Review of the "Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown"

      There has been alot of talk in the last 2 years over the book called the Da Vinci Code. The book managed to create alot of contraversy. Indeed, many christians saw the book as a serious attack on their faith. Christian Evangelists have already marketed books, DVDs and other media that offer refutations of the the Da Vinci Code. Millions of dollars were spent and much profit was generated. But what is the big deal anyways?

    The book is about a man who runs into a series of weird happenings in which he finds clues to investigate a murder of one of his friends. In his search for the murder he stumbles upon a code hidden in Da Vincis paintings. The author claims for example that the red headed figure standing next to Jesus Christ at the Last Supper in Da Vincis painting is really Mary Magdeline and not John as most people believe. The conclusion of the story is that the popular European legend of the Holy Grail was really Mary Magdeline. This is all based on the Free Masonic believe that Jesus got married to Mary Magdeline the "prostitute" and had children with her. Later after Jesus left the world, Mary escaped with her family to Gaul where she started the royal blood lines of the Kings of Europe.  From that "secret" history of Jesus, the European kings found that they were legitmate rulers by divine right since they were descended from the Davidic lines. Also throughout the book, certain beliefs of christianity were attacked. The author claimed specificialy that before Christianity came to Europe that the peoples who lived there had a balanced life between the feminine and the masculine. The Yin Yang and the Jewish star of David reflect that balance in nature that the ancients knew about. When the Catholic Church came to Europe and forced people to convert to Christianity, the Church disrupted that balance and pushed it towards the masculine. Mary Magdeline was turned into a prostitute. People like Da Vinci, the author claims, tried to keep the balance alive in their secret societies.

    Overall I give this book a 5 out of 10. The Da Vinci Code failed to prove it's point; mainly that the Holy Grail was Mary Magdeline. The author only provided circumstantial evidence(Da Vincis paintings, stories,ect.) The paitning of the Last Supper was the most attractive evidence for Mr. Brown's claim. However it is anyone's guess weather or not the red headed figure in that painting is a male or female.  By looking at history the book's claims of a secret history about Jesus looks real stupid. Why would anyone remember a Jesus who would hang around the elites of society and form a royal lineage to begot more elites? Jesus was known because he did precisely the opposite. He preached to the downtroden and poor. He hanged out with prostitutes to. Would anyone remember the Buddha if he did not leave his wealthy father's kingdom and stayed away from the down trodden masses? Of course not. The author also claims that all the facts in his book are correct despite his admitance that the book is a fictional story. However many of those 'facts' were disputed by others and made it easy for Christian Evangelists to exploit and easily debunk the book. One last thing to mention is that the story itself didn't make much sense. At the end of the book, the englishman the protagonist met turned his back on him and admited he was the murderer of the man. Why did the englishman do that? He could have gotten away real easily. It was irrational and a waste of story space. However I admit, the book was not boring. There were also some interesting things here and there that led me to give it a higher score then I would have.

       The Da Vinci Code generated alot of contraversy that was underserved. It is amazing that a book like this passes as American literature. Then again, it is more amazing that anyone in this country reads at all.