The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was a fantastic read, and it teaches a fair amount of Christian mythology, pagan mythology,(pagan gods and societies mainly), art history, and a wide variety of other subjects and it can be a thriller in some parts, but mainly kept you thinking on the edge of your seat. The amount of research Brown must have done is enormous, the detail is extensive. Now let's cut the book into separate pieces to evaluate it further. Theme, plot, characters, and writing style/voice.
We'll start with the theme: Mystery/Suspense and Brown did it flawlessly, The Da Vinci Code kept the reader hooked, albeit was a slow start, but it picks up further into the plot. But mysteries tend to do that, hook and reel in and the reader is left in the dark until the author decides to let them in on the mystery, that is why mystery can tie into thrillers, because the unknown is scary and exciting, thus making the reader wanting more of the book. Again, Brown did this very well, he kept the mystery alive throughout the entire novel.
The plot was insanely fascinating if you are a history lover(especially European and or ancient culture) and it even gave a history lesson on many different ancient societies, symbolism, and culture, as well as secret orders(like the Priory of Sion). Anyway, the main plot line is Robert Langdon, a symbologist/historian and Harvard professor accompanied by Sophie Neveu a cryptologist find an ancient secret buried in Da Vinci's work. Is that not awesome? The story is incredibly interesting and full of historic knowledge and is just great, the extensive research is crazy and it will pull you in. The only thing that is annoying, is that the chapters are extremely short and there's a 104 of them, doesn't affect the plot, but it's annoying. The plot jumps around different characters and is told from third person perspectives every time.
The characters were very well thought out and interesting to learn about them way they think. There are around five main characters, but Robert and Sophie were the protagonists of the novel. Each character had their own field of historic knowledge and it aided them throughout the story. The protagonists Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu were fairly different characters that were brought together unexpectedly, but were grateful for each others company. Robert, being a Harvard professor, is surprisingly the comic relief of the story, he jokes around more than Sophie does, and she is more serious than he is. Sophie has realizations of her past and how it connects to the present(of the book), and Robert is kind of just stuck in the middle of it, what luck,right? Anyways, the characters of the novel are well-crafted and interesting.
Lastly, the voice of the novel was fairly simple, a third-person perspective as if you're watching the story or someone tells you about it. But it's not completely third-person. The novel jumps around to each character, still tells the story in a third perspective, but goes into more detail about a specific character, how they're feeling, their thoughts and whatnot, that's the only unique thing about it. Otherwise, it is simply told by a narrator and jumps between characters, it's not confusing, Brown made it clear who's perspective it was when it jumped to them, each paragraph or chapter when it did, started off with their name, usually.
So The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was a great read with a fantastic plot and good historical significance, the stuff that wasn't made up anyway. It had good and well thought out characters and a unique writing style. This novel deserves a well earned A- rating, the only reason it is not a + is because it had a slow start and confusing and disappointing ending.
Dan Brown ^
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