The pace moves incredibly fast. The action takes place over a 24-hour period, and the scenes cut back and forth between the antagonist and the protagonists in very short chapters that read like a film script. Maybe that’s the secret of the book’s success.
Film has changed the way novels are written. In its humble beginnings in silent movies, the cinema used English classics in the public domain for its first stories. But many of these novels were great long tomes that were totally unsuitable for the silent film genre. When talkies arrived Hollywood hired novelists and playwrights to write the scripts. As film makers began to understand more about editing techniques, pacing and dramatisation, they found that dialogue-heavy plays didn’t quite work. So they turned to the pulp fiction magazines that offered themes that connected more with people – love stories, murder, betrayal, jealousy and so on. These magazines told short stories and serials in an easy, straightforward narrative.
As selling unsolicited manuscripts to Hollywood producers became more and more difficult writers turned to agents and the two would work together to get stories to producers. To get agents and producers on side, writers would first create a film idea of roughly 50 pages, known as a treatment or proposal, and then expand it into a novel. The key was to find agents who specialised in writers and screenwriters for the film and the publishing industries. Brown wrote a 60-page proposal for The Da Vinci Code which could almost be looked upon as film treatment with short, cross-cutting chapters with minimal description, use of dialogue to push the plot forward and each ending with a cliffhanger. One could argue that it looks a lot like a lengthy screenplay.
Another reason why Brown’s novel is so popular could be because he has refined the standard procedural plot line that is so popular in film, television and popular fiction today. It is most prevalent in television police dramas that follow a team of investigators, as this allows cross-cutting between scenes, situations and characters – much the same way as Brown has done with The Da Vinci Code.
The 1970s saw the police procedural combining with the conspiracy thriller, as with Fredrick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal. Forsythe wrote from his own experiences and from his extensive research into secret Anglo-French organisations. It was a mix of fact and fiction that left the reader wondering how much of what they’d read was the truth.
The procedural then took a different turn with non-fiction books that investigated some of the dirtier aspects of late 20th-century history, such as Watergate, JFK and so on. This kind of investigative journalism took off after Watergate when many people no longer took the authorities on their word. It also brought forth speculative alternative histories such as Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, which questioned the established theories of science and religion, as did The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
Many of these books ask a big question – what if? – and the authors write them as personal journeys that take the reader on a road of discovery. Often no real proof is found at the end but the authors have used the procedural framework so the book reads more like a thriller. These books usually have a puzzle that needs to be solved, or a series of mysteries where the goal is to uncover the truth of the myth or the legend.
In his books Brown uses ancient manuscripts, paintings and other treasures to provide clues to solve mysteries long forgotten or held secret. He claims that almost all the material is real. Indeed, at the very beginning of The Da Vinci Code, Brown says the places and organisations described are real. By doing this he is providing the readers with authority and the inspiration to go and find out more information for themselves – a guidebook for their own treasure hunt or spiritual enlightenment.
The story of the Sacred Feminine running throughout the book has attracted women to the thriller genre. The story about the key role of Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus and being written out of history by a male-dominated church has resonated with women across the world. Brown’s success with The Da Vinci Code is his ability to converge the various elements of popular writing with a central aspirational theme, culminating at the point where fact and fiction meet and blur.
The plot of The Da Vinci Code has all these elements. Its central character, Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of symbology lecturing in Paris, is woken in the middle of the night by the police and taken to the Louvre museum to help them solve the murder of the curator, Jacques Saunière. Langdon had been due to meet Saunière on the evening of his murder.
From the moment Langdon arrives at the museum the action begins to heat up. He finds out, through Sophie Neveu – Saunière’s granddaughter and a cryptologist for the police – that the police captain, Bezu Fache, suspects Langdon as the killer. Langdon and Sophie embark on a trail of hidden clues as they try to sort out the bizarre code that Saunière left for Sophie to find.
At this point none of the characters know that Saunière was a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion and that he was killed by a monk called Silas, who is an assassin for a man known only as The Teacher. They’re after the location of a keystone, a clue that will lead them to the Holy Grail. Sophie was very close to her grandfather when she was young until she accidentally found him involved in a pagan sex ritual on a surprise visit. This ritual she saw is hinted at throughout the book but only revealed at the end.
The cipher they find near Saunière’s body leads to a second set of clues near Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting. Sophie works out the clues and discovers a key hidden behind the painting. The key has the symbols of the Priory of Sion on it and an address. Sophie and Langdon, now working together, manage to escape the police and discover that the numbers in the cipher beside Saunière’s body are part of a 10-digit account number to a safe deposit box at the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich.
The key opens the safe deposit box, which contains a cylindrical device called a cryptex that Brown claims was invented by Da Vinci for transporting secure messages. The only way to open it is by turning a series of rotating dials until all the symbols are aligned in the correct order. Forcing it open will result in the rupture of an enclosed vial of vinegar which will dissolve the papyrus on which the message inside is written. The cryptex is held inside a rosewood box, which has clues on it to the combination of the cryptex, which is written in backward script, similar to Da Vinci’s journals.
Before Silas shot Saunière, the curator told the murderous monk a well-rehearsed lie that the keystone was buried beneath an obelisk in the Church of Saint-Suplice. The obelisk lies directly along the ancient Rose Line, which was the Prime Meridian until it was moved to Greenwich. But there is no keystone at the base of the obelisk, just a passage from the Book of Job (38:11a): ‘Hitherto shalt thou go and no further.’ Furious, Silas realises he’s been tricked.
The options for Langdon and Sophie are fast running out. With the police hot on their trail, they are desperate to find some answers. Langdon decides to take the keystone to his friend Sir Leigh Teabing, an expert on the Holy Grail.
At Teabing’s chateau some of the background to the cryptex is revealed. Teabing tells Sophie of the clues in Da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper that reveal the disciple next to Jesus that looks like an effeminate boy is Mary Magdalene. However, Teabing’s history lesson is interrupted when Silas arrives and tries to kill them to get the cryptex. Teabing and Langdon fight Silas off and with Sophie they flee in Teabing’s private plane to London just as the police arrive to raid the house. (We later discover that there is a tracking device in the van that Langdon and Sophie had stolen from the bank.)
On the plane they have time to think and figure out how to open the cryptex. Once they do, they discover it contains a smaller cryptex and a clue to reveal the combination to open it for the message inside. This code tells them to seek an orb on the tomb of ‘a knight a pope interred’. This refers to Sir Isaac Newton, who was buried at Westminster Abbey, where the eulogy was delivered by Alexander Pope. [227]
As the plot unfolds we discover that Teabing is The Teacher and that he had sent S
ilas to kill the leaders of the Priory of Sion, Saunière being the last one. Teabing has contacted – while concealing his true identity – the US head of Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa, and tricked him into financing the quest to find the Grail. Teabing has played on the resolve of Opus Dei to find the Grail but he has no intention of handing it over. He wants to reveal the documents on the Grail to the world, because he believes the Priory of Sion failed to reveal the Grail’s secret when they were supposed to. Teabing hopes his revelation will bring down the Church, which is his ultimate goal. In the meantime Teabing had informed Silas that Langdon and Sophie were taking refuge in his house and when the monk arrived Teabing fought him to ensure suspicion didn’t fall on him.
At this point Langdon and Sophie still trust Teabing, who leads them to the Temple Church in London where they have a showdown. Teabing kills his own assistant Rémy and tells the police that Silas is hiding in the Opus Dei headquarters in London.
The action swiftly shifts to Westminster Abbey where Langdon manages to open the cryptex and remove the message without Teabing seeing what he is doing. He then destroys the cryptex in front of Teabing. The police arrive and Teabing is arrested. As he is taken away he shouts over his shoulder to Langdon, asking him what the second message said, what the location of the Holy Grail is, but Langdon says nothing.
Langdon and Sophie are cleared after Bishop Aringarosa contacts Bezu Fache and tells him the whole story, but then the Bishop is mistakenly shot by Silas outside the Opus Dei house as the monk tries to escape from the police. Realising his error, Silas bends over the stricken Bishop and is shot by officers of the Metropolitan Police.
Sophie and Langdon now head for Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. The Grail was ‘indeed once buried there, below the Star of David on the floor (the two interlocking triangles are the blade and chalice, i.e. male and female symbols).’[228]
At Rosslyn Sophie discovers the docent is her brother, whom she thought had been killed with her parents in a car crash when she was a child. He survived the crash, as did her grandmother, Saunière’s wife, Marie Chauvel, who is now the guardian of Rosslyn Chapel – and the woman with whom her grandfather had been involved with in the sex ritual Sophie had stumbled upon many years ago. At this point we discover that Sophie is a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene and that her true identity had been kept a secret by the Priory of Sion to protect her life.
Looked at coldly, the plot seems highly implausible. But there is something in Brown’s telling of the tale that makes The Da Vinci Code extra special. The book’s short, cliffhanger style chapters, cross-cutting between scene and characters, minimal description and crisp dialogue give it that filmic feel, and are testament to how the thriller genre has been changed by film. Literary critics may have lambasted it, but more than 80 million people have bought and read it.
How does it stack up against the Curzon Group’s five elements of good thriller writing? As regards whether it entertains, consider these statistics from the Wikipedia entry on The Da Vinci Code. The book was outsold only by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when it came out in 2004. That same year it won the Book Sense 2004 Book of the Year Award for the Adult Fiction category. Dozens of non-fiction books have come out explaining its references to art and religion, as well as debunking the claims in the novel. The Washington Post, The New York Times and People magazine gave it rave reviews. Other authors have been inspired by it to write novels along similar lines, including Steve Berry (The Templar Legacy) and Raymond Khoury (The Last Templar). In Australia The Da Vinci Code came fourth in a survey of 15,000 people on the best books ever written.
The hundreds of reader reviews posted on Amazon tell an interesting story. Here is one:
‘I read The Da Vinci Code before it became a bestseller, and I must say I did find it five-star entertainment. You just couldn’t second guess the next chapter, never mind the end. It goes at a cracking pace throughout.’[229]
Or this from another reviewer:
‘I have to say I avoided reading this for a number of reasons until my wife picked up the paperback copy a few weeks ago. She read it in three days and handed it over to me with a hugely positive recommendation. Reluctantly I began to read and would you believe it I too read it in three days. Why? Because it’s one of those books you just cannot put down once you begin reading. I love books which have a factual basis and although The Da Vinci Code’s facts are very controversial and debatable, it’s exactly this that grabs the reader and certainly leaves you thinking at the end as to how much you may have learned and the seeds which have been implanted in your mind.’[230]
Both these reviewers gave the book five stars. Others have given it a big thumbs up as well, such as…
‘A work of pure genius, excellent story, brilliant and beautiful photos, and Dan Brown has this uncanny way of making you want to keep on turning the pages. I was literally reading this book late into the night and I had to force myself to put it down. A fantastic read and I personally would recommend it to anyone with a sense of adventure and an interest in historic and beautiful places.’[231]
The following glowing review of the book also shows its entertainment value:
‘Of course it’s flawed, but this was only ever an airport thriller; perfect for killing a few hours before, during and after a flight. Like all of Dan Brown’s pulp novels it is hard to put down and pretty easy to read in a couple of hours. Don’t take it seriously, just read it, enjoy it, and pass it on.’[232]
Elsewhere, People magazine called it a ‘pulse-quickening, brain teasing adventure,’ while The New York Times said, ‘Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase.’
More accolades came from other sources. The Review of Books said that an author of a thriller novel ‘must provide a protagonist whose skin we can comfortably inhabit, a mystery that challenges our intelligence, and enough believable twists and turns to keep the reader turning the pages. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown does all this just right. This is how a mystery thriller should be written.’[233]
This review, by W.R. Greer, also said ‘the chapters in The Da Vinci Code are short, usually not more than a couple of pages. Most of them end with a cliffhanger that immediately catapults you into the next chapter. So grab this book, sit back, and prepare to be entertained and educated. It’s well-written, it’s intelligent and best of all, it’s fun.’
Bookreporter.com said, ‘Brown has given us a controversial subject wrapped in thriller clothing that will provoke debate in the circles of religious and secret societies – and among readers. Curl up on the couch and dive into a title filled with speculation, action and intrigue.’[234]
But not everybody thought the book was dynamite. Many critics loathed it for its literary value and portrayal of history. The New Yorker wrote a scathing review about its writing and historical accuracy, Anthony Lane calling it ‘unmitigated junk’. Linguist Geoffrey Pullum and others posted entries critical of Brown’s writing at Language Log, calling him one of the ‘worst prose stylists in the history of literature’ and saying his writing was ‘not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad.’[235] Other authors joined in: Salman Rushdie said the book ‘gave bad novels a bad name.’ Stephen Fry called it ‘arse gravy of the worst kind’ and Stephen King likened it to a macaroni-and-cheese ready meal.
There are also bad reader reviews of the book on Amazon, with people calling it ‘turgid pap’, ‘an awful book’ and ‘inaccurate, insubstantial and preposterous’.
‘As a piece of literature it fails on every count. The characters are emotionless automata which could be bested by any high school English assignment. The plot and background are preposterous and inaccurate from start to finish. The alleged historical significance is the biggest fiction in the book, right after Robert Langdon’s so-called “expertise”. The overall result is a piece of insubstantial and preposterous fluff barely worth using to prop u
p the leg of a wobbly table.’[236]
But the positive comments far outweigh the bad reviews. Indeed, with millions of readers worldwide, the book certainly meets the mark for entertainment value.
To see how well it reflects the world around it, we need to look at how Dan Brown researched it and created the world in which Robert Langdon lives, one that is familiar to all of us and yet strangely different.
In January 2001, when Heidi Lange had taken on Brown and they were in the process of negotiating with Pocket Books, Lange suggested to Brown that he put together several book proposals so they could negotiate a multiple book deal. Brown put together a 56-page synopsis for The Da Vinci Code. ‘I remember trying hard to make the synopsis exciting and cinematic,’ Brown said. ‘I had already written a similar synopsis of Angels & Demons in hopes of selling the novel to Hollywood, but that had never happened.’[237]
The synopsis included a partial bibliography that would give the novel authority and allow Brown to create the world that Robert Langdon inhabits. The bibliography listed seven books, including The Templar Revelation, The Hiram Key and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar. ‘Much of the research for the novel came from conversations, research trips, online sources and essentially sources that are hard to cite,’ Brown said in his witness statement.
While Brown has said that he tries to blend fact with fiction, he also tries to anchor his books in a realistic and recognisable world. ‘In the final version of The Da Vinci Code I used The Vitruvian Man as a model for the opening murder scene (placing a dead character on the Louvre floor in the same body position as Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man),’ he said, referring to the drawing most people would probably know by sight if not by name. ‘The murder is still set in the Louvre, but I was having problems making this work, and I thought The Vitruvian Man would be a far better murder victim.’
The Dan Brown Enigma Page 16
