The 21st Annual Book Report Competition
for Secondary School Students
The Distinction of English Senior Section
Name of Award Student
Name of School
Title of Book Read
Author
Publisher
: Sy Yi Ning, Melaney
: St. Mary’s Canossian College
: The Da Vinci Code
: Dan Brown
: Doubleday
Written by Dan Brown, a son of a Presidential Award winning math professor
and a husband of an art historian and painter, The Da Vinci Code is not a plain
detective thriller solely but it also covers religions, history and science issues.
The whole story begins with the homicide of the Louvre curator, Jacques
Sauniere. As Robert Langdon, Harvard symbologist and Sophie Neveu, granddaughter
of Sauniere and a cryptogram prodigy removed the masks of the cryptic and baffling
codes left behind by Sauniere perpetually, they ferreted out a startling truth—Jesus
had married Mary Magdalene and the clues were genuinely hidden in the artworks of
Leonardo Da Vinci. Even more stunning to them was that Da Vinci and Sir Issac
Newton were indubitably members of the Priory of Sion, a secret society to safeguard
the ancient truth as well as the Holy Grail.
Ostensibly, the book’s title places the cynosure on the phrase Da Vinci code (the
disguised message) Hence, readers contemplate whether the purported truths are the
reality or not and at the same time, lead to heaps of critics from the Roman Church in
which the book has damaged the status and image of catholic churches. In fact, we
can divide the message into three questions: Were Jesus and Mary Magdalene couples?
Were Da Vinci and Sir Issac Newton members of the Priory of Sion? Did the Catholic
Church attempt violence so as to conceal their shameful actuality of Jesus? These are
the very major concern of most of the readers. Yet, they are still not being justified
even though the author examined The Last Supper at a discrepant perspective that
Mary Magdalene was just beneath Jesus in the drawing; though Paris’s Bibliotheque
Nationale discovered parchments identifying Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Issac
Newton members of the society; though the Catholic Church had the record of killing
during the crusaders’ period. What’s more is that some of the ideas are indeed
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incongruous to what we know from the Bible and our own knowledge. At the same
time, the author is so proficient in lumping facts and assumptions together which
confuse most of the bookworms (including myself), leading them into curiosity as
well as doubts.
Nevertheless, from my point of view, I do not really enjoy this writing style and
method as I find it a bit subjective and somehow deceptive or misleading. Frankly
speaking, I cannot believe in the truths mentioned in the book but only to postulate.
Throughout my 9-year school lives in Catholic schools and the studying of religious
education, Jesus was a single till his crucifixion and the motto of Catholicism and
Christianity are loving care, forgiveness and anti-violence. As a result, it was quite
shocking and astonishing to me when I encountered these ideas in The Da Vinci Code.
More importantly, the messages brought out from the book get no affirming evidence
to convince and endorse the public the accuracy of these “truths”. Yes, some people
may argue that the marriage of Jesus and Mary, the memberships of Da Vinci and the
genuine nature of Catholic Church are only the analysis and interpretation of Dan
Brown himself, in which he got no intention to rectify the original senses of people
but to work as a tool to develop his novel for his purpose of arousing public’s concern
to religions, history and science. However, most of the minds of readers are perplexed
and they are puzzle over which idea is true and which is just an imagination. Although
the author further emphasized that the book is just a fiction and a novel only, even
myself, a reader who does not believe in the thoughts of the author, was somehow
being disoriented and my mind did struggle to process the information from the book
because these assumptions were fused with facts—the artworks of Leonardo Da Vinci.
This can be both an advantage and disadvantage as on one hand, it shows surpassing
skills of a writer, but on the other hand, it may direct those who are not firm enough to
a wrong way. As a reader, I think this is a defect of the book’s whole structure.
For some people, they are comparatively more concern about the authenticity of
The Da Vinci Code. But for me, I think that it is pointless to investigate whether Jesus
really married with Mary or so and so. If Jesus Christ did marry Mary Magdalene,
would we never believe in God and would the Catholic Church be demolished? If Da
Vinci and Sir Issac Newton were members of the Priory of the Sion, would we no
longer respect them? If the Catholic Church really attempted violence to conceal the
truths, should Catholicism be banned? Obviously, it is rather purposeless to argue the
above issues since we should be looking forward to future but not to inquire into the
past. No matter they are truths or not, they are not worthy of arguments, instead, I
think some issues in the book are far more worthy of probing into.
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Actually, the book covers many different issues and there are two which I think
deserve our deep thoughts. First, it is the incessant desire for power throughout
thousands of decades of human. In The Da Vinci Code, the matter of power craving is
illustrated by the plan of The Teacher, Sir Leigh Teabing and Bishop Aringarosa in
search of the keystone and the Holy Grail to attain eternal power in the religion
society. In fact, it seems that human beings are born with power-craving genes that the
significance of power and domination in their eyes remains high from history. The old
Chinese dynasties were emblematic examples of power struggles. Not only did people
from different parties fought for greater power and influences, but siblings also
encountered power struggles in order to strive for the place of Emperor. The two
World Wars also symbolize human being’s ambitions for power as countries involved
in countless wars to gain territories. Even though the society has gone through
civilization, human’s ambitious mind has not faded away. China is so agog to unite
with Taiwan because she hopes to acquire more territories. The United States is so
anxious of the possession of nuclear weapons of North Korea not because she yearns
for peace, but only because it threatens the position and power of the United States.
Power, ignoring its meaning of individual capability, it means the control and
ruling over others and the influences that a person or a group have. But then why do
people desire power so much? Personally, I think that it is due to human
nature—resistance of being controlled. Everyone wants to be a decision maker and
give orders. Who prefers to listen to others’ orders forever? Similarly, Bishop
Aringarosa did not want to be under the control of the Vatican eternally. He was then
lured by Teabing and ended up with a tragic ending. I assent that ambitions for power
is essential as everyone should have certain level of influences on others and should
maintain improvement. Yet, it would be rather dangerous and undesirable for one to
aim at domination because prolonged desire will turn one to lose its own personality.
As a secondary school student, it maybe far too distant for me to talk about power, but
I think people should not take power too persistently. I firmly believe that if different
people and countries can reduce their persistence on power, peace can be maintained.
The book also broaches the matter, “How historically accurate is history itself?”
The author believes that history is just written by the winners, those who survived and
conquered in the past. This idea strikes me. I have been studying history for more than
3 years but I have never examined the accuracy and authenticity of the history we
learn. After reading this book, I began to feel the horror of our society. It is because if
the viewpoint of the author stands, then many of the historical records we believe
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nowadays will be only fabrication or were actually being beautified. In addition, the
author pointed out that faith is only based on fabrication and religion describes God
through metaphor, allegory and exaggeration that people only believe literally in our
own metaphors. Actually, I agree that faith is just a kind of strong belief or attitudes
mentally and religious faith is just influenced by words from the Bible or their
respective reference books only. That is why the author criticize the historically
accuracy of history, the past of Jesus, etc. It is indeed a big issue to discuss the
authenticity of our history so as to clarify our common misconceptions.
Doubtlessly, The Da Vinci Code is a breathtaking myth having countless twists
with millions of positive comments that Dan Brown has written a successful novel.
But from the view of a reader, I think the transition between the last chapter and the
epilogue is a great flaw of the whole storyline. The epilogue is a big twist that Robert
Langdon could find the Holy Grail at last. Unfortunately, it was all of a sudden that
Langdon could grasp the true meaning of Sauniere’s verses within a short time after
he woke up from a dream. The author did not foreshadow in the preceding lines the
sudden understanding of Langdon. This makes the speed of the story accelerate all of
a sudden and readers are unable to adapt to it at once. Most importantly, it creates the
mood that the author wanted to end the novel as soon as possible which gives a poor
impression to readers.
All in all, The Da Vinci Code, being the 1st in the New York Times Bestseller, is a
mixture of facts and assumptions. It is particularly startling as it conveys the idea of
marriage between Jesus and Mary and the memberships of celebrities like Da Vinci of
a secret society. Yet, I suggest readers not to take these messages too seriously or
believe in them entirely. Personally, I highly recommend this book if you want to read
an outstanding detective thriller which at the same time raises our awareness to issues
of religious and history.
Number of words: 1695
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