narrations, limited high level-headed characters, neck-to-neck chases and fast-paced storyline, which makes our heart skip its beat at every bend of the suspense and mesmerize us into his plot, thus making us feel part of the story and elicit expressions of wide ranges from excitement, panic, wrath to sorrow for every episode in the story. The author enchants us with his strong grip of realistic imagination.
Digital Fortress is twined with NSA (National Security Agency), as the backdrop. NSA is the Secret Security organization of US Intelligence, whose existence is hardly known to the world, and which possess TRANSLTR, it’s brainchild, with the creditability of a distinguished “Code-Breaker” decrypting any complex lengthy encryptions in no matter of time, thus invading all the communication system existent in this world. All goes well for NSA until one day NSA Commander Trevor Strathmore summons Susan Fletcher, the Head Cryptologist to decode an unbreakable code, which the TRANSLTR has not broken for more than 12 hours. The fact that TRANSLTR would become a failure, which will bring down the power of NSA to ashes, if it cannot break this unbreakable code, poses a big threat to the Organization and both Strathmore and Susan had to do something quick to stop NSA’s pitfall. Hell breaks loose, when they discover that the unbreakable code has been created by NSA former employee, Ensei Tankado, who threatens to bring the NSA to an end with his code, if NSA fails to publicly announce about TRANSLTR existence to the outside world, which if done, would cause major upheaval and upsurge of public rage for NSA's invasion into human’s basic rights of privacy. The only hope for TRANSLTR is the pass-key, possessed by Tankado, which is capable of decrypting the code, but which is non-obtainable due to the Tankado’s sudden death.
Strathmore sends David Becker, the Professor of Foreign Language and the lover of Susan to fetch the pass-key from the dead man’s belonging at the time of his death in Spain. What seemed to be a simple act of collecting a dead man’s ring, turns out to be a life threatening ordeal for David when his life gets into the threat of becoming a target for an assassin who is following him closely and killing everyone he encounters.
The realization of the unbreakable code’s camouflage is revealed too late to Strathmore and Susan from preventing TRANSLTR from its devastation. What was misinterpreted, as an 'Unbreakable Code' was actually a worm, which has already entered the NSA databank to breach its security system, thus going to sanction secured communications to the outside world. Before the worm hits its target, would NSA be able to save its databank from its new unstoppable invader? With very less time in hand and unable to decode the secret message of the pass-key, which yields the password to destroy the worm, would Susan and her team succeed in their efforts is the crux of the finale in the story.
The climax is very gripping and keeps us at the edge of our seats to know the outcome. One cannot take his mind off the book even after completing it. The vitality of characters is recorded in our minds and we tend to share with them, the impact of their experience within us too, even after putting the book down.
Digital Fortress is yet another code invented by Dan Brown, when opened, leads to infectious desire of reading more of his books and disseminates a fondness for Dan Brown for his legendary technique of captivating the readers with the ever-lasting memories of his books and its characters.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Range De Basanti - Movie Review
Range De Basanti starring Amir Khan, Alice Patten, Madhavan, Soha Ali Khan, Siddharth, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni is a movie, which evokes the patriotic spirit in us. A movie dedicated to the Great Freedom Fighters of India, who have fought their lives to give us the “Freedom India”.
The movie has all the ingredients required to make it a commercial hit. The biggest of one being the star-cast. With Amir Khan in the lead, the director has not failed to utilize his acting talents and his comic senses and with all his vitality exhibited right from the start till the end, the movie has been justified as a typical Amir Khan movie. Another saving grace of the movie is the youthfulness of the characters (despite age showing up on Amir Khan face), their frivolous attitude and innocence, which adds more light to the narration and characterization.
Sue (Alice Patten), a foreigner, is inspired to make a documentary on Indian Freedom Fighters, comes to India to make her dream come true, after reading her Grandpa’s Diary and his encounters with the great fighters like Bhagat Singh, Azad etc, while he was serving the British during their regime in India.
Sue seeks the help of Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) for her venture and through her gets introduced to her four friends, D.J (Amir Khan), Karan (Siddharath), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Suki (Sharman Joshi), Whom Sue feels fit best for the characters of her documentary. Ajay Rathod (Madhavan) the lover of Sonia is a pilot and the only one in the gang who has some patriotic feelings and feels it’s one’s duty and responsibility to serve the nation and keeps emphasizing about serving the country to the gang. All the other guys have totally different life styles, priorities and virtues, far different and unmatched with the characters of the free-fighters portrayed by Sue and. For them, patriotism is something very alien. They are the carefree guys of today’s generation and have no responsibility towards their nation, whatsoever. Initially they show no interest to get involved into the movie and into their characters and make fun of everything about the movie. But things take a turn, and they actually start to realize the importance of those leaders and their sacrifices to this country once they start acting in the documentary. Gradually they start to see in them, what they have not seen so far – the spirit of Patriotism. The scenes of their enacting as the patriotic heroes are juxtaposed against the scenes of their current life of fun and frolic and at one point the past and the present merges. The death of Madhavan in an air crash and the manipulation done by the defense minister to cover-up his mistakes thus making Madhavan’s death a result of lack of his ability turns the table upside down and becomes the eye-opener for the boys to realize their responsibilities towards bringing out the justice from the dark. The cinematic characters that they enact become real within them and they take drastic steps to bring out justice for the death of their dear friend towards the climax.
Amir Khan as D.J. is full of life and fun. He plays a boy of Punjabi origin, and his mother played by Kiran Kher, has suited herself best in her role. The mother-son confrontations and dialogues look very natural and bring out good humor. Amir Khan has made the audience roar with laughter’s at many scenes with his spontaneous humor particularly when he introduces Sue to his mother as her would be daughter-in-law without realizing she understands Hindi and his subsequent reaction when he sees her talking fluent Hindi. This movie is one more feather to his cap of his outstanding performance. Amir has proved himself once again as a potential actor.
Siddharath (Of Boys fame) as Karan is a silent boy (of the gang) and suffers a strained relationship with his father (Anupem Kher) and who wants to leave the country for his higher studies. Siddharath has shown more maturity and has exposed his acting talents impressively in this movie, particularly towards the climax scene he is the one who actually steals the show. He makes an impression about himself in the minds of the audience. He deserves a pat for his performance.
Kunal Kapoor as Aslam, the handsome guy of the four, has exhibited good acting. He plays a role of Muslim belonging to a very conservative family disliking his acquaintance with Amir and his gang due to their nepotism for racism, but who rebels with his family and sees religion at a different angle.
Sharman Joshi as Suki is very lively in nature and brings out the best of humor next to Amir Khan. He does not have much of serious act in the movie. Wherever he is present in the movie, audiences are not deprived of good laugh.
Soha Ali Khan as Sonia looks stunning throughout the movie. She seems to do everything fine except acting. Just few scenes of jokes, teasing the boys, dancing a bit and romancing with Madhavan alone doesn’t prove her acting potential. In the scenes where she is supposed to elicit sorrows, she miserably fails, particularly when she hears of Madhavan’s death. She could have emoted better. Except her looks and sketch, she doesn’t seem to impress any other way.
Madhavan as Ajay has understood his role and done justification to that, though he is seen only for very few scenes in the movie. He is very impressive.
Alice Patten as Sue has shown some good acting. Her Hindi fluency does not suite her face and seems little out of place.
Though there are many positive elements to make this movie more interesting, one cannot ponder over the prominent flaws, which the director has not taken care to address. The movie for most of its part toggles between the contemporary India and the modern India. When showing the incidents from the past, there is no coherence between the scenes. It looks like bits and pieces of each freedom fighter life has been attached with the story, without evidently reasoning out their cause to fight against the British, because of which the complete history of their vital role for the freedom movement is not clearly understood. The most unacceptable and unrealistic aspect of the movie is the climax, which destroys the charm and the impression of the movie all-together.
The youths at the prime age of their lives, loosing their life just to bring justice to the dead man (Madhavan) is too far-fetched practicality. An act of killing the defense minister also makes no sense in the movie, one really tend to ask, if killing the unjust is the only solution to bring justice, wouldn't it would bring out more violence in the real life than what exist now? Karan killing his own father is too much of unreality to bear. These kinds of big leaks in the story, makes the movie realistically unacceptable and collapses the naturalness carried in the story from the beginning. The end could have been conceived little different and more pragmatic, without so much of bloodshed. However one has to appreciate the comic sense of the heroes even at the time of their deaths, which adds up to their performance and make us remorse for their deaths even after the movie is over.
Rang De Basanti is surely a movie, coloring the patriotic spirit in us.
The movie has all the ingredients required to make it a commercial hit. The biggest of one being the star-cast. With Amir Khan in the lead, the director has not failed to utilize his acting talents and his comic senses and with all his vitality exhibited right from the start till the end, the movie has been justified as a typical Amir Khan movie. Another saving grace of the movie is the youthfulness of the characters (despite age showing up on Amir Khan face), their frivolous attitude and innocence, which adds more light to the narration and characterization.
Sue (Alice Patten), a foreigner, is inspired to make a documentary on Indian Freedom Fighters, comes to India to make her dream come true, after reading her Grandpa’s Diary and his encounters with the great fighters like Bhagat Singh, Azad etc, while he was serving the British during their regime in India.
Sue seeks the help of Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) for her venture and through her gets introduced to her four friends, D.J (Amir Khan), Karan (Siddharath), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Suki (Sharman Joshi), Whom Sue feels fit best for the characters of her documentary. Ajay Rathod (Madhavan) the lover of Sonia is a pilot and the only one in the gang who has some patriotic feelings and feels it’s one’s duty and responsibility to serve the nation and keeps emphasizing about serving the country to the gang. All the other guys have totally different life styles, priorities and virtues, far different and unmatched with the characters of the free-fighters portrayed by Sue and. For them, patriotism is something very alien. They are the carefree guys of today’s generation and have no responsibility towards their nation, whatsoever. Initially they show no interest to get involved into the movie and into their characters and make fun of everything about the movie. But things take a turn, and they actually start to realize the importance of those leaders and their sacrifices to this country once they start acting in the documentary. Gradually they start to see in them, what they have not seen so far – the spirit of Patriotism. The scenes of their enacting as the patriotic heroes are juxtaposed against the scenes of their current life of fun and frolic and at one point the past and the present merges. The death of Madhavan in an air crash and the manipulation done by the defense minister to cover-up his mistakes thus making Madhavan’s death a result of lack of his ability turns the table upside down and becomes the eye-opener for the boys to realize their responsibilities towards bringing out the justice from the dark. The cinematic characters that they enact become real within them and they take drastic steps to bring out justice for the death of their dear friend towards the climax.
Amir Khan as D.J. is full of life and fun. He plays a boy of Punjabi origin, and his mother played by Kiran Kher, has suited herself best in her role. The mother-son confrontations and dialogues look very natural and bring out good humor. Amir Khan has made the audience roar with laughter’s at many scenes with his spontaneous humor particularly when he introduces Sue to his mother as her would be daughter-in-law without realizing she understands Hindi and his subsequent reaction when he sees her talking fluent Hindi. This movie is one more feather to his cap of his outstanding performance. Amir has proved himself once again as a potential actor.
Siddharath (Of Boys fame) as Karan is a silent boy (of the gang) and suffers a strained relationship with his father (Anupem Kher) and who wants to leave the country for his higher studies. Siddharath has shown more maturity and has exposed his acting talents impressively in this movie, particularly towards the climax scene he is the one who actually steals the show. He makes an impression about himself in the minds of the audience. He deserves a pat for his performance.
Kunal Kapoor as Aslam, the handsome guy of the four, has exhibited good acting. He plays a role of Muslim belonging to a very conservative family disliking his acquaintance with Amir and his gang due to their nepotism for racism, but who rebels with his family and sees religion at a different angle.
Sharman Joshi as Suki is very lively in nature and brings out the best of humor next to Amir Khan. He does not have much of serious act in the movie. Wherever he is present in the movie, audiences are not deprived of good laugh.
Soha Ali Khan as Sonia looks stunning throughout the movie. She seems to do everything fine except acting. Just few scenes of jokes, teasing the boys, dancing a bit and romancing with Madhavan alone doesn’t prove her acting potential. In the scenes where she is supposed to elicit sorrows, she miserably fails, particularly when she hears of Madhavan’s death. She could have emoted better. Except her looks and sketch, she doesn’t seem to impress any other way.
Madhavan as Ajay has understood his role and done justification to that, though he is seen only for very few scenes in the movie. He is very impressive.
Alice Patten as Sue has shown some good acting. Her Hindi fluency does not suite her face and seems little out of place.
Though there are many positive elements to make this movie more interesting, one cannot ponder over the prominent flaws, which the director has not taken care to address. The movie for most of its part toggles between the contemporary India and the modern India. When showing the incidents from the past, there is no coherence between the scenes. It looks like bits and pieces of each freedom fighter life has been attached with the story, without evidently reasoning out their cause to fight against the British, because of which the complete history of their vital role for the freedom movement is not clearly understood. The most unacceptable and unrealistic aspect of the movie is the climax, which destroys the charm and the impression of the movie all-together.
The youths at the prime age of their lives, loosing their life just to bring justice to the dead man (Madhavan) is too far-fetched practicality. An act of killing the defense minister also makes no sense in the movie, one really tend to ask, if killing the unjust is the only solution to bring justice, wouldn't it would bring out more violence in the real life than what exist now? Karan killing his own father is too much of unreality to bear. These kinds of big leaks in the story, makes the movie realistically unacceptable and collapses the naturalness carried in the story from the beginning. The end could have been conceived little different and more pragmatic, without so much of bloodshed. However one has to appreciate the comic sense of the heroes even at the time of their deaths, which adds up to their performance and make us remorse for their deaths even after the movie is over.
Rang De Basanti is surely a movie, coloring the patriotic spirit in us.
The Da Vinci Code – A Loud Talk
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is a mystery thriller intertwined with religious beliefs and its controversies, bringing out ancient and forgotten histories out of the shadows onto the surface.
When I started to read this book, I was expecting it to be like any other suspense thriller, with the usual gambit of a murder scene followed by some leads left behind by the adversaries which the main characters start investigating and finally end with a happy note with enemies destroyed and the hero-heroine joining hands…nevertheless, the story started with the similar mystery plot that I anticipated (Thanks to Dan Brown for not disappointing me!!!). The initial few pages of suspense and mystery caught my attention and I was enthralled with the suspense-knot, which in this story was cryptic clues, anagrams and symbols, which gave that “not-so-easy-to-decipher” impression about the hidden and encoded communications, which when only correctly decoded, offers solutions to the mystery, within the arena of the main plot. But then, as I went deeper and deeper into the story, I realized this book is going to be different from all the other books that I have read before, though it deploys the same usual mystery strategies. Courtesy: - The interesting claims and facts that I stumbled upon in the story. Beyond these suspense’s, there was something so unique about the book like the extraordinary narration style, tidbits of interesting information at appropriate places which was acting as a vitamin to augment the character’s justifications to incidents and events happening unexpectedly throughout the storyline, representations of archeological excavation of truths and mysteries, which in my opinion made this book more distinguished and left a long-lasting impression in my heart.
This story touched me in a very special way, as if pulling me towards some magnetic force erupting from part of the narration which made me travel with the story, beyond my caste and religion, and into the pitch filled with energy - the energies of the characters and the energies of the force generated at the nucleus of reality emerging out of the creativity of the author, which made me a part of the characters and provoked me to panic with them when they were in danger, bewilder with them when they came up with unexpected truths , alarm with them when they were in distress and what not. For this very reason, I felt I am obliged to express my thoughts the way I felt about the Story and how ingeniously the author has succeeded his creative venture by mesmerizing my mind and ruling it with his thoughts, undertaking his code of conviction by overlooking my code of disbelief.
The mystery part of the story is about Jacques Sauniere, the curator of Louvre Museum, Paris, who is found murdered inside the museum’s Grand Gallery. Investigation on his murder, leads the Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) Captain Bezu Fache, to summon the eminent Professor of Religious Symbology from Harvard University, Robert Langdon, onto the scenes of the murder seeking his help to decode the cryptic clues and symbols which Jacquese had left on his body and beside him during his final minutes before his death and which the police believed, were the clues to identify the murderer. Langdon faces true shock when he inconspicuously discovers through Sophie Neveu, the DCPJ Cryptologist (and the granddaughter of the dead man), that police suspects him of the murder, as Jacques had scribbled his name at the scene of his attack before his death. Robert had to defend himself from the police as they had every evidence pointing against him as the potential target, the worse of one being a scheduled meeting of Langdon and Jacques at the time of Jacques murder. With help of Sophie, they both escape from the museum (by creating an alibi), diverting the police out of their sight they go back to the gallery investigating the cryptic clues which leads to one event after the another, and with the help of Sir Leigh Teabing, a religious historian, approach the horrifying truth behind Jacques murder and his murderers. As a “wanted” fugitives they both have very less time to go to the root of the investigation and open the can full of worms leading to shocking revelations and finally unearth the most devastating and cunning truth that had been suppressed for centuries, the truth when exposed could crush the world harmony to pieces. At this point comes the twist in the tale.
The author deserves a round of applause for his excellence in his narrative style and for his skillful writing through which he has given life to all the characters in the story. Everything about the book looks very natural. It looks that the author seem to have taken special care about not prolonging the chapters for pages, each chapter is very precise with specific events and narrations and when the suspense is reached at one scene, the author skillfully jumps to another scene, making the readers wait with impatience and anticipation to know the outcome of the suspense and keeping them hooked up with the book looking forward to the subsequent narration. One could easily fall for the author’s charismatic literary bait.
As for the special appreciation to the characters, besides Langdon and Sophie, who have existed all through the story as living characters and touches our hearts with love and concern for their lives, there is one more character in the story, who has nothing physical about him, yet lures you through his past life and present reminders of his existence, that’s Leonardo Da Vinci. Though a dead person, he comes out alive in each and every chapter of the story, against whom the entire plot of the revelations in the story has been attributed. Unraveling many hidden secrets and messages about Da Vinci and his various frescos like Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks, The Last Supper etc, lead the main characters closer to the hub of the suspense component.
I wondered while reading the book, how much of Da Vinci, who has been an embodiment of Artistic Legendary, do I know? All that came to my mind was that he is the creator of the everlasting work of art “Mona Lisa” which still lives evergreen and eternal in this world and reminds us about this prodigy of Art. But to encounter the facts and speculation about this genius and his world acclaimed creation “Mona Lisa”, I was quite stumped. The first shock came through me, when I learnt through this book that Da Vinci is homosexual (Somewhat I thought this fact about him might demean his impression). This information cleanly took me off-guard. If I was struck by a thunderbolt, even before I could come out of the impact, Imagine what would be my plight if I was struck with another thunderbolt much massive than this and which put me in deep state of unfathomable disbelief ? I learnt through this book that, Da Vinci’s biggest of creation, which has been a subject of his creative mastery for which he is remembered and adored for ageless times - Mona Lisa - is neither a male nor female. Mona Lisa is a message of androgyny. It’s fusing of both. The secret behind the smile on her face, is deliberate and meant as a tricky prank played by Da Vinci to exemplify that Mona Lisa is aware of her true nature and the smile lets out her consciousness about her own being. Next time I look at Mona Lisa, I think her smile wouldn't be captivating anymore, now that I have learnt the truth about her.
And for the most attracting part of the entire story and the main focal point of controversies that it aroused is the Holy Grail. I understand that Holy Grail is the holy cup from which Jesus had his drink, during his last supper, before he was crucified. Looking at Christianity from outside the religion, this is what at least I perceived out of that term. The allegation in this book quoted by Dan Brown, claims that Jesus Christ is not a God, but a human being and Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene (misconceived as the prostitute to the world of Christians) and that Mary carried the bloodline of Jesus in her womb, which later evolved as a Merovingian bloodline – descendents of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, who are still existent in this world centuries after centuries. All the hue and cry about the Holy Grail has a hideous message shouting unheard to the outside world, that the Grail is none other than Lady Mary Magdalene herself and telling that she is so holy by nature and so close to Jesus at heart and Soul. The enlightenment of such claims is very crushing to the spiritual believers of Christianity. It’s like their centuries of belief about God, one fine day, is stumbling down and mocking at them saying “What you have been believing all these days was not God, but actually a man, flesh and blood, who had a family and children. The mortality of a man had been illusioned and many manipulations done, including the existence of his family buried live into the grave to give him the stature what he has presently owned”. If I try to understand the sensitivity of the manipulation projected in the book in order to make Jesus Christ as what he is now, I realize it would hurt anyone as deep as how a vital blow on the head would do, because the supreme reality is the only realization widely believed and accepted across various racial communities. When the origin of supreme reality is questioned, it shatters the fundamental beliefs of mankind about their aspect of devotion and their containment in God.
An interesting segment of the fact that I came across in this book is the Priory of Sion. Priory of Sion is a Secret Organization founded by the descendents of this Jesus-Mary bloodline whose sole purpose was to protect the Holy Grail. They are believed to have some parchments containing the proof of the true identity of Mary and also her mummy, which has been preserved for centuries by the descendents of the Jesus and Mary bloodline and has been hidden deep down the earth (as in this book, currently in Paris). Sleeping with her is the truth about her destruction and her misconceptualization. Interestingly, Great men like Isaac Newton, Da Vinci and many more were the Grand Masters (leaders) of this Priory of Sion. No wonder, Da Vinci creations had shades of feminism, which were contributed to his belief about Mary and his secret way of telling the world about her existence.
The millions of Christian’s belief about their religion has been rocked by the author’s yet another speculation that the Christians most holy book – the Bible, is not actually what it is all about. His speculations fake the truth behind this holy book. At least that’s what it aims at. This is the conspiracy capable of erupting the biggest of religion mayhem and insurrection as it falsifies beliefs about Christianity as the whole.
One needs to have the audacity to write about such things jeopardizing the sole belief of an entire human race of community of spirituality, by claiming such unthinkable conceptions. Dan Brown seems to be a man of one. The credibility of this falsification is definitely questionable, however any person reading it (unless he is not a hard-core fanatic) cannot truly eliminate the stories out of their mind as absurd owing to the vehement proofs supporting the author’s theory to make it very authentic. One definitely ponders over the incidents and the (alleged) facts and gives it a thought. (At least I did that, not on any offensive motive though, just got curious about all the cock and bull stories projected, which are still lingering in my mind).
To Sum up, Da Vinci Code – Is a Code when decoded is capable of powerful destruction of human’s harmony with one another, by rupturing the most sensitive truth laid on every human’s mind.
The Truth about spirituality….
The Truth about Worship….
The Truth about their core beliefs on God….
Looking at Da Vinci Code as a Spiritual book, it is not an advisable read. But looking at the book on the lighter vein, as an entertainer to keep you occupied with gripping events and incidents, it’s definitely an advisable read. After all, the purpose of any creator is to put his imagination to fullest exploitation, with his rights to express his mind coupled with his creative expertise. Any creations should be scrutinized on a fantasy note with an optimistic observation and bring out the positive ness in the messages or the storyboard to make the reading worthy of it. As the author’s effort lies in fully realizing the capability of his creation for entertainment, the reader’s effort lies in fully understanding the book’s core objective for entertainment.
In my view, The Da Vinci Code is the Key, which opens up the door of Entertainment and not of Controversy.
When I started to read this book, I was expecting it to be like any other suspense thriller, with the usual gambit of a murder scene followed by some leads left behind by the adversaries which the main characters start investigating and finally end with a happy note with enemies destroyed and the hero-heroine joining hands…nevertheless, the story started with the similar mystery plot that I anticipated (Thanks to Dan Brown for not disappointing me!!!). The initial few pages of suspense and mystery caught my attention and I was enthralled with the suspense-knot, which in this story was cryptic clues, anagrams and symbols, which gave that “not-so-easy-to-decipher” impression about the hidden and encoded communications, which when only correctly decoded, offers solutions to the mystery, within the arena of the main plot. But then, as I went deeper and deeper into the story, I realized this book is going to be different from all the other books that I have read before, though it deploys the same usual mystery strategies. Courtesy: - The interesting claims and facts that I stumbled upon in the story. Beyond these suspense’s, there was something so unique about the book like the extraordinary narration style, tidbits of interesting information at appropriate places which was acting as a vitamin to augment the character’s justifications to incidents and events happening unexpectedly throughout the storyline, representations of archeological excavation of truths and mysteries, which in my opinion made this book more distinguished and left a long-lasting impression in my heart.
This story touched me in a very special way, as if pulling me towards some magnetic force erupting from part of the narration which made me travel with the story, beyond my caste and religion, and into the pitch filled with energy - the energies of the characters and the energies of the force generated at the nucleus of reality emerging out of the creativity of the author, which made me a part of the characters and provoked me to panic with them when they were in danger, bewilder with them when they came up with unexpected truths , alarm with them when they were in distress and what not. For this very reason, I felt I am obliged to express my thoughts the way I felt about the Story and how ingeniously the author has succeeded his creative venture by mesmerizing my mind and ruling it with his thoughts, undertaking his code of conviction by overlooking my code of disbelief.
The mystery part of the story is about Jacques Sauniere, the curator of Louvre Museum, Paris, who is found murdered inside the museum’s Grand Gallery. Investigation on his murder, leads the Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire (DCPJ) Captain Bezu Fache, to summon the eminent Professor of Religious Symbology from Harvard University, Robert Langdon, onto the scenes of the murder seeking his help to decode the cryptic clues and symbols which Jacquese had left on his body and beside him during his final minutes before his death and which the police believed, were the clues to identify the murderer. Langdon faces true shock when he inconspicuously discovers through Sophie Neveu, the DCPJ Cryptologist (and the granddaughter of the dead man), that police suspects him of the murder, as Jacques had scribbled his name at the scene of his attack before his death. Robert had to defend himself from the police as they had every evidence pointing against him as the potential target, the worse of one being a scheduled meeting of Langdon and Jacques at the time of Jacques murder. With help of Sophie, they both escape from the museum (by creating an alibi), diverting the police out of their sight they go back to the gallery investigating the cryptic clues which leads to one event after the another, and with the help of Sir Leigh Teabing, a religious historian, approach the horrifying truth behind Jacques murder and his murderers. As a “wanted” fugitives they both have very less time to go to the root of the investigation and open the can full of worms leading to shocking revelations and finally unearth the most devastating and cunning truth that had been suppressed for centuries, the truth when exposed could crush the world harmony to pieces. At this point comes the twist in the tale.
The author deserves a round of applause for his excellence in his narrative style and for his skillful writing through which he has given life to all the characters in the story. Everything about the book looks very natural. It looks that the author seem to have taken special care about not prolonging the chapters for pages, each chapter is very precise with specific events and narrations and when the suspense is reached at one scene, the author skillfully jumps to another scene, making the readers wait with impatience and anticipation to know the outcome of the suspense and keeping them hooked up with the book looking forward to the subsequent narration. One could easily fall for the author’s charismatic literary bait.
As for the special appreciation to the characters, besides Langdon and Sophie, who have existed all through the story as living characters and touches our hearts with love and concern for their lives, there is one more character in the story, who has nothing physical about him, yet lures you through his past life and present reminders of his existence, that’s Leonardo Da Vinci. Though a dead person, he comes out alive in each and every chapter of the story, against whom the entire plot of the revelations in the story has been attributed. Unraveling many hidden secrets and messages about Da Vinci and his various frescos like Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks, The Last Supper etc, lead the main characters closer to the hub of the suspense component.
I wondered while reading the book, how much of Da Vinci, who has been an embodiment of Artistic Legendary, do I know? All that came to my mind was that he is the creator of the everlasting work of art “Mona Lisa” which still lives evergreen and eternal in this world and reminds us about this prodigy of Art. But to encounter the facts and speculation about this genius and his world acclaimed creation “Mona Lisa”, I was quite stumped. The first shock came through me, when I learnt through this book that Da Vinci is homosexual (Somewhat I thought this fact about him might demean his impression). This information cleanly took me off-guard. If I was struck by a thunderbolt, even before I could come out of the impact, Imagine what would be my plight if I was struck with another thunderbolt much massive than this and which put me in deep state of unfathomable disbelief ? I learnt through this book that, Da Vinci’s biggest of creation, which has been a subject of his creative mastery for which he is remembered and adored for ageless times - Mona Lisa - is neither a male nor female. Mona Lisa is a message of androgyny. It’s fusing of both. The secret behind the smile on her face, is deliberate and meant as a tricky prank played by Da Vinci to exemplify that Mona Lisa is aware of her true nature and the smile lets out her consciousness about her own being. Next time I look at Mona Lisa, I think her smile wouldn't be captivating anymore, now that I have learnt the truth about her.
And for the most attracting part of the entire story and the main focal point of controversies that it aroused is the Holy Grail. I understand that Holy Grail is the holy cup from which Jesus had his drink, during his last supper, before he was crucified. Looking at Christianity from outside the religion, this is what at least I perceived out of that term. The allegation in this book quoted by Dan Brown, claims that Jesus Christ is not a God, but a human being and Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene (misconceived as the prostitute to the world of Christians) and that Mary carried the bloodline of Jesus in her womb, which later evolved as a Merovingian bloodline – descendents of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, who are still existent in this world centuries after centuries. All the hue and cry about the Holy Grail has a hideous message shouting unheard to the outside world, that the Grail is none other than Lady Mary Magdalene herself and telling that she is so holy by nature and so close to Jesus at heart and Soul. The enlightenment of such claims is very crushing to the spiritual believers of Christianity. It’s like their centuries of belief about God, one fine day, is stumbling down and mocking at them saying “What you have been believing all these days was not God, but actually a man, flesh and blood, who had a family and children. The mortality of a man had been illusioned and many manipulations done, including the existence of his family buried live into the grave to give him the stature what he has presently owned”. If I try to understand the sensitivity of the manipulation projected in the book in order to make Jesus Christ as what he is now, I realize it would hurt anyone as deep as how a vital blow on the head would do, because the supreme reality is the only realization widely believed and accepted across various racial communities. When the origin of supreme reality is questioned, it shatters the fundamental beliefs of mankind about their aspect of devotion and their containment in God.
An interesting segment of the fact that I came across in this book is the Priory of Sion. Priory of Sion is a Secret Organization founded by the descendents of this Jesus-Mary bloodline whose sole purpose was to protect the Holy Grail. They are believed to have some parchments containing the proof of the true identity of Mary and also her mummy, which has been preserved for centuries by the descendents of the Jesus and Mary bloodline and has been hidden deep down the earth (as in this book, currently in Paris). Sleeping with her is the truth about her destruction and her misconceptualization. Interestingly, Great men like Isaac Newton, Da Vinci and many more were the Grand Masters (leaders) of this Priory of Sion. No wonder, Da Vinci creations had shades of feminism, which were contributed to his belief about Mary and his secret way of telling the world about her existence.
The millions of Christian’s belief about their religion has been rocked by the author’s yet another speculation that the Christians most holy book – the Bible, is not actually what it is all about. His speculations fake the truth behind this holy book. At least that’s what it aims at. This is the conspiracy capable of erupting the biggest of religion mayhem and insurrection as it falsifies beliefs about Christianity as the whole.
One needs to have the audacity to write about such things jeopardizing the sole belief of an entire human race of community of spirituality, by claiming such unthinkable conceptions. Dan Brown seems to be a man of one. The credibility of this falsification is definitely questionable, however any person reading it (unless he is not a hard-core fanatic) cannot truly eliminate the stories out of their mind as absurd owing to the vehement proofs supporting the author’s theory to make it very authentic. One definitely ponders over the incidents and the (alleged) facts and gives it a thought. (At least I did that, not on any offensive motive though, just got curious about all the cock and bull stories projected, which are still lingering in my mind).
To Sum up, Da Vinci Code – Is a Code when decoded is capable of powerful destruction of human’s harmony with one another, by rupturing the most sensitive truth laid on every human’s mind.
The Truth about spirituality….
The Truth about Worship….
The Truth about their core beliefs on God….
Looking at Da Vinci Code as a Spiritual book, it is not an advisable read. But looking at the book on the lighter vein, as an entertainer to keep you occupied with gripping events and incidents, it’s definitely an advisable read. After all, the purpose of any creator is to put his imagination to fullest exploitation, with his rights to express his mind coupled with his creative expertise. Any creations should be scrutinized on a fantasy note with an optimistic observation and bring out the positive ness in the messages or the storyboard to make the reading worthy of it. As the author’s effort lies in fully realizing the capability of his creation for entertainment, the reader’s effort lies in fully understanding the book’s core objective for entertainment.
In my view, The Da Vinci Code is the Key, which opens up the door of Entertainment and not of Controversy.
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