Alex's Book Club: The DaVinci Code

Pages 37-77:

I decided to read a little bit before bed last night, so we could get this horror show over with quicker.

In these exciting forty pages, Silas (The Evil Albino, remember), edges ever closer to the false location of the Keystone! Robert Langdon begins to uncover the mystery of Saulinier's death! And we meet our leading lady, Sophie!

On the Evil side of things:

- Silas led a very terrible childhood, until he was redeemed by God... AND a mysterious earthquake!
- The Archbishop, despite being about 30 minutes away from landing in France the last time we checked with him, is now back over the Atlantic Ocean. This is not a plot point, by the way, just bad authoring.
- The Teacher is the one manipulating things behind the scenes. He has promised to deliver the most fabulous treasure to the Archbishop and Silas in exchange for 20 million euros.

On the Good side of things:

- Robert Langdon discovers that not only did Saulinier paint a pentacle, but he actually put himself in the shape of DaVinci's Virtruvian Man, DaVinci's famous drawing of the dude with six legs. It also comes with a mysterious message, which turns out to be for...
- Sophie, a rogue cryptographer! Although an amazing genius, she is looked down on for being a VERY ATTRACTIVE WOMAN. Although the police don't know this, the message Saulinier wrote was to get her attention, because Saulinier was her...
- Grandfather! This actually isn't a big reveal, but for some reason, is supposed to be a huge shocker that closes out a chapter. Oh Dan Brown!

Actually, the police are playing with Langdon, because they think he committed the murder. Which shocks Langdon to his VERY CORE. Honestly, if I was supposed to meet a guy, and the police picked me up and took me to the murder scene, and started asking me leading questions, it wouldn't take me long to think that I might be a murder suspect. But not genius professor Robert Langdon. It never even crosses his mind.

Which leads us to Fache the fatty French guy, who is interrogating Langdon. He really needs this bust, cause he's spent all of his money on failed technology. Also, he's incredibly religious. And, he seems very involved in solving this case. There's no way he's the mysterious Teacher, I think.

Anyway, Sophie manages to get Langdon away from the police to explain things to him, and so she can flash back to her troubled childhood, when her entire family was killed in a mysterious car crash.

End Page 77!

Just one thing I want to comment on here, and it's Sophie's choice of outfit. She enters wearing a "cream colored sweater over black leggings."

Is there any reason she's dressed to have a romantic evening in front of the fire place? Let alone one that's in the middle of a made-for-Oxygen movie set in the 1980's?

This bothers me a lot for some reason. Maybe because this is such a specific outfit, when NOBODY ELSE'S OUTFITS have been described. Except that Langdon might have been wearing a tweed jacket at some point, and then later on, he's wearing a jacket, probably.

And also, her outfit sucks. Somebody should Queer Eye her.