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This is an outstanding book, a perfect example of using the tricks of the novelist's trade to capture your attention on the first page and make you turn the rest of the pages fast-fast-fast to the very end. You see some of the tricks, just as early movie audiences saw the tricks in serials that left Pauline in peril at the end of each serial chapter, yet the fans always came back the next week for more. The trouble with this technique is that it often promises something that it cannot later deliver. However, Dan Brown delivers more than I thought he could before the reader's feverish pitch gradually subsides, for me sometime after the halfway mark. The characters include Robert Langdon, a professor of religious symbology at Harvard; Bezu Fache, a Parisian police captain whose tenaciousness resembles that of Hugo's Inspector Javert; Silas, an albino whose devotion to a person of high rank resembles that of Hugo's Quasimodo; the Teacher, who is a malefactor; Sophie Neveu, a policewoman cryptographer who helps Langdon and rediscovers her love for her grandfather after he is murdered in the prologue; the grandfather, Jacques Sauniere, who was the Curator of the Louvre and who in spite of death is symbolically present in almost all the other chapters; and a handful of others who assist or impede Robert and Sophie as they try to elude the long arm of Bezu Fache. The characterization in this book is good. Each character is instantly recognizable so there is no need to wonder about this or that person's previous part in the story. Although the story borders on fantasy, each character is recognizable. The author's skill here, I believe, is in his concentration on the plot, keeping the number of characters down to an easily handled few, and letting each character play no more a role than the plot demands. The setting, mainly Paris, is also good, but without overshadowing the characters and the plot. Indeed it is the plot that is predominant here, a plot somewhat complicated by a need for symbols and their explanations, but still kept relatively simple in its unity. The style is excellent, especially in the sense that it doesn't interfere with the plot; it avoids triteness or being too flowery and is beautiful in its transparency. The style does what language is supposed to do: act as a conduit for the plot, no more, no less. In the first chapter, Silas murders Jacques Sauniere and runs. The dying man has time enough to arrange his body in an easily understood symbol that leads to Leonardo Da Vinci. He also makes reference to his granddaughter and to Robert Langdon, whom he knew by reputation only. Captain Fache, policeman who is legendary for his ability to play cat and mouse with criminals, convinces himself that Langdon murdered Sauniere, and he invites Langdon to the scene of the crime. We learn that the murdered man was also the leader of a secret society that has custody of the Holy Grail, and the clues that he leaves behind point to its location. The difficulty is that when each clue is solved, the answer becomes a new clue in itself, and like peeling the onion, the seekers go on and on. Sophie aids Robert Langdon in escaping from Fache, who now devotes all his time and energy to recapturing his prize suspect. At the end of each chapter we think that the jig is up, but each new chapter leads, like the clues to the Holy Grail themselves, to a new adventure for Robert and Sophie. From another direction the Teacher and Silas try to get to the Grail first, or barring that, try to find Robert and Sophie so as to let them show the way to the Grail. The form here is almost classic, but the inclusion of symbolism gives it a newness that prevents our overfamiliarity with this type of plot from cloying. After a while we realize that the newness cannot go much further, but we're so hooked that we don't mind (or, speaking for myself, I don't mind) that the chase has become more commonplace, more "head them off at the pass." Still, the author has kept a few surprises for the end game, so we don't tend to think it was much ado about nothing after all. In an introductory "Fact," the author assures us that the societies, the famous people referred to in passing, and descriptions of art, documents,and secret rituals are all true and accurate. Still, without having all the author's pertinent knowledge at our fingertips, it is difficult to separate the fiction from the facts. We're left with the feeling that there must be a number of fictitious inventions here that revolve around the facts, but we can't quite be sure of which is which. As an example, after looking in vain in my own reference works for a chapel said to have been built in 1446 by Knights Templars on the site of an ancient Mithraic temple, I doubted that the chapel really existed; however, recourse to Google showed that it is real and even has its own website. If some readers became deeply interested and wanted to follow up some of the 'facts' presented here, I have no doubt that it would give them a fascinating journey. But you don't have to get behind the symbology used so skilfully in this novel in order to appreciate the book. Read the book just as one more adventure story of the type that you used to find so spellbinding as a child, and you will be well-rewarded. It's fast-moving without padding, you don't want to put the book down, you feel mentally stimulated as you read, and you're filled with admiration for the skill that went into this marvelous once-upon-a-time story-telling. It's proof that it's still possible to write a superlative story, even today.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, February 2004
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