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The Da Vinci Code | Introduction

Since its 2003 publication date, Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code has had an impact not only in the world of literature and the related world of the arts but also in the social and political spheres. The Da Vinci Code is a stand-alone thriller, but again features Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who was the lead character in Brown's 2001 novel, Angels and Demons, which was also a bestseller.

The Da Vinci Code was number one on the New York Times bestseller list, stayed on the bestseller list for over a year, and has sold over ten million copies worldwide. The novel reached many readers who might not usually pick up fiction, owing to the intriguing nature of its multi-layered plot: the idea that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child; deciphering the symbols found in many works of art, including Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper, that indicate this secret history; and the resulting power struggles between the Catholic Church and a secret society named the Priory of Sion over what to do with this explosive information.

The novel was well received by popular readers as a thriller, but reviewers debated its merits because of Brown's clumsy prose and the apparent anti-Catholic stance he takes in the novel. The Da Vinci Code won the British Book Award's Book of the Year, 2005, but it has also received much more negative attention from the Catholic Church; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa urged Italian readers not to read the book, and many articles have been published attacking Brown's scholarship and his implications that the history presented in his novel is more widely accepted by scholars than it is.

The novel's influence can be seen in the books published in response to it, such as Martin Lunn's 2004 Da Vinci Code Decoded or Richard Abanes's 2004 The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code, but also in imitations and adaptations. The plot of the 2004 movie National Treasure, starring Nicholas Cage, revolves around similar coded messages, and Cage is even hunting treasure hidden by the Knights Templar, as Langdon does in The Da Vinci Code. A movie version of Brown's novel is due out in 2006.

The Da Vinci Code Summary

Fact

The Da Vinci Code begins with a page titled "Fact," a term that sets the stage for the novel's notoriety. The three brief paragraphs that follow are carefully phrased assertions: there is a secret society called the Priory of Sion to which figures from Sir Isaac Newton to Leonardo da Vinci may have belonged; an organization affiliated with the Vatican called Opus Dei has been accused of using cultish techniques to attract and keep members and has just spent $47 million building its headquarters in New York City; and finally, "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

Prologue

The narrative opens with Louvre curator Jacques Saunière held at gunpoint by an albino man who demands the location of something extremely valuable. After surrendering the location, which the narrative later reveals is false, Saunière is shot and left to die in his museum's Grand Gallery. Just after his murderer departs, and with only minutes to live, Saunière, "the sole guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept," struggles to somehow communicate the real secret in his own crime scene.

Chapters 1-9

The first nine chapters introduce all the major characters that the narrative will follow to the novel's conclusion just a few hours later. Harvard professor Robert Langdon, who was to meet Saunière that night, is summoned to the Louvre to help French detective Bazu Fache interpret the strange series of clues at the crime scene. The narrative interrupts their meeting to introduce two other characters: Silas, the murderer, and Bishop Manuel Aringarosa, president-general of Opus Dei, both of whom are acting under orders from a character known only as the Teacher. Back at the crime scene, Langdon learns that Saunière has drawn a series of images and cryptic messages not only with his own blood but also with a watermark stylus, a pen whose markings can only be detected by black light. Fache's colleague Lieutenant Collet listens intently from a concealed room to the conversation between Fache and Langdon, the primary suspect. Cryptologist Sophie Neveu arrives at the crime scene with a message for Langdon to contact the U.S. Embassy immediately. When Langdon retrieves the message with Fache's cell phone under Sophie's directions, he hears a message from Sophie herself to listen carefully because he is in grave danger. Meanwhile, Sister Sandrine Bieil, caretaker of the Church of Saint-Sulpice, is notified that Bishop Aringarosa has requested a special tour of her church for one of his numeraries.

Chapters 10-25

Silas visits the Church of Saint-Sulpice, possessing what he believes to be Saunière's great secret, the location of a keystone that leads to the Holy Grail. A narrative flashback shows his tortured past as a victim of abuse. Back at the Louvre, Sophie departs quickly after declaring that one of Saunière's clues is a numeric joke. Langdon requests a few minutes alone in the restroom, pretending that he has received devastating news of an accident back home. Fache grants his request, and joins Collet in his concealed office. Sophie meets Langdon in the restroom and alerts him that he is Fache's primary suspect, and that Fache is tracking him with a small device he has slipped into his pocket. She helps him stage his escape by lodging the device into a bar of soap and hurling it out the window. The device falls onto a truck, and Fache and Collet watch their monitor in horror, believing that Langdon has jumped from the window. They conclude that because it looks as though he has escaped, he is indeed guilty. The device leads Fache and Collet on what they believe to be a wild chase after Langdon through the streets of Paris. Back in the restroom, Sophie tells Langdon that Saunière is her grandfather, and that he raised her after her family died in a car accident. She also shows him a copy of the crime scene Fache sent out to agents at the Central Directorate Judicial Police. The crime scene in the photo looks slightly different: at the end of Saunière's message is the request, "P.S. Find Robert Langdon." Sophie concludes that Fache, who seems unnaturally determined to implicate Langdon, erased the last line from Saunière's message. When Langdon asks Sophie if the initials mean anything to her, she remembers a golden key with the same initials she had found once hidden in her grandfather's room. When she confronted him, Saunière had told her the initials refer to her secret name, Princess Sophie. Hearing her describe the key, however, Langdon comes to a different conclusion: the initials stand for a secret society known as the... » Complete The Da Vinci Code Summary