The Da Vinci Code

By Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy

Wow! This book has been keeping me up these last few nights.

It's extremely fast paced and some chapters are as short as 3/4s of a page.

In essence, this book revolves around a mysterious murder with messages being left behind by the victim in the final moments of the victim's life. The entire book takes off from there.

I wouldn't say that the book uses very elegant language and the author certainly is didactic and obvious in parts. Dialogue between the protagonist and his book editor referencing the bestselling book of all time gets the witty retort about Harry Potter. As if that is not enough, the protagonist replies "I'm referring to the Bible."

The scope is huge and takes in 1000 years of history in ts 400 to 500 pages.

Not being well read enough to comment on the accuracy of the facts, I suspect that the author was a little loose with the truth when he said “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents,and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” Not to say he lied, but with Jesus and the Bible and historical accuracy often playing second fiddle to faith based reporting and writing, I suspect that he chose versions of the truth to add drama to the novel.

If you can start from that premise, The Da Vinci Code is an excellent read. Fast paced, entertaining, and a great book to pick up bits of trivia. For example, did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci was homosexual? And that his rendition of the Last Supper actually has a woman (speculated to be Mary Magdalene) on his right? And symbolism and religious imagery of the time being what it was, I've since discovered (by doing some internet research of my own)that this was the Maestro's way of thumbing his nose at the Catholic Church.

Having said that, much of the speculation of the Catholic Church suppressing the "sacred feminine" (remember this phrase;it get's used a LOT in the book) I take to be true.

Anyway, my socio-political leanings aside, pick up the book and read it. You won't regret it.