The Da Vinci Code: the Illustrated Edition

by Dan Brown

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2004

ISBN:: 978-0-593-05425-3

(180 reviews)

The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel Angels & Demons. The Da Vinci Code follows "symbologist" Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris causes them to become involved in a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene having had a child together. The novel explores an alternative religious history, whose central plot point is that the Merovingian kings of France were descended from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, ideas derived from Clive Prince's The Templar Revelation (1997) and books by Margaret Starbird. The book also refers to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) though Dan Brown has stated that it was not used as research material. The Da Vinci Code provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and Mary Magdalene's role in the history of Christianity. The book has, however, been extensively denounced by many Christian denominations as an attack on the Catholic Church, and consistently criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracies. The novel nonetheless became a massive worldwide bestseller that sold 80 million copies as of 2009 and has been translated into 44 languages. In November 2004, Random House published a Special Illustrated Edition with 160 illustrations. In 2006, a film adaptation was released by Columbia Pictures.

29 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

Matthew Merkovich 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.

willhopkins reviewed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Robert Langdon, #1)

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

4 stars

A very compelling thriller, fun to think about and attempt to puzzle out, but not great writing.

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.