Erik Geiger's Blog

It seemed for awhile, everyone was recommending this book to me. I resisted reading it, feeling that since I was already familiar with much of the ground it covered, i.e. crack-pot conspiracy theories regarding the lost legacy and bloodline of Jesus Christ, I'd find the book irritating.
I was right. I did find certain elements of the book irritating, yet I still enjoyed it for the most part.

The protagonist, Robert Langdon, was not believable as a Harvard trained scholar - he was too credulous, accepting as gospel too many unproven and unprovable assertions. The only way to make sense Langdon's utter credulity was to strech the concept of artistic license to the extent that it covered the gap between crackpot conspiracy theory and historical fact. Much of Brown's "information" about the Templars, Merovingians, Mary Magdalen, the Priory of Sion and Jesus Christ can be found in the disreputable but entertaining conspiracy theory book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", by Baigent and Leigh. In it they rely heavily on the "dossier secrets", mysterious documents found in the Bibliotheque Nationale. These were later found to be forgeries planted by prankster and ex-con Pierre Plantard, the same man that these documents pointed to as the Grandmaster of the Priory of Sion, and the lineal decendent of Jesus Christ.
If you can suspend disbelief and stipulate for a time that the frauds perpretrated by Pierre Plantard on Baigent and Leigh are true and real, then you can sit back and enjoy Langdon, which I did.
I found the book predictable at times. From the moment that Robert and Sophie left Paris for Versailles, it was obvious to me that Leigh Teabing woud turn out to be "The Teacher". It's a cliche that in a mystery novel with a nameless, faceless villian, that villain turns out to be someone close to the protagonist.
Of course the particulars remained a mystery until the final pages, and I was surprised by the revelations about Sophie's family.