Short book reviews: Going Postal, The Da Vinci Code

If you haven’t read “Going Postal” by Terry Pratchett, or “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, be aware that there are spoilers in the following text about both books.

Going Postal

This was a good fun read. The basic plot is about the resurrection of the postal delivery service in Ankh Morpork, with a number of sideways references to stamp collecting and computer cracking (yes, really), plus a reassuring reappearances by many familiar characters. The previous book, Night Watch, was a much darker story than most of the other Discworld books, and frankly it was refreshing that Going Postal returned to the usual stream of witty events and verbal exchanges. I liked this one in the same way as I liked The Truth: both are about real-world institutions (Postal service in Going Postal, newspaper publication in The Truth) and the story results in the reader getting a humorous perspective on these aspects of everyday life.

The Da Vinci Code

A lot has been written about this one, so I’ll keep this brief. I enjoyed it. The story skips along quickly and although it’s not the most well-written book ever published, it is one that I found difficult to put down until I’d finished. Some of the ‘twists’ were a little obvious, but mostly these were well-thought out. The basis of the story surrounds the murder of members of a secret society who have been keeping a powerful secret for 2000 years: the information that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and that they had a child, the blood-line of which survives to this day. One of the characters in the book is a descendent. The Church (The Vatican) knows this secret and has been trying to suppress it. The ‘Holy Grail’ is not the conventional chalice from the Last Supper, but the collection of documents detailing this secret, plus the remains of Mary Magdalene. There is some real-life evidence which suggests that this is perhaps plausible but nothing to really back it up: however, it makes for a good work of fiction.

Dan Brown has been criticised for his ‘Facts’ page at the start of the book, where he lays out which aspects of the story are factual. I consider that page to be inaccurate, or at least incomplete. It contains ‘lies by omission’, as it were. However, if one just takes the novel at face value as a story, then it’s an interesting and entertaining read.