Book Review

The Da Vinci Code

By
Randeep Wadehra

American symbologist Robert Langdon – you’ll recognize him if you’ve read Brown’s earlier crime novel Angels and Demons – is in Paris on a lecture tour. Late in the night he is woken up and informed by the French police that Jacques Sauniere, the aged curator of Louvre, has been murdered. When Langdon reaches the murder site, he finds the deceased’s body lying naked on the floor in a position that resembles some kind of secret symbol. Around the body are a strange message and a code.

Thence begins Langdon’s ordeal, as he is the prime suspect. However, he is lucky in having an ally in the cryptologist Sophie Neveu. Together, the two try to unravel the mystery behind Sauniere’s murder and promptly get caught in a deadly trap set up by powerful but anonymous forces. While tackling the labyrinth of secret languages and signs the duo discovers that the Priori of Sion is the guardian of the Holy Grail – the most sought after prize by adventurers, historians, theologians and of course the Church itself. Spine tingling close shaves, murders and confrontations interweave with stunning betrayals and cryptic brainteasers to keep the reader enthralled, even as the two protagonists go in search of the Holy Grail and Sauniere’s murderers.

In fact, the search for the Holy Grail has spawned several legends like the medieval romance of Percival, who sets forth to achieve knighthood at King Arthur's court. On the way he reaches the castle of his uncle, the Fisher King, a renowned angler. The Fisher King, unknown to him, is custodian of the Holy Grail and of the spear that wounded Christ on the cross. Because of his sinful ways, the Fisher King has been struck dumb on coming into the presence of the sacred chalice. When Percival enters the castle he witnesses a procession in which the bleeding spear and the Holy Grail pass before the speechless king. Astonished, Percival fails to ask any questions concerning the strange phenomenon, not knowing that if he had spoken, his uncle would have been healed. After many wanderings, Percival returns to the Grail castle, restores the power of speech to his uncle, and succeeds him as king. Then there is the legend of Sir Galahad, of Arthur’s Court, and another one of Sir Bors, apart from many pertaining to knights who fail in their quest for the sacred chalice.

Many salient points of the Grail story, notably the hero and the magic vessel, are now regarded as arising from a Celtic saga that the Christian intellectual elite employed as a vehicle for moral and religious instruction. Chrétien de Troyes, the 12th-century French poet, left at his death an unfinished poem, Perceval le Gallois that was continued by other writers. Taking cue from Chrétien's romantic poem, the 13th-century German epic poet Wolfram von Eschenbach came up with Parzival, held as a fine example of the Grail theme. In the 15th century the English writer and translator Sir Thomas Malory narrated the saga of the quest for the holy chalice in his Morte d'Arthur. We find the Grail legend resurfacing in Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and, again, in the German composer Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal.

Obviously, the Da Vinci Code is no ordinary pulsator. One finds here an author of refined sensibility brilliantly succeeding in his breathtaking attempt to fuse serious literature with entertaining murder mystery. Brains make the brawn almost redundant in the narrative despite the evil presence of Silas, the murderous albino. Bedroom calisthenics have been eschewed too – in fact sex is totally missing, though romance makes its presence felt. History, architecture, archeology, mythology, theology, anagram based ciphers and modern hi-tech – all have been cleverly intermeshed to come up with a plot that baffles and yet keeps one wrapped up page after page.

Brown has also managed to step on the corns of conservative Christians by making his characters question the extant legends. Is there an alternate history of Christ hidden in deep recesses of a church somewhere in Europe? Is the Holy Grail really the chalice that Christian legend says it is? Is the Priori of Sion a trustee to the Sangreal Documents that could be embarrassing to the Church? Did the early Christians deliberately demonize pagans and their divine symbols? These and other intriguing questions have been woven into a thriller that is racy, romantic and riveting.

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