The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown

This book surprised me. With all the uproar from the Church, I did not expect it to be so reverent, so respectful, of forms of faith. The history of the Catholic Church is very critical at times, but by the time the book wraps up, everyone is given at least one sympathetic dimension, even Opus Dei. Overall the book avoided villainizing or bashing any one religious group, which is remarkable considering how easy it would have been.

The symbolic and historical depth of the book is also quite interesting, although none of it is terribly new. Maybe it’s because Christian history and symbology is so familiar to me, or maybe because the pace of it is unrelenting through the book. You get blasé about it when the barrage is continuous.

Most interesting, I think, is the feeling of being inside a worldview where something called the sacred feminine exists, where male and female are in balance, where the chalice comes down to meet the blade. Like the very edge of tears, is what it feels like. Tears of relief, the sudden easing of a fighting tension that lives in your chest. Because yeah, you can say what you like about other spheres of life, but in religion, women — all women — are outcast, like Mary Magdalene. Always subordinate, always sinful, always the downfall of man. And to see the sacred feminine so genuinely, earnestly presented? It’s… wow. Unexpectedly, astonishingly heartbreaking.

The last few lines are particularly beautiful: