Dan Brown: The DaVinci Code

Slide 1

First, I want to give you a short information about the author Dan Brown: He has also written Angels and Demons, Illuminati and Deception Piont. Dan Brown is graduate of Amherst College and Philips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. Now, he lives with his wife in New England

Slide 2

The book received great critical acclaim. The Denver Post said “Thriller writing doesn´t get any better than this” and the New York Daily described “The Da Vinci Code” as “One hell of a read. A gripping mix of murder and myth”.

Slide 3

I think it´s important to know something about the historical backgound and facts of the story. Often, the expression “Priory of Sion” appears in the story.
The Priory of Sion
- is an European secret society founded in 1099
- this society really exists

In 1975 the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris discovered documents known as Les Dossiers Secret

Slide 4

Les Dossiers identify numerous members of the Priory. The most famous members are
-Isaac Newton
-the Italian painter Sandro Botticelli
-the French writer Victor Hugo
-Leonardo da Vinci

Slide 5

Furthermore, the Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is important in the plot of this book.
Opus Dei is
- a Catholic sect
- it´s a controversial organisations owing to reports of brainwashing and a practice known as “corporal mortification”
Opus Dei has recently completed construction of a $ 47 million National Headquarter in New York

Slide 6

Last, I want to tell you about the Holy Grail. The legend said, that the Holy Grail is a chalice, which Jesus used at The Last Supper. After Jesus´death it was filled with his blood. Many people tried to find the Holy Grail in the past and even today scientists search for it.

Slide 7

After that, you know the most important historical things, that build up the base of the plot.

Next, I present you the most important characters of the story.

Slide 8

One of the protagonists is Robert Langdon. You can say, that he´s the hero of the story. He´s professor of religious symbology at Harvard University. Throughout the plot, he explaines the meaning of many symbols and religious icons. It seems that he´s very clever and intelligent.

Slide 9

Sophie Neveu is the female protagonist of the story She´s a French cryptologist and the granddaughter of Jaques Saunière, the curator of the Louvre museum. Then, Bishop Aringarosa, who is the leader of Opus Dei and his servant Silas, an albino monk. Silas is the murderer of Jaques Saunière. He´s very cruel but absolutely religious.

Slide 10

Now, something about the content
Professor Langdon is on a business trip in Paris Late at night he gets a phone call from the receptionist of the hotel. He sais, that a policeman of the Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire wants to talk to him. The reason for that is the murder of Jaques Saunière. Alongside the corpse the police have found a mysterious code.

Slide 11

It seems like Saunière himself has arranged the sign next to his body before he died. The code exists of numbers and words. One part of the code is also the name “Robert Langdon”. Because of that, the police supposes that Langdon has committed the murder of Saunière. But the police doesn´t tell Langdon about their suspicions. He thinks, that he should help to decipher the code.

Slide 12

Than Sophie Neveu arrives at the Louvre museum and secretly tells Langdon about the polices´suspicion, because she anticipates that Langdon is innocent. Sophie helps Langdon to flee. During their escape they try to solve the mystery of Saunière´s murder. First, they have to spot out, what Saunière wanted to say with this code.

Slide 13

It turns out that the code is intended for Sophie- Saunière wanted to pass a secret to Sophie for which he was the guardian for many years. Having deciphered the code, the solution leads them to the next riddle. A trip to several locations begins. Pursued by the police and Interpol, they try to bring light to Saunière´s secret, which the Catholic church fiercly tried to keep.

Slide 14

This secret tells about the famous Holy Grail and where it is located. But not only Langdon and sophie search for the Grail, also Silas wants to find it. Slowly it turns out, that some people are disloyal to Langdon and Sophie and the search gets more and more complicate.

Slide 15

The end of the story is surprising and emotional, but not as specular as expected. But I don´t want to tell you, how it ends. Maybe, some of you want to read this book for him-or herself.

Slide 16

The story includes many riddles. Because of that, I want to show you one of them. This is the code, that the police have found alongside Saunière´s corpse.
It is an anagram which means you can put all the letters in another order to give the anagram a new meaning. The numbers are the so-called Fibonacci sequence and gives the instruction how to combine the letters.

The wright order is
Leonardo da Vinci!
The Mona Lisa!
It´s the clue for Langdon and Sophie to search for a new hint at the painting

Slide 17

And also some symbols are explained, for example the original symbols for male and female.
Here you can the the icon for male and the opposite-the original icon for female, that is also called chalice

The female icon has a special meaning in the story. The symbol is part of Leonardo da Vinci´s masterpiece “The Last Supper” This painting tells that the Holy Grail is a person.

Slide 18

Here you can see the red lines that look like a chalice. These lines link Jesus and one follower. This follower is no man, but Marie Magdalene. So, Marie Magdalene is the Holy Grail.

To sum it up, I can say, that my personal expression of the book is very positive. It was very interesting to get so much to know about history, religious symbology and the legend of the Holy Grail. This book is not only informative, but also absorbing and includes a gripping crime story.