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A review by jessmanners
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3.0
I mean, this was fine! I can't tell if it felt like well-worn territory just because Brown embraces cliches, or if it felt like well-worn territory because he invented the cliches. I don't really mind that so much--I like puzzles, and I like conspiracies, but the problem with the latter is that there's always this sense that they need to go higher ("this goes all the way to the top!!"), and you can't really get much higher than the son of God, so I guess this is the apex...but even still, the "truth" about the grail just felt sort of...meh. (of course, I couldn't help thinking about the truly awful, and clearly Da Vinci Code -inspired manuscript I read when I was an editorial intern, which was all about the true hunt for WMD...which actually stood for (wait for it...) the Womb of Mass Destruction...anyway, I digress).
It felt like there were a lot of things he wanted to have both ways...like, he wants us to care about solving the mystery and finding the Grail, but he also wants us to buy the speech at the end about the power of faith and not knowing and all that, and he wants to criticize the Church while also being really careful to make it clear that he isn't actually criticizing the Church...and I feel like I had another example, but I don't remember what it was.
Maybe if I had read this around the same time I read [b:The Golden Compass|119322|The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)|Philip Pullman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1505766203l/119322._SX50_.jpg|1536771] I would have loved it--the gleeful reaction to encountering sacrilege-lite...
Anyway, I suppose it's time I knew what happened in a book that millions of people have already gotten to...it only took me 20 years!
It felt like there were a lot of things he wanted to have both ways...like, he wants us to care about solving the mystery and finding the Grail, but he also wants us to buy the speech at the end about the power of faith and not knowing and all that, and he wants to criticize the Church while also being really careful to make it clear that he isn't actually criticizing the Church...and I feel like I had another example, but I don't remember what it was.
Maybe if I had read this around the same time I read [b:The Golden Compass|119322|The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)|Philip Pullman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1505766203l/119322._SX50_.jpg|1536771] I would have loved it--the gleeful reaction to encountering sacrilege-lite...
Anyway, I suppose it's time I knew what happened in a book that millions of people have already gotten to...it only took me 20 years!