The ending of this book was the worst ending to a book ever! Between the capture of Leigh Teabing and the supposed renouncement of Bezu Fache from the Police Department, it was all too quick! To me, it seemed as though the ends were not tied up and the sudden interest Sophie displayed in Robert Langdon should have been harvested and cultured throughout the book, and not just slammed on the reader at the last possible instant!
I absolutely despised how Sophie met her brother and her grandmother for the first time. I see now that Sanuire hid his wife and infant grandson for their protection (because the people who murdered Sophie's parents would want to take down the rest of the family as well), but it was a terrible way to introduce them. Why would a man give up his wife? Why would he not let Sophie meet her baby brother (or reconvene with them for the last time) and say goodbye to her grandmother? It all doesn't make sense, and all we hear of them really is the reunion within the home across from the Rosslyn (or Roslin, which ever way one fancies to spell it). Her brother seemed curious, yet it was such a terrible line in the novel when Dan Brown writes: "She did not know the young man's face, but as they embraced, she could feel the power of the blood coursing hrough his veins...the blood she now understood they shared" (Brown 475). After all this time telling Langdon about her baby brother having been killed in a car accident and being fed that information by the police and her own grandfather, this happens. This doesn't make any sense why he would do that... I just thought it was an inconclusive way to end a novel upwards of five-hundred pages. It was now a waste of my time to have even picked up this book.
Overall, I thought that the writing style in the beginning and middle of the book was quite inciting and made me want to continue reading. However, the ending was shabby and if I knew it would have such a loose and inconclusive ending, I would have not read it. The book ends (the final ending, the last words) as such that Langdon is left with another quest... or is he? "For a moment, he thought he heard a woman's voice... the wisdom of the ages... whispering up from the chasms of the earth" (Brown 489). What does this give to the reader? What is it supposed to mean? Is this woman Mary Magdelene or Sophie's grandmother? Is it his own mother... Who is this woman?
I have to agree with Lauren that this book had a very fast ending with all of the events drawing to a close all at once and then it was over. The ending needed to flow a little bit more and explain more things. It wasn’t the worst ending ever, but it was bad comparatively. There was so much to take in like; Teabing being the teacher, Sophie had a brother and grandmother alive, Sophie was part of Jesus’ bloodline, Bezu Fache resigning, and Langdon’s relationship with Sophie. Dan Brown concluded this book way too fast. Overall this book was really fun to read and I liked being able to guess what would happen and I wanted to continue reading. The writing style wasn’t the best I have every seen but it was good enough to like. I think that the way Dan Brown included so many facts about Da Vinci and other topics was really ingenious and it helped me learn in a fun way.
ReplyDeleteI am mad that Sophie was separated from her family because it would suck to feel so alone like she did.I think that even though it might have been unsafe, Sophie should have met her brother and Grandmother when she first came to live with her Sauniére.
I can definitely see why the book was banned for insulting Christianity. First of all the bad characters are part of the Opus Dei. They kill people and commit many sins if you will to beat Langdon to the grail. Also the book could suggest that some of the Opus Dei are dumb because they followed the orders of an anonymous man that wasn’t even Catholic. Another thing that would make this book banned is that Dan Brown really shakes foundations of the Christian religion by inferring that Jesus had children and that the grail is actually the body of Mary Magdalene.
After I read the last couple of sentences all I could think was, there better be a sequel because this does not wrap anything up for me. It only made me wonder about what it meant. Basically it said that Langdon heard a mysterious woman’s voice from the chasms of the earth which just made me wonder what he would be finding next. I took the liberty to answer my own question about the sequel and found that Dan brown has written two other books with Langdon as the main character. I was relieved to hear this and I might even go and read them.
After watching the movie I feel that the book was better as they usually are, but the movie definitely portrayed the book well. The movie left some small details out including the fact that there were two cryptex and not only one. I was surprised by the actor choice for Robert Langdon because of the way I had imagined him. The actor who played Langdon was Tom Hanks. I am glad that I watched the movie because some of the things in the book were not described very well but the book had much more information about the storyline. Overall Both the book and the movie were very good and I think that Dan Brown did a good job of teaching and making people really think.