The Da Vinci Code

Just read The Da Vinci Code too. A good plane book. But there were several things that annoyed me about it.

(Been reading other historical mystery-type books recently, reviews will follow)

SPOILERS!

On the mechanical level, the book was full of instances where the author didn't tell you what the characters were seeing. This was particularly irritating in a small, localized way in the case of the last rhyming clue, which was revealed basically a line at a time for no reason, or at least for no reason inherent in the narrative. In the handling of What Sophie Saw In The Cellar, it damages the entire book. The event itself, when described, can't hold up the weight of the buildup to it, and Sophie's reaction seems that of another character stitched on to her for plot reasons.

(Aside: I wouldn't say Courage Under Fire is underrated, exactly, but it's rare in that there's A Dark Secret, and the characters react to it in extreme ways, and when it's eventually revealed the secret is genuinely dark enough to satisfyingly motivate what the characters did. Can anyone think of other examples? Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the genre I'm thinking of is more specific than the description I just gave, so any examples you do come up with I'll probably rule out of consideration)

On a broader level... it seemed to me that the book was artificially small. Once you realised it was a whowuzbehindit, you could work out who the who was by the standard Hollywood method of spotting the otherwise superfluous character. (Not that I did, I hasten to add). It starts off promising to be a galaxy-spanning epic, ripping the skin off the maggotty carcass of the Church &c. It ends with the Grail merely a McGuffin and the characters, all of whom have shown that they are good at keeping secrets, deciding that the wisest course of action is to keep a secret. If all you have is a hammer... This decision should have been the emotional climax of the book, and it pretty much slides by.

And on a yet broader level... I was interested by the idea that it would be the Catholic Church that would be most threatened by the surfacing of alternative Gospels, considering that of all the Western Christian churches the Catholics have the least invested in the literal truth of the Bible. Arguably, they're the most fucked-up about women and sexuality, and that could be the motivation. Still, it would have been nice to go more inside the head of the sinister Opus Dei bishop guy and find out a bit more about what he was hoping to do with the documents when he got them.

But, still, a rockin' good read, even if it lost momentum towards the end. Like Eamonn, I was interested enough to go and poke around online and see if the clues held up. Nice Madonna of the Rocks available here. Dan Brown describes her hand as scarily claw-like, but I don't see that at all; however, what I do see is that her hand and the angel's pointing finger are enclosing an invisible head, exactly the same size as the baby Jesus's, in what seems a clear reference to John the Baptist's head being cut off. Very strange... I presume Dan Brown is right here that the baby on the right is John, not Jesus, because it really looks like it should be the other way round.

One final comment: it's nice to read a book that starts with the phrase "Noted curator..." and be able to go ah, yes, we're in a comforting universe where curators are noted. Now that's writing.