Mary Mary from bookish, a weblog by George Girton

Mary Mary . . . . . jul 30 2003 — bookish88.dat

Did you see The Matrix II and wonder about that weird French guy, the Merovingian? Me neither. But after reading The Da Vinci Code, a bestseller by Dan Brown, now I know who the Merovingians were, what the Holy Grail is, and a great place to look for the grail. If you're looking for the holy grail of summer reading, folks this is it.

At first I was put off by the blurb on the dust jacket. The premise sounded implausible and I feared it would just lead to another overplotted adventure. But there's a good reason that The Da Vinci Code [buy at amazon] . by Dan Brown is a New York Times bestseller. You could easily turn pages until three in the morning finishing this one. That's what happened to me. I started The Da Vinci Code on the beach in the afternoon (someone else, actually two other people were reading that particular copy but they made the mistake of getting up to stretch their legs on a fine beach walk) and after a lengthy pause for a leisurely meal at the local road house, I read happily until the wee hours. The action is non-stop, the descriptions fascinating, the hero and heroine clever. Do they find the Holy Grail? But of course! But of course, yes and no.

A nice gimmick of the book is that all of the architectural descriptions are true, and much of the action is set in various historic monuments in Europe. So if you're planning a visit to Paris or London make sure you read the Da Vinci Code first, and get ready to have your interest in Leonardo Da Vinci re-awakened (especially his painting, The Last Supper).

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