“Forgettable....”
“A bit of over kill and the author trying to deal with his own issues of indaquacy in his personal relationships. I could have done without all of that and without his bizzar relationship to his girlfriend.”
“I really enjoyed this book. It was much better than the DaVinci Code.”
“comparing this book to the fast paced much more interesting da vinci code is a big mistake.read it if u have a very keen interest in knowing everything and anything historic,old and unknown.”
“I could understand that it got some people so enthralled and that just the decoding of the secret messages has a very hypnotic value. Why was Coronna so eager, to keep it a secret, and why wanted he to know who his enemies were? SInce Tom grew up with his fathers obsession to break the code of the Hypnerotomachia, he may have that chosen as his thesis. Somehow it drew people from one conclusion in the other.Those two man were killed in a very brutal way 500 years before it was first published, i thought it was an 'overkill'. Why always women on the pictures? What i found interesting was that it claimed the decypher system of the Torah or Kabbalah, whatever that was. So was it Coronna or someone claiming it to be? In the novel, the scholars got obsessed with braking the code and Paul was determined to crack the code with the secret messages. Yes i thought that Tom wanted to vindicate himself with decyphering the Hypnerotomachia. Everyone got so What fazinated me was , that the mysterious author of the rare book, whether it is Coronna or someone else, wanted the reader to discover his messages like a person would approach a stranger first , before he was a friend. First you see the outside, not knowing what the the inside will bring, and only by knowing the person more and more, understanding their mind and thoughts, and the way they think, knowing their innersts thoughts, you could understand the messages and what he wanted to say about his life.What a indeed rare book and what a mind!”
“What part of the code-breaking did you find most interesting? Did you "beat" Paul or Tom to a conclusion as they unraveled some of the mystery? Did you agree with the characters' conclusions? Could you understand the mesmerizing effect that a book or work of art could have on a person? Have you ever felt this pull? In what way is it exhilarating?”
“In what ways are the worlds of Paul, Tom, Tom's father, his old colleagues and foes as cut-throat and deadly as that of the anonymous writer of the Hypnerotomachia? How does the conflict of ideas become deadly? Why is the Robert Browning poem entitled "Andrea Del Sarto" that is slightly misquoted by one character, and later referenced by Paul in a critical scene, a statement about motive?”
“. What are Tom's and Paul's motivation for pursuing the secrets of the Hypnerotomachia? In what way is Tom fulfilling his own needs by alternately obsessing himself with and then ignoring the messages of the text? Did you find the father/son story moving, and in what way do the relationships we have with the people we love or admire drive our ambitions or destroy our dreams? How is Paul different from Tom?”
“reading this book was painful. the blurbs were misleading. the pacing, too slow. ”
“I would give this book one thumbs up, one down. I had to stick with it for at least half of the book before I really WANTED to read it, and even then, the storyline was decent, but not riveting. In my head I was comparing it to The DaVinci Code, and it simply didn't have the same compelling quality. But, it did help pass time on an airline flight for which I am grateful. It works for an easy read it you stumble upon it, but don't bother searching it out.”
