At last I read this famous book. I have used the chance to guess why it is a best seller… and I have mentally compared it with other books that I have liked a lot. “Un largo silencio”, (a long silence), or “La hija del canibal”, (The cannibal’s daughter) (I don’t think these two have been translated into English but I do think they deserve it – I could do it if it paid!) or “The name of the rose”. I’ll speak about those books on a later date.
In general, these books compile at least two story lines, the main one and the one that is told by the characters, or by the narrator on another level. This one does not need to appear in a chronological order at all.
The book in question presents a theory which apparently is in many books in many libraries, but in order to transmit it he has needed to include it in a history of conspiracies, assassinations, and secrets. Double histories, one in the present, and the other one that explains the present, already gone but some times a lot more interesting, one inside the other, one the main one and the other told by the characters themselves while they are resting or the author tells them as s/he abandons the characters for a moment. And they are all books that keep your attention.
Now, about this book in particular, personally I have this criticism that may be a bit harsh…: Much ado about goddesses, much ado about Mary Magdalen as an extremely important figure but then what? the main character in The Da Vinci Code is a bloke who, for now, in just two novels, has kisses one woman per novel. In fact he reminds me quite strongly of Michael Knight, who finished each episode of the series kissing a different woman all to be forgotten by the next episode.
