The DaVinci Code
I am a sucker for thriller genres. In fact, I liked to read book because of its thrilling aspect. The difference between watching a thriller movie and reading a thriller book is that reading thriller lasts longer. கை அடிச்சு தெரிக்காம Orgasmic நிலைலயே அற மணி நேரம் இருந்தா எப்டி இருக்கும் – And that is precisely why reading thriller is fucking awesome.
Moreover, my habit of reading books was started because of thriller books. Books by Sujatha, Rajeshkumar and Pattukoettai Prabhakar were my initial dope that made me to read more books. Ironically people would ask me why I was an atheist. Some would even go further and judge me saying that I am a Periyarist (Those Madurai Guys) and that I had read a lot of Periyaar books. But in truth, to put it in a cringy way, it was Sujatha who planted the seed of Atheism inside me. Later I started having dilemma about hating or liking Sujatha because he was a great devotee and he tried the same thing Dan Brown tried in his novels.
Its combining God and Science. Dan Brown reached a further step when he tried explaining spirituality with Science.
Reading is a tedious task and unless the books keeps us hooked, we would lose interest in reading it quickly. At least it would be a problem initially when we try to read complex books in our early stages IMO. (At least it would be a problem to me)
Of all the Dan Brown books I have read, I liked this book so much because of three reasons.
- Nostalgic Final Reveal
- Best climax
- The Sacred Feminine
Aww the nostalgia! When I was a boy, I read a Sujatha novel named “Nillungal Rajave”.
I couldn’t take my mind off the final twist of that book. I was flabbergasted at the end. That was the first thriller twist experience I could remember having. But the first movie where I was startled by the end twist was the 1950 released tamil movie called நடு இரவில் (At the midnight).
The brief premise of that story is this: The godfather of the family was dying, and members of his family were coming to his house to visit him one last time. But in a mysterious turn of events, one member from that family was killed every night exactly at 12 AM. It was a basic murder mystery, and, in the end, the reveal made me to check my sanity.
It followed a technique called I am the killer and I am the victim. It was first time for me to experience that level of mystery. To top it off, there was a scene involving the killer and the victim. A famous example would be the film Fight Club but that was not a mystery movie and it was not at all an intended one. Rather it talked about the American Rat Race politics. I came to know about that when I read the book version of the movie. Anyways, that’s the gist of this technique.
Dan Brown used this same technique in this book which gave me a lot of nostalgia.
The climax that resonated the truth!! This book didn’t deal with Science vs religion as the last book, but it dealt with a different tactic to damage the religion. I once saw a tweet (one of those times when I scroll the shit out of all the social medias) saying that Jainism was destroyed (or killed) because the followers of Jainism considered their leader Jainism, Mahavirar, as a mortal. This led to the conflict that Jainism was not a religion. They were abolished saying that Jains were a bunch of people who worship a mortal. When Buddhism faced this similar issue, the followers of Buddhism made Gautama Buddhar as their god.
DaVinci Code was trying to do precisely that. It basically tries to prove Jesus as a mortal man who had family and stuff. That was the main reason this book had a great outrage of people. It did not question the divinity and spirituality of the followers of the religion or its teaching. But it directly questioned the divinity of the religion’s supreme power, Jesus Christ!
As I said earlier, this book too had the hidden layer of combining science and god. I didn’t notice it at first but after I read the next novel in this series, the lost symbol, it became clearer as a sunny day.
Think about it in this way. Yes, the Davinci code tried to make the immortal Jesus to a normal mortal man. But this book never questioned the character of Jesus. If this book said Jesus was not only a man but also a worst kind of man, then that would be a perfect way of establishing the truth and demolishing the religion. But it portrays Jesus as a man who wanted to save his wife and child sacrificing himself in the process. I also learned that Jesus was a Jew and Jews formed an alliance to kill him. It came as a surprise to me when The Last Temptation of Christ movie directed by Martin Scorsese was mentioned in this book and I instantly added it to my watchlist.
I also checked all the authenticity of the information after
reading every novel of Dan Brown especially the A&D and Davinci Code to
understand the truth and the myth. Many of them are not proven yet and the
history portrayed by Dan Brown were well known conspiracy theory that were just
assumptions. But the point of all these is that each lie carries something that
ironically hides the truth. Becoming a Sanghi Am I?
Jesus may not be a mortal man but the supposed lie of him being mortal destroys the myth of Virgin birth of Jesus. This was just one of many examples I noticed while reading the book, but this was the gist of it.
Sacred feminine chills misogynists alike :P Every Dan Brown book expresses a message. Be it the Science vs God in A&D or the trick to reduce Over population in the Inferno, every Dan Brown story has a interlined message to it. The DaVinci Code had a similar message IMO. The hatred towards this book kinda brushed away the actual message. To call it as a message would be cringy but the truth is DaVinci Code is a Feminist book.
In my opinion at least... Keeping Jesus’s mortality aside, it deals with the wamans and how their importance was taken out by the insecure male minds. The most intriguing part about this truth is that it never claimed wamans were the best. Then that would make this book like the materials created by கலாச்சார காவாளர்கள் (Pun Intended). Instead it mainly dealt with how the equality of women snatched away by the religious group. All in all, it’s kind of made me think that atheist or scientist never a threat to religion. High minded women were the enemy to the religion.
I am not sure in which book I read the witch hunt story (probably the lost symbol or Davinci Code) but the point was that witches were the woman who studied a lot of books and the religious groups feared that they might end up in destroying them. So, they killed all these women in the name of witch hunt. This kind of resonates with our own Indian misconception where Bengali women practices Black Magic. But, in reality, and according to the statistics, Bengali women read a lot of books and most of them are independent who works and earns salary more than an average man.
Some religious group cut off the clitoris of young girls to deprive them from sexual desires. Shocking it may seem, they justify these acts by saying that they were saving these young children from succumbing to carnal and sexual desires. I have heard this same statement somewhere else. It’s a famous quote our southern boys would often use. It’s the infamous துப்பட்டா போடுங்க டோழி 😎
I somehow finished reading Da Vinci code for the second time. When I read it for the first time, I didn’t able to get these many points. Reread always has its moments. And with that, Da Vinci code became my most favorite book of all time. (or at least the best book for me from the works of Dan Brown) And then I picked up my next most favorite and at the same time, my most hated Dan Brown Book.
SPOILER OF DA VINCI CODE
The Davinci Code
What is an impressionist movement?
Langdon is thinking of Vittoria is a normal thing. But in A&D, there were two scenes, where Langdon was trying to reach the top of the mountain and a woman reached there first complaining that she've have married a young man and reaches her hand to help Langdon.
One scene was at first, Langdon was dreaming and the other scene was when Langdon got stuck in Sarcophalegus if I remember correctly.
So, the mystery remains, did Robert Langdon had a wife. If yes, then what happened to her? If no, what the fuck is this dream about?
Villain came from the word villager?!?!!? WTF??!
So, Pagan are the country dwellers which means village people who worshiped trees other than follwing a certain religion. Nature worship.
Know more about Pagans and their worship (gods and their culture)
Chapter 6 - The best chapter ever with a load of fascinating facts and twists.
150 Pages into Davinci Code. Every chapter in this book has a twist and a cliffhanger (also some BG stories)
I had watched Davinci Code movie in my childhood and I know the ultimate big reveal in this book. Yet, it still keeps me turning the pages to find how they are going to reveal it.
So Far, there are 2 major mysteries and 2 minor mysteries.
1, Who's the Teacher? (Aringrosa and Silas were taking commands from this Teacher guy) and what are they after? (it was supposed to be found under the rose line of Saint Sulpice)
2, Langdon and Sophie arc - Finally, Robert found out the first piece of the mystery (which is an anagram BTW and it was fucking awesome) and it lead to Mona Lisa. So, whats with Davinci and his famous painting Mona Lisa?
3, As for the minor mystery, the sister of Saint Sulpice church suspects Silas of someone dangerous that she'd told from her ancestors? What would be secret they have passed on to the sister? - This is an easy one. It was just the mystery of the lies the 4 PS guys deceived.
4, Sophie started hating her grandfather after she sees him doing something strange. What would it be?
chapter 28 - about left wing and right wing was simply fantastic. It tells about mysogyny and today's men's primary reason for insecurity. (but the fact check proves it wrong though. Yet, the wholesome idea is true to some extent)
Chapter 56 - Ohhh! A lot of information. Whether its fiction or non fiction, I love to read conspiracy theories when it is explained the way Dan Brown explains it. Have to fact check it but the point its trying to say is want I like the most - I guess they are trying to convey Jesus a mortal man who possessed leadership qualities (not a single bit godly) and making him got is a tactic used by Constantine for his political gain or something.
[17:13 08-08-2020]
319 Pages finished!! Almost all the mysteries remain the same and till now, the davinci code feals like a treasure hunt rather than a murder mystery novel vibed Deception point or Angels and Demons.
1, What is Holy grail? And the shock is he/she is a person? - Never revealed
Chapter 58 - In was not only Sophie that had goosebumps. I too had goosebumps learning the secret
Finished reading Davinci code.
This, by far, has the greatest villain reveal of all and it reminded me of Nadu Iravil Tamil movie.
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