re:mote voices

Title: The Da Vinci Code
Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: Corgi Adult

One suspects that there are currently enough copies of Dan Brown’s books in print to repave a major city. Regardless, it is clear that Brown’s success comes from the undeniable appeal of his combination of historical and mystic conspiracy with the contemporary thriller. Brown’s style may tend towards the hyperbolic melodrama, but with that The Da Vinci Code is a fairly easy read, and I’ve certainly read people that have pushed the style further.

The second novel featuring his character Robert Langdon, The Da Vinci Code sees Langdon dropped in the deep end after the murder of the 4 top members of a secret organisation in Paris. The men have been killed by an off-shoot of the catholic church as an attempt to prevent the revelation of information which would undermine Christianity. Information which has been held by the secret organisation which was once led by Leonardo da Vinci. Langdon finds himself implicated in the murders, with the possibility that the works of da Vinci hold the key to what is actually going on.

Undoubtedly The Da Vinci code is comparable to Italian writer Umberto Eco’s classic Foucault’s Pendulum. Both following the history of the Knights Templar, and how they fit into the history of Europe and Christianity. The theories have some divergence, the core of Brown’s idea tending towards the ideas surrounding the Holy Grail. One thing I found particularly curious was the manner in which Brown’s The Da Vinci Code comes across as being humourless, while Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum retains a certain wit, even in translation. Although in saying that, there is almost something unintentionally comical about The Da Vinci Code, particularly in the way it tends towards farce. Part of which is the sense that it is almost as though Brown makes up the turn of events as he goes – given the convolutions and determined attempts to provide and abundance of cliff hanger moments. Still, while Foucault’s Pendulum is a significantly more impressive novel, The Da Vinci Code is entertaining to some degree, and on that basis I’ll be surprised if we don’t see a cinematic adaptation of Brown’s work in the near future.