A learned man’s take on the themes superficially discussed in The Da Vinci Code
I think it is virtually impossible to write a review that does this book justice without revealing the basic arguments behind it. Consequently, my review will contain spoilers. Proceed at your own risk; you have been warned!
It starts with a moving introduction by Riad where he tells us about Joshua Lie, an old man who lost his faith when his granddaughter lost her life to cancer.
The first half of the book is a draft authored by Lie that Riad discovered at his house shortly after his death. Lie argues that the Evangelists twisted the Old Testament to prove Jesus was the Messiah and then declares his intention to misquote the New Testament in return. He interprets the four Gospels in a very bizarre way to promote the Gnostic idea that Jesus was a heavenly being who descended to earth to save Sophia, his fallen celestial bride. In the last chapter, Lie mistakenly writes the name of his granddaughter instead of Sophia’s name, thus revealing his whole book to be the product of his spiritual crisis.
At this point, Lie’s draft comes to an end and Riad takes over. He briefly reviews it and, while quite sympathetic to Lie, he still voices his concerns about the inconsistencies and shortcomings of the draft. He then proceeds to ‘complete’ Lie’s book. One of the book’s greatest merits is the ending that Riad devised for it. Riad picks various loose ends from Lie’s draft and weaves them together to produce a truly fascinating ending that twists the book one more time and gives it greater significance.
*Major spoiler to follow*
At the end of the book, Riad arrives at the conclusion that Jesus’ mission of saving Sophia was inevitably going to destroy the world. God consequently had to intervene, saving the world by severing off all contact between heaven and earth. The way Riad quotes the canonical books of John, Paul and Peter to show their horror at the wake of a second coming that never materialized is reminiscent of the nihilistic works of many prominent existential writers.
By transcending the gnostic material that Lie drew on for his daft, Riad has turned this book into one that belongs to the same strain of intelligent books by renowned writers like Umberto Eco’s Focault Pendulum and The Illuminatus trilogy. This is a complex, deep book that is destined to be a classic
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