The Da Vinci Code

Robert Langdon, #1

by Dan Brown

Mass Market Paperback, 605 pages

English language

Published April 6, 2003 by Corgi Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-552-14951-8
OCLC Number:: 974093450

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(174 reviews)

Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vaults of history.

Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever... (back cover)

17 editions

LemmiSchmoeker reviewed Sakrileg by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Brown verkauft jede Erkenntnis, die ihm bei seinen Recherchen untergekommen ist, als Sensation

1 star

Das Problem ist nicht einmal der Schreibstil, obwohl kein Zweifel daran bestehen kann, dass er grotesk schlecht ist. Tatsächlich hat Übersetzer Piet van Poll sein Möglichstes getan, das zumindest teilweise abzumildern, indem er Sätze umgestellt und Klischees umformuliert hat. Das Ergebnis ist nach wie vor nicht unbedingt hohe Literatur.

Das eigentliche Problem ist aber, dass Dan Brown jede Erkenntnis, die ihm bei seinen Recherchen untergekommen ist, als Sensation verkauft. Um das zu bewerkstelligen, macht er sämtliche Figuren zu Idioten. Ob der weltberühmte Symbolismusexperte Langdon den Vitruvianischen Mensch erst am Kreis erkennt, ein Hörsaal voller Mathematikstudenten noch nie etwas von der Fibonacci-Reihe gehört hat oder das Dechiffrierungsgenie Sophie bei jeder Erwähnung einer Verschlüsselung vollkommen verwirrt ist – es ist klar, dass Brown von seinem neu erlangten Wissen überfordert ist und es auf furchtbar unbeholfene Weise auf seine Figuren aufteilt.

Besonders deutlich zeigt sich das an Browns unerklärlicher Faszination für Anagramme. Diese …

Besonders deutlich zeigt sich das an Browns unerklärlicher Faszination für Anagramme. Diese werden bei jeder Gelegenheit von den zahlreichen Bildungsbürgern des Romans als Privatspaß oder zur Verschlüsselung eingesetzt und finden sich auch in den Namen der eigenen Romanfiguren (i. e. Leigh Teabing). In der ernsthaften Kryptografie sind Anagramme aber bestenfalls Kinderspiele, und so können sie hier als Beispiel für das stümperhaft angebrachte Halbwissen stehen, das sich durch den ganzen Roman zieht.

Nun muss nicht jeder Leser sämtliches Wissen, das hier zur Schau gestellt wird, unbedingt schon selbst mitbringen. Ärgerlich ist nicht das Bildungsniveau von Brown (oder seiner Leser), sondern dass er seine halbgaren Rechercheergebnisse als Fachwissen verkaufen will, das selbst anerkannte Experten noch verblüfft. Etwas dazuzulernen, kann nie verkehrt sein. Aber als Esel behandeln lassen muss man sich dabei nicht.

adelaide reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'The Da Vinci Code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

regardless of its pseudo-intellectualism, it kept me on the edge well enough for it to count as a 4 star book

mattmerk reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'The Da Vinci Code' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Good, but I kind of ran out of gas at the end. The best part of this book was seeing how much better a writer Dan Brown has become since his earlier and weaker book DIGITAL FORTRESS.

AbominableDrH reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'The Da Vinci Code' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Great fun

Whether you have any belief in the central precepts of the story or not, it's a cracking good read. And it's an easy read too. Thoroughly enjoyable.

RXN12 reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'The Da Vinci Code' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A must read. An immense piece of historical fiction. Has a few plot twists here and there. I like the writing style which has a feel good factor and easy to read kinda vibe to it.

BobQuasit reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

'The Da Vinci Code',

2 stars

Is the human race getting dumber? Or is it just the literary establishment? *

I picked up a mint-condition hardcover copy of The Da Vinci Code at my local public library's permanent book sale for $1. At that price, I couldn't lose; I was going on a six-hour drive with my wife, and I needed something to read. My one concern was that the book might be too complex to be a relaxing car read. After all, according to the blurbs on the cover the New York Times said it was a work of "genius"!

It's not. It's a fairly fast-paced and somewhat over-talky action/mystery/conspiracy theory novel; a potboiler, really. I was surprised by several aspects of the novel.

The writing actually betrayed a slightly juvenile touch. No offense to Mr. Brown; he's a competent writer. But standards seem to have gone down in the last twenty years or so. …

Is the human race getting dumber? Or is it just the literary establishment? *

It's not. It's a fairly fast-paced and somewhat over-talky action/mystery/conspiracy theory novel; a potboiler, really. I was surprised by several aspects of the novel.

The writing actually betrayed a slightly juvenile touch. No offense to Mr. Brown; he's a competent writer. But standards seem to have gone down in the last twenty years or so. Back in the early 1980s I ended up reading a number of best-sellers. Several of them went on to become some of my favorite books: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Shogun, Marathon Man. All of these were much better-written than The Da Vinci Code, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in particular was far and away more intelligent (and so was Shogun, for the matter!

Not to mention authors like Frank Herbert and Roger Zelazny. Their works require real thought on the part of the reader. Not so The Da Vinci Code. It's a decent potboiler with some mildly interesting secret-society conspiracy theory stuff, but even that is hardly anything new to anyone who has done even a little light reading on the topic.

On the plus side, at least Mr. Brown didn't get too disgusting. At one point I was afraid he'd pull a Wingrove or Chalker on me, with secret cult ceremonies that might turn out to be truly disturbing. Instead, the ceremony was hardly anything new; in fact, it couldn't have been older.

The characters were rather flat. The plot was a series of wham-bam escapes and secret-society deductions; the pace keeps moving along well enough, but the story becomes a bit repetitive and predictable. It was a decent time-killer (and I got an extra fillip from the odd coincidence that the hotel I stayed at while finishing the book was hosting a Knights of Columbus event, in full regalia), but it wasn't really memorable.

I'll probably give Brown another try, but only because I run out of reading material so quickly. I have to wonder, though: are all of these supposedly "brilliant" modern best-sellers so simplistic and unchallenging? I'd thought that the Left Behind series was unbelievably stupid, but now I'm starting to suspect that it's merely sub-par!

It's the literary establishment.

Ulf Hundeiker reviewed Sakrileg by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'Sakrileg' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Recht lustig, wenn man gerade keinen hohen Ansprüche an die Unterhaltung hat. Zum großen Teil sehr an den Haaren herbeigezogen.

Daniel Norton reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #2)

Review of 'The Da Vinci Code' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'll give it a 3 because it kept my attention.

okenwillow reviewed Da Vinci code by Dan Brown

Review of 'Da Vinci code' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

Après l’avoir lu j’avoue ne pas comprendre le scandale provoqué par ce livre.
Rien n’est à prendre au premier degrés, surtout pas le côté “historique”, truffé d’erreurs monumentales. Le suspens est haletant, l’ensemble coule tout seul, si on ne prend pas le temps d’analyser les invraisemblances.
Lecture facile et rapide, qui n’a pas d’autre prétention que celle de distraire.
On peut par la suite avoir envie d’en savoir plus sur les thèmes évoqués par l’auteur, mais ne comptez pas sur le livre pour vous faire des révélations sérieuses.