Somewhat entertaining.
Highly suspect.
It's just a book.

For a really great book on a similar topic, try 'Foucault's Pendulum' by Umberto Eco.

An entertaining, pulpy novel. Dan Brown's a really terrible writer that tells a decent story. The whole thing kind of reads like a video game (i.e., go find a clue and advance to the next level) which is pretty fun in a wildly unsophisticated way. His earlier book Angels and Demons is good in the same way (pope assassination conspiracy).
Foucault's Pendulum is a great book that will really make your head spin and fly off.
In general, I always get off on great biblical/secret society conspiracy theories in general. Has anyone out there read any books that deal with the subject in a researched, scholarly manner? Every damn book i find is always written by some retired crackpot, which really makes it no fun.

Will concur with the writing. Dan Brown writes terribly. It was almost painful to get through in that respect (having read Nabokov just prior to it didn't help).

It's entertaining but I hate the premise. Sounds too out there for me. About as believable as "there's a treasure map on the back of declaration of independence!"

I'm getting discouraged: maybe the movie will be better...

It takes about 3 days to read it, you will enjoy it but as the above said it is higly suspect. However I would like to know if the part about the Lourve pyramid having 666 pans of glass is true?

I saw that bit about the 666 panes of glass on an earlier thread. Assuming each side of the pyramid is designed identicaly, I don't see how it can, because 4 does not divide into 666 evenly. the earlier thread is at
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=P12377_0_42_0_C

An obvious conclusion when Brown says on the first page that his main character looks like Harrison Ford.

liberaceisdead...
another secret society book you may like is
the club dumas by perez-reverte...his stories
are always entertaining at least...the flanders panel,
the seville communion etc are all good...i thinke
the seville communion is more church/religion
oriented. another book is obviously eco's the
name of the rose..but not really secret society...so
maybe a bit off topic.

i read this book while traveling through europe last fall, prior to visiting Milan, where The Last Supper is. i would have gone to see the frescoe regardless of the book or not. after reading this novel, actually standing in front of The Last Supper and examining the frescoe for myself, i can only say this with certainty--it definitely appears to be a woman in the painting, at least one at that. not to mention, the restoration of the frescoe is not so great. you can only spend 15 minutes in front of the frescoe, with only 25 people allowed in at a time. then, before you leave the building, you can purchase the da vinci code in a bazillion different languages.

I found it very entertaining....i thought it was a pretty easy read, alot of interesting history in it. It really got me thinking.

IT IS NOT A WOMAN!!!
(Sorry, but as an art history major, this argument is the one that bugs the hell out of me). The iconographic background of St. John shows that he is often depicted in this manner both in works prior and latter including those that depict the Last Supper. His portrayal as a youthful and adolescent like male is commonplace throughout and you could make an equally strong argument for his resemblance to a female figure in many other last suppers.

It's very much the Bible Code phenomenon. If you want to see something in something complex or nuanced, chances are you'll find a way to see it.

The book is incredibly overhyped. I agree Brown's a terrible author, it seems like he really wants to build suspence but ends up giving away the big twist about 20 chapters to early. I thought the psychotic pope book was entertaining enough, once again though it's the type of book that Wal-Mart carries trying to appear pseudo-intellectual. And I suppose if all he/she reads is harlequin romance novels (which I've often suspected is all wal-mart sells) then this book must seem like quite the mental hurdle to get through.
I'm just pissed so many people seem to think this is the greatest book ever, and I hear the argument, that perhaps those that didn't like it weren't smart enough to understand it, tossed around in internet forums, which is laughable.

here here, A Center for Ants?
Well, said

the booked sucked. so did angels and demons ... if you are into this type of renaissance/early modern thriller, read the rule of four or anything by arturo perez-reverte.

my current mystery book faves at the moment: a small death in lisbon and the company of strangers ... both by robert wilson

*yawn*

it reads like it was written by a third-former, all the action scenes read like tomb-raider, and all brown's heresies are too tired to be interesting.

smokety Mc smoke smoke - other than the architectural backstory Rule of Four wasn't much better than Brown's tripe.

A Center For Ants?

all i was saying, is that when i stood in front of the frescoe--to me, the non art history major--it appeared to look like a woman. and that was prior to me getting to that part of the book.

but thank you for educating the non art history major. :)

architecturegeek is right ...

the big mac of literature,

cheap, easy, quick, full of dubious meat and you end up coverd in shereded lettuce

it's a good read, entertaining but don't take it seriously. and get it from the library it's not worth buying, it's the sort of book you only read once!

it's not a good read. don't even waste another five minutes of your life thinking about reading it.

The Eight
by Katherine Neville

"Written more than a decade before Dan Brown's blockbuster "DaVinci Code", Katherine Neville's "The Eight" may easily have provided Brown inspiration."

i was astonished by how many people liked this book. i read it in a few hours on holiday, and it was easy to figure out where it was all going for the most part. and it was pretty dull. mmm, can't wait for the movie. the only highlight will be jean reno playing his usual part... a french cop.

A Center for Ants? is right. believing that St. John is a woman is one of the biggest mistake a person can make. why doesn't anybody check other leonardo paintings with st john ? another explanation is the fact that da vinci was gay so his beauty ideal was not the regular one.

da vinci's code is junk food. not even big mac. there are about 3 books which have inspired the 'writer', maybe the most important 'holy blood, holy grail'. but with the right knowledge and a little research you easily discover the bullshit. there is not one fact in the book that hasn't been proved to be wrong.

unfortunately people are interested and believe in bestsellers, some take their whole knowledge from them, instead of reading real art history.
it wouldn't be so bad if that author wouldn't keep pretending it's all real!!!


and umberto eco is a real writer, he rather makes fun of this kind of attitude as presented in da vinci's code - see the washing list in 'Foucault's Pendulum', some people find it and rewrite the whole history from decodeing that list...

name of the rose by eco isn't necessarily off the topic as eco explains in the book real facts about all the monastic orders ( the ones that also appear in da vinci's code)

i'm so angry about this as my father read the book and came to me : ... 'you know there was an architect vitruvius?' ...

this is what i call heresy!

yther: research.
demolay/i magic pit, dark, blanket king/pope: no, no, no- pardon, vayl steak burn, light, light. research.

more nonsense for the chronic insomniac

Foucault's Pendulum was an attempt of parodying (and mocking) the excess of/in interpretation that leads to conspiracy theories and to
semiotic 'singularities', its meant to be funny, like Naked Gun or Scary Movie. Hardly the same thing.

And it is very possible, actually probable, that Issa was married. It was
one of the most potent political tools that led to inter&cross-tribal affiliations at the time. Those macho men at the twilight of Christianity
would hardly want to follow a long tressed twinkly toed suspect 'bachelor' so gay he could glide across the water, ya think?

Anyways, Christ as ye know him probably (just so I dont get smitten) didnt exist but is an amalgam of
the greater region's mythologies and circa 0 CE Middle Eastern politics. I love the sacrificial lamb thing though, its very sexy of a man to be so commited I think.

really interesting topic but poorly written. it read like a movie, so i guess the movie will be pretty good.

the cellardoor whore: I like what you write here. Christ has become more a generic archetype than a particular individual person, anyway. (An amalgam, as you say) That having been said, I still go to mass every week: I find the archetype to be so compelling... He HAD to be manifested circa 0 CE, real or invented or merely a trick of the imagination doesn't matter much.

Had I been a christian, I would have been very much a Mary kind of person. The child brewing inside of her, the first moments and christianity still liquid..as if she had, like those primary myths, swallowed god in reverse. jesus then seems like a necessary afterthought, the obvious convergence...simply and obviously a man god. Beautiful, glorious, superstar, uniform, airy. But Mary is the cthonic feeding the divine and hence infected with it, its holiness tracing its way through her veins, hers is the tension of the 'pagan' flesh being inflicted by an intense rash of holiness. Similarly, she infects the divine with human nature. She is every woman that preserves the future within her, she begets herself and begets the
thing that helps her beget herself. In Mary, (woman)nature becomes divine by regeneration. Jesus is how we think of men, a needful consequence-event, short lived brilliance, obviousness...like the penis, almost didactic in its ability to be obvious in form and signification. To save Jesus from that mortal fallibility of being a man,try and make him unto himself,
myth endows him with a woman's characteristic, self regeneration, resurrection. Its not ironic that its his mother's gift to him. Always Eve

I wish there were people with your poetry and imagination in the hierarchy delivering the homilies...
alas the church is overrun with pharisees

First let me say I don't read enough or as much as I'd like to. I haven't read this book, but from everything I've heard it sounds like your typical bold-font-titled paperback thriller/suspense/mystery/romance/political thriller/political suspsense/political mystery/political romance trash. It's the sort of stuff that I wouldn't mind watching if it were a movie, but with books, I look for something a little more intellectually-stimulating. Just a personal preference I guess, but I just can't take any paperback writers, no matter how well-known they are, seriously.

filming at Lincoln Cathedral