The Da Vinci Code is the second book by Dan Brown which features the lead character Robert Langdon, the famous professor of religious iconology and symbology from Harvard University. As in the first book devoted to Robert Langdon, the characters are involved in a quest surrounding historical events with clues left as a series of religious symbols.
The Da Vinci Code garnered a lot of negative feedback due to the controversial subject as well as the questionable authenticity of a lot of facts. The plot of the book mirrors the plot Brown seems to be incorporating in each of his books in the mystery-thriller genre. A death is followed by a quest for an entity that could destroy the world, Robert Langdon is paired with a beautiful but intelligent woman and the two discuss a lot of historical facts which are related to the theme of the book and which add to the sense of over-whelming of the reader. A man who is painted as antagonist turns out to be good and a man every one thought to be noble turns out as the main villain. If one could read the book, including the facts since a number of sources question the authenticity of the facts, as fiction, the plot may seem to be quite a fast-paced read and may entertain a reader but following the same pattern with every book just makes the plot far too predictable which would quite opposite the point of a mystery-thriller.
The plot starts with the murder of a famous art historian Jaques Saunière, the curator of the Louvre Museum. The man lies on his death bed so as to protect his secret. He lays out a series of codes in the museum so as to point out his granddaughter and Robert Langdon on a quest to get the cryptex that holds the key to the location of the Holy Grail. Multiple allusions to the sacred feminine are made through various art forms including ancient sculptures, popular culture, nature and Mathematical concepts like Fibonacci sequence and PHI.
The book mostly works on the plot which is just a journey for the Holy Grail. The characters undergo little development during this while arousing very little empathy from the readers. The Da Vinci Code makes a lot of references to Leonardo da Vinci, who is also named as a grandmaster of the Priory of Sion, whose authenticity is still disputed. The book relies heavily on the mood and the urgency of the plot which works to create the interest in readers, but reading the book while blindly believing the facts would definitely shake the beliefs of a person.
