Hello, So I just finished reading the Da Vinci Code and this post has spoilers so you shouldn't read any further. I have few points to discuss . 1) I really didn't get what happened in the end. Langdon finds the place of the grail but instead of searching for it, he kneels? What is that supposed to mean? Does the grail really exist? Is it a grail? Is it documents? Is it the tomb of Marry Magdalene? Was the riddle/poem that Jacques Sauniére meant to be a double entendre to find Sophie's family and to find the grail? So why didn't Langdon reveal the grail from its place? 2) Was Dan Brown the first to come with the idea of hidden messages in art pieces and hidden symbols about religions ? I know there is a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail which of speaks of similar matters but I have not read it. I read somewhere that Dan's book is inspired really by In The Name of The Rose but I can be wrong. 3) How do you presume the author was able to draw a story by connecting real locations and pieces of art even though these places/works are not related to each other? I think it might have taken exhaustive work to link planet venus 5 petal flower route to Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man to the star of David 2 triangles being feminine and masculine symbols. Do you presume this theory always existed where you just thought about it one day? Do you think he planned it using a mind map?
There are some similarities with Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum. (Eco is also the author of Name Of The Rose.) Again the author mixes real and imaginary sources to create a sense of a long-standing conspiracy, but the result is much richer and more complex than Brown's effort.
Let's be fair, drinking a bottle of absenthe will lead to a richer, more sophisticated and cultured night than reading Dan Brown. And I say that as someone who saw some merit in Angels and Demons.
