Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - Book Report/Review Example

The Da Vinci by Dan Brown draws the storyline from some strong sources and creates a lot of alternative assumptions that spark human response and imagination. The movie too, as directed by Ron Howard represents intricate surface details that approximates the truth. The actual debate launches itself when the whole myth about the Holy Grail is revealed to be a sanguinary and manipulative history of the Catholic Church. This particular seamy side of the Church (the Opus Dei mission) is contrasted with the provocative mystery of all ages that the Priory of Sion seeks to preserve. Mary Magdalene's womb (symbolic chalice) is established to be the actual Grail and the very site of conflict because Magdalene is proven to be Christ's wife and the mother of his child. There are a lot of fictitious facts that are supplanted both through the visual medium (in case of the film), and by Dan Brown. The author establishes this notion not only through simple conjecture but moulds all available evidence in favor of his theory, which is not too difficult because all artwork (which he uses as aid) contain indefinite signs and symbolisms that can never be anchored by a single definition. In short he attaches exceptional importance to Gnostic theories and fringe writings that he over reads and complicates them in their implication. Dan Brown therefore depends on Leonardo Da Vinci's works to establish him as a member and keeper of this secret that are abundant in his art. The Mona Lisa becomes a testimony to the sacred union between the male and the female and the perfect balance that the patriarchal Church has secretly and strategically fought all through the ages to usurp. He rewrites a lot of historical events and hence it gives him a perfect opportunity to play with the end result. The response to the book and the film actually anticipates a romantic recovery of truth, which is an ideal desire of all human beings. From Plato to the recent theories, all philosophy and metaphysical speculations have been about reaching the Ideal and finding Truth. The novel paradoxically accomplishes this very fact by upsetting a very strong source of truth-The Bible and the history of Christianity. One must give sincere credit to Dan Brown for ensuing such a fiery debate about the nature of Truth that the book challenges us with. The fiction is convincing and hence simulates the Truth that should be and not that is. It fails to be a scholarly work of discovery, but becomes a conspiracy theory builder. The Bible claims a certain Truth and Dan Brown, another. Both depend on human credibility and faith. One must understand the bigger picture and the real practice of faith. The world where the Church is shown to be a villain is a book under the control of its creator and real life, and history has been essentially reduced to a series of orchestrated unfolding. All evidences are put accordingly in order to achieve optimum reader response because it refers to real life objects like the Vinci paintings and plays with readers thirst for a little adventure. What better adventure that to go on a journey into a familiar world, which actually becomes a testimony to the hidden and almost alien Truths The Grail is revealed to be a human, and Christ becomes a literal father and a possessor of a bloodline (sang real), where the entire Christian history is reduced to a single theatrical moment of assassinations (everywhere on the face of Earth where Christianity evolved). The Da Vinci Hoax is a non-fiction book written by Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel published in 2004 by Ignatius Press, which states that Dan Brown popularizes unfound theories and seeks to confuse the layman.1 It definitely hurts religious sentiments, but the crucial point of argument is that the book makes absolute demand for the truth. Any demands for absolutism is always a little suspect because it gives undo importance to anomalies in history that have remained unexplained and unaccredited for too long to suddenly be infused with so much Truth, purpose and certainty. The book also uses a lot of strategies to unveil the proposal it sought to reveal through selected props and the use of objectivism. The reflexivity that it scientifically poses is nothing but a good and intentional narrative strategy that gives an aura of positivist impartiality. The moot point of all the props used, like the Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, idea of the "sacred feminine", and all the supposed Da Vinci codes is to confuse the practices of History. Robert Langdon is the perfect man to be the mystery solver because the book also acts as a testimony not only to the fact, but also becomes a fictitious proof of the Church's murderous lineage since it still is shown to be trying to suppress the keepers of the truth, and murders all the Priory of Sion leaders. The villains are the Church priests who try to kill Sophie and Langdon and anyone who might upset the cornerstone of it's belief- that Jesus was human and not divine. This selective and ad absurdum reduction of a single murder in the museum leading to the biggest unaccredited truth of history makes a perfect fool of the public who tend to keep not such depth of knowledge about symbols and the change in their meanings through history. What Dan Brown does is use new and creative reasons to prove the fictitious as real. He makes a perfect reality where the usual myths and perceptions about them are cancelled and everything become part of an obsessive sign and signifier game. Since it is never too hard to play with sign one is taken into the politics of the Church that can be best attacked in this secular age and Scriptures can be deconstructed to reveal anything. The book uses instances of abuses like the desexualized "Virgin Mary" image to arrive at something more appealing but which is not true. It plays with mass desire. Like the "feminity" of Vinci's Last Supper can be confusing to the present generation and a strongly gendered society where masculine and feminine are categorized appearances. But the disciple who has been marked as Mary Magdalene is actually a misinterpretation of Vinci's Florentine school of art where youths were often represented with feminine attributes.2 The use of cirice in the Opus Dei tradition again has been sensationalized and thereby exaggerated to concoct horror with mystery. The scriptural purity and originality of the Bible and all its versions have always been a big part of textual criticism. There are always some inconsistencies in all the versions of the Scriptures that try to best represent the original intention of religious teachings that are but sadly lost in history.3 The references that Dan Brown draws are only eclectic and have no real bibliography because he plays with words to establish Mary as a misrepresented Saint. No language in a text can claim itself to be the ultimate representation of the truth and no argument is complete without acknowledging the fleeting nature of these words themselves, in whose basis rests Dan Browns claim to fame, publicity stance and realistic fictions. References Welborn, Amy. De-coding da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of the Da Vinci Code (Our Sunday Visitor, 2004). Hanegraaff, Hank and Paul Maier. Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction (Tyndale House Publishers, 2004). Olson, Carl and Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius Press, 2004). Read More