Bestseller: The Da Vinci Code

When Arts introduced the “Bestsellers” subsection for shorter reviews of popular books, I thought for sure that I would soon be reading something on “The Da Vinci Code.” But half of spring semester went by and no intrepid writer has stepped up.

As far as bestsellers go, Dan Brown’s interesting novel is a no-brainer. As of last week, it has returned to the number one spot for hardcover fiction after an incredible 157 weeks on the list. A copyright/plagiarism lawsuit and a star-powered movie adaptation are now conspiring to keep the book awash in the media spotlight.

Perhaps Brown’s plain-as-potatoes prose and wooden narration makes the book too Mickey Mouse for us. Or maybe the hype is just too loud. What business does such a straightforward thriller have selling so well?

At least that was my attitude when I finally read “The Da Vinci Code” during intersession.

I was skeptical. Last summer, I had read Brown’s earlier novel, “Deception Point,” which is decently entertaining but profoundly unremarkable. The sophomore effort features plenty of shadowy government officials, unbelievable technology, and pretzel-shaped plot twists, but the book is standard fare.

Instead of trying to innovate the thriller genre, Brown just took the trusty template and filled in the blanks, as if completing a jumbo-sized Mad Libs. Scientist ______ (boring Anglo-Saxon name) and the beautiful intelligence analyst ______ (another name) team together to battle the conspiracy of the ______ (sinister government agency). Writing an Expos paper should be so easy.

After reading “The Da Vinci Code,” I discovered that Brown, a former English teacher, is a creature of habit. There are no surprises—just more of the same winning formula. Replace the scientist with a stolid Harvard symbologist, the analyst with a sassy cop, and the executive branch with the Catholic Church. Then include some car chases, narrow escapes, and the requisite sexual tension—and voilà.

But there is a vast difference between the lame NSA thriller and the religion-questioning smash hit.

“The Da Vinci Code” is eminently intriguing not because of the color-by-numbers plot or the clichéd characters, but because of the haunting specter of truth that Brown skillfully creates by melding fiction and nonfiction into an indeterminate alloy.

Real organizations and objects—the machiavellian Opus Dei, the eerie art of Da Vinci, and the esteemed college of hero Robert Langdon—blend so easily into Brown’s fantasy world that I began to wonder whether that long-haired fellow sitting to Jesus’ right in the “Last Supper” might just actually be a woman. I pulled up the painting using Google image search to take a closer look.

Brown certainly does not help matters with his terse preface reassuring me that “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”

Brown also shrewdly focuses on religion, which is mysterious enough already without him putting ideas into people’s heads. No one gets excited anymore about thrillers featuring the big bad government and its science fiction technology. Guns that fire icicles? James Bond was already evading those things back when he was Roger Moore. But God? Start questioning the foundations of faith and we all cannot help but wonder.

When I finished the book, I went and searched the “truth of da vinci code” online because I was no longer sure what was real and what was not. That creeping feeling of doubt is precisely what separates Brown’s blockbuster from other puzzle-based thrillers. And it is what makes the novel such a satisfying read.

—Reviewer David Zhou can be reached at dzhou@fas.harvard.edu.

The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown
Anchor
Out Now