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.
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