The Da Vinci Code #2

Through the first half of The Da Vinci code, I must say I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It is a very thrilling book that is filled with twists and turns. I would say that the first half was everything that I expected it to be from its immensely positive reputation.

The books started out with a murder (coincidentally, so did the first book I read). A man named Jacques Saunière, an extremely wealthy man in Paris, had scheduled a meeting with Robert Langdon, the protagonist and a professor of symbology at Harvard. However, the night before their conference, Jacques is murdered inside of Grand Gallery of the Louvre. On his body however, he leaves a code on his body, written in blood, and also leaves his body in a very strange position. Robert Langdon teams up with Jacques granddaughter to team up to solve, all while Robert Langdon is on the run from the police, framed by an affluent organization with close relations to the police. As you can see, it makes for a very interesting plot.

 The author of the book, Dan Brown, does a very good job of providing suspense to complement mystery. One of the main ways Brown utilizes suspense is how he ends almost every chapter with an exciting discovery by one of the characters, which is then further explained at the beginning of the next chapter. This draws the reader into the book so they “can’t put the book down.” There are several examples of this, such as at the end of chapter 9. Brown closes the chapter on page 53 with Langdon listening to a voicemail on his phone; “Mr. Langdon, do not react to this message. Just listen calmly. You are in danger right now. Follow my directions very closely.” This also happens in the chapter 11, when Langdon sees that there was a fourth line written on Jacques body that he had not seen before, and it applied directly to him  (For the sake of not spoiling the story, I will not quote it).

This is realistic fiction, so Vonnegut’s shapes of stories would be applicable. It looks like this story will turn out like the “man in hole,” which consists of starting out well off, and then falling into a terrible position, and then spending the story trying to dig yourself out of the hole. It looks like Langdon will be doing this throughout the story, as he started off as a successful professor at one of the best colleges in the country, to being chased by the police for murder, and then I predict that he will eventually right the case and prove that it was not him, digging himself out of the hole.

Overall, I would say that I have greatly enjoyed the first half of this book and can only hope that the second half of this book is as exciting.