There is a good deal of similarity between von Daniken and Dan Brown – both offer up radical interpretations of history both twist history out of shape and give it cryptic symbolic meaning to argue their case both have been derided for their inaccuracies by historians and both have created an enormous fad that has verged on a religious following. Von Daniken’s nonsense inspired a fad and numerous imitators built upon his thesis.
There von Daniken liberally interpreted artifacts from antiquity as proof that he claimed demonstrated that aliens had visited the ancient world and influenced the course of human development. It may well be that future analysts of pop culture of the 2000s will look back on Da Vinci Code madness with something akin to the way we look back on the fad for Ancient Astronauts that we had in the 1970s following the publication of Eric von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods (1968). One can even take Da Vinci Code tours of the European sites mentioned in the book.
There have even been tv documentaries that go into the subject, as well as a Da Vinci Code computer game and at least three different board games, all sanctioned by Dan Brown. I have counted some 18 separate books either debunking or analyzing the Da Vinci Code, as well as a good many parodies.
There were an amazing number of spinoffs – illustrated versions of the novel, illustrated coffee table guidebooks to the locations and artworks, a special movie tie-in version of the novel, books by other authors exploring the legend of the Priory of Sion and Sauniere bloodline. Langdon, Sophie and Teabing now engage in a race against the French authorities and Opus Dei to find the location of Mary Magdalene’s tomb, which would conclusively prove the existence of the bloodline.ĭan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) has become an extraordinary phenomenon that took over the entire world, selling some 60 million copies. This is a secret that the Catholic Church desperately wants to eradicate in order to protect their dogma. Hunted, they seek refuge with Priory expert Sir Leigh Teabing who tells them the secret that the Priory guards – that Jesus Christ did not die but took Mary Magdalene as his wife and sired a bloodline with her that has present day descendants. Langdon realizes that they are dealing with the Priory of Sion, an ancient order that included names like Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci among its numbers, and stretches back to the time of Christ. Opus Dei is determined to quash the information that Sauniere knew and has sent an assassin to eliminate all those linked to the case. Fache is also a member of the secretive Catholic order Opus Dei. At the same time, the police regard Langdon and Sophie as the prime suspects in the murder and they are determinedly pursued by police captain Bezu Fache.
They begin to trace the clues that Sauniere left, which lead to artworks in The Louvre and local churches. She tells Langdon that he is in great danger and helps him to escape.
Langdon is aided in interpreting these by the police’s cryptology specialist Sophie Neveu, Sauniere’s granddaughter.
Before he died, Sauniere managed to write a series of cryptic phrases and symbols at the murder scene. The victim is Jacques Sauniere, a colleague that Langdon had an appointment to meet. Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of symbology, is on a lecture and book-signing tour in Paris when he is approached by the Surete, who ask his help in solving a murder at The Louvre.