Customer Reviews

The Givenchy Code: An Homage and A Parody

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I picked up E.R. Escober's book THE GIVENCHY CODE AN HOMAGE AND A PARODY on the recommendation of a friend, who saw a copy of Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE in a store window, and who told me that he had recently laughed himself silly with this cheeky little parody.

All of Dan Brown's affectations are affectionately skewered here. In The DA VINCI CODE, we learned a lot of history that was sometimes not so subtly disguised as fiction. Same thing occurs in GIVENCHY. Chapter 55 alone, the history of sparkling wine, is worth the price of this cunning book.

It should be a best seller, because Escober does for Dan Brown what Frederick Crews did for WINNIE THE POOH, i.e., totally tears him apart in a loving manner and providing the grateful reader with hours of thankful chuckles. The riddles that Fr. Theo and Puca must solve are mind-numbingly funny, as well as being sort of difficult. For example, What do Superman, Moses, and the Cabbage Patch Kids all have in common?

Instead of THE LAST SUPPER, Escober lowers the boom this time on the famous MONA LISA. She is smiling and you will be too. Enjoy this excellent send up and remember: "The Holy Grail is not a cup!"

I stumbled upon this book while searching for the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The description gave me a chuckle so I added it to the shopping cart thinking I'd read it after the Da Vinci Code.

This book was great. It really does an excellent send-up of the Da Vinci Code and its theories. I giggled repeatedly at each scene's subtle parody of the other book. And the ending - whoah! I won't give it away; you have to read it. Definitely not predictable and quite thought-provoking!

Now it wasn't "Mad TV" type parody, mind you (which is a good thing). It's higher brow than that with its many nuanced jibes.

This book would be enjoyed most by a more sophisticated reader looking for adult humor.

It was fated to happen. Since the publishing of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code a year ago and ensuing enormous success, numerous books have now hit the bookshelves in hopes of rebutting this puzzling novel's theory, or of riding and cashing in on the popularity of the book, or simply providing a much needed stress break from the book's shocking revelation of the Holy Grail's real identity. You snicker but because of the novel's brilliant mixing of some fact with a great deal of fiction, there are millions out there who have taken the book as fact and have become profoundly troubled by it.

Leading the host of anti-Da Vinci Code books are books published primarily by evangelical and Catholic publishers such as: Cracking Da Vinci Code: You've Read the Fiction Now Read The Facts; Decoding Da Vinci; and The Da Vinci Hoax: The Truth About Jesus, Christianity, Mary Magdalene and The Da Vinci Code. All are currently selling very well at amazon.com and bookstores around the world.

Then there's the new wave of books that are parodying Dan Brown's best selling novel. There are The Dali Code: A Parody by humorist Cathy Crimmins and the suitably and hilariously titled The Givenchy Code:An Homage and A Parody by author ER Escober.

Escober's website, www.thegivenchycode.com, reveals that The Givenchy Code is "my humble attempt at paying homage to Mr. Dan Brown's page-turning novel, poking benign fun at the ostensibly complex fragrance industry and ultimately, conjecturing an out-of-this-world theory of a story that the Holy Grail was indeed not a cup but a...???" ER Escober wisely leaves out whatever shocking revelation he has in store for the readers of his parody.

Indeed, what is it? Even more important, will book buyers care? With the success of "Da Vinci" which has led to millions of readers snapping up other works dealing with "The Code", ER Escober's book might just find itself on the bestseller list, alongside that original Dan Brown novel.