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Lethal Book Review: Angels & Demons
Posted by Jun Bakon on February 6th 2006



It’s the same right side up as upside down. Get it?


I admit it. I have a problem. Once I start reading a book, I cannot put it down until I finish reading it, no matter how horrible it may be. I have some sort of compulsion that forces me to keep reading even though every rational thought in my head is telling me to put the book down, find the author, and kick him in the testicles. Luckily, I don’t choose books that make me want to injure the writer very often. The two that stand out most in my mind are Michael Connelly’s A Darkness More Than Night and Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons.

I have never really been a big fan of fiction. The only fiction writers that I will read on any sort of consistent basis are Clive Cussler and… Clive Cussler. I also read the occasional Jeffery Deaver novel. I will usually only read nonfiction titles of almost any subject. I just like reading a story that is true. (Screw you James Frey.) I only decided to read Angels & Demons because it was there. My wife’s sister brought the book over a few days ago and left it for my wife to read. I, having recently finished reading Kang Chol Hwan’s moving The Aquariums of Pyongyang for the second time, had nothing to read. So I picked up Dan Brown’s book and, after about thirty pages, wanted to stab my eyes with a fountain pen.

Angels & Demons is the predecessor to the widely popular The Da Vinci Code. The book was originally published in 2000, but saw a re-release in 2003 due to the success of Da Vinci. I never read The Da Vinci Code, so this was my first exposure to the character of Robert Langdon.

The story follows Robert Langdon, Harvard symbologist, as he tries to stop the ancient and mysterious Illuminati from causing an explosion that would surely destroy Vatican City and all its inhabitants. As the novel opens, Robert is awakened with a phone call from one Maximillian Kohler asking for his special brand of expertise. After much haggling, Robert finally agrees to meet the mysterious Kohler and help him out with his little problem. Kohler sends a plane to Massachusetts and an hour later Robert is in Geneva. Yes, Geneva. From Boston. In an hour. We find out that Kohler is the head of CERN, a scientific research agency. One of his top scientists, Leonardo Vetra has been recently murdered and branded. Seared into his chest is a single word – Illuminati. It’s an ancient ambigram, a word that is read the same whether it is right-side up, or upside down. Even though Langdon specializes in religious symbolism, he doubts the authenticity of the chest burn. You see, the Illuminati have been gone for centuries. There is no way that they could have perpetrated this heinous act.

Enter Leonardo’s terribly attractive daughter Vittoria. She and her father were both scientists working on a double super duper secret project that was sure to change the world. Could this be why Leonardo was murdered? Read on and find out! Vittoria escorts Kohler and Langdon to the lab and shows them what she and her father were working on. Antimatter. You see, Leonardo was a Catholic priest and a scientist. He had found a way to prove God’s existence. As Vittoria explained, antimatter was proof that the Universe was created by God’s hand. I find it to be a rather tenuous connection, but whatever. There was one more thing that the resplendent Vetra had yet to explain. Antimatter is highly explosive. In fact, one droplet could vaporize a half mile stretch of land. Luckily, every sample that she and her father produced was safe and sound there in the lab. All but one, that is. The missing canister contained the biggest droplet of the volatile substance, and a clock was ticking down until it blew.

Cue to the Vatican where the ridiculously dressed Swiss Guard has found that missing canister. Well, they found a video feed of it. They had no idea where the canister was, or what it contained. They only knew that it was somewhere within the Vatican. The only clue was a logo on the object. CERN. The Swiss Guard promptly called Maximillian Kohler and asked him to retrieve his property. Knowing the terrible destructive capabilities of the antimatter, Kohler called the police and explained the situation to them. Wait… No he didn’t. He sent Vittoria and Langdon to go find the canister and bring it back. Arriving in Rome, Langdon realized the seriousness of the situation. Conclave was being held today. After the death of a Pope, the Catholic Church holds a meeting of the Cardinals to elect a new Pope. The entire world was watching the events unfold. Everyone with a television had unknowingly a front row seat to destruction.


No I’m not a homosexual. Why do you ask?


Now the bad guy calls and explains what’s going on. Four of the most popular Cardinals, the front runners to be elected Pope, have been kidnapped. To prove to the world that science surpasses God, the Illuminati will publicly kill one Cardinal an hour leading up to the antimatter explosion. The assassin tells of the wondrous plan to execute the Cardinals in different churches around Rome. He will be using the Illuminati’s “Path to Illumination” as his guide. The guy in charge of the Church until a new Papal authority is called is Carlo Ventresca. He asks Langdon and Vetra to follow the “Path to Illumination” and find the four missing Cardinals before they can be martyred. Langdon has a hard time with this, as the path has been lost to humanity for many hundreds of years. So, Ventresca gives him unfettered access to the Vatican’s immense historical archives to try and find the first clue. Oddly enough, it is not marked with a blue pawprint.

Langdon finds the clue hidden in the only remaining copy of a book that Galileo wrote for the use of scientists everywhere. He races off to the first clue and waits. After several minutes of searching for the exact place of the murder, he realizes that he’s made a mistake. He’s led everyone to the wrong church. He and Vetra gather up their contingent of Swiss Guard and arrive at the second location with precious few minutes to spare. Unfortunately, they could not find the assassin or his prey in time. They find the body of the first Cardinal branded on the chest with another ambigram. The assassin called the BBC right before he committed the murder so there would be press at the location to broadcast the act to the world. The BBC reporter could not get a good enough shot of the murdered Cardinal, but they didn’t have long to wait for another try.

Robert Langdon was deep in thought. The next marker had to be somewhere in the church, but he just couldn’t figure it out. After wasted minutes studying the works of the great Bernini, he found the clue he was looking for. Off they dashed to the next locale. Much like before, they were too late to save the Cardinal from being murdered and branded. This time, however, the BBC was able to get good shots of the body and transmit them to the planet. What was once a boring story about choosing a new Pope became a gripping story of intrigue and suspense. People flocked into the Vatican hoping to see some death and destruction. Little did they know that they were at ground zero for one of the biggest tragedies in human history.

Time was against our intrepid hero, and Robert Langdon knew it. He had less than an hour to decipher ancient clues about an ancient place or another Cardinal would be sacrificed. He found the clue and discovered the next church was at the earthly home of Gianlorenzo Bernini’s famous sculpture Ecstasy of St. Theresa. He and Vittoria race there to find that they are just in time to save the Cardinal. Only problem is that the deadly Illuminati assassin stops them and kidnaps Vittoria in the process. Just like the other two, this Cardinal is branded with yet another archaic ambigram. Langdon knows he has to work double fast if he has any chance of saving the last remaining Cardinal and rescuing Vittoria.


The fire marker. Isn’t she lovely?

He quickly deciphers the clue provided by the long dead Bernini and arrives at the scene of the final martyrdom mere seconds before the assassin. A struggle to dictate the fate of the Cardinal ensues, and Langdon loses yet again. The last Cardinal, the one that everyone predicted would be elected Pope, was dead. Robert couldn’t dwell on this as he had one more clue to figure out if he wanted to save Vittoria from the horrors that surely awaited her at the hands of the assassin. Langdon wasted no time in figuring this one out. He was soon on his way to a place that few had been in the last several centuries: The Illuminati Lair.

Here’s where I could tell you the rest of the story, but I won’t. What would be the fun in that? I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. I will, however, tell you why I absolutely hated this book. Dan Brown’s anti-Catholic bias permeates this book like the smell of death permeates the bathroom every time I defecate. I’m not Catholic. I don’t even like the Catholic Church. But this was just egregious. Every time the author had the opportunity to offend or otherwise ridicule the Church, he took it. It was so bad that within the last fifty or so pages it just seemed like one big soapbox diatribe against Catholics. Because of the ever present anti-Catholic sentiment, the ending of the book was easily figured out about halfway through.

The book was slow and prodding. Dan Brown takes us on a journey. A journey through miles and miles of congealed Jell-o. By the time you reach the end, you are so exhausted that you have no feelings left whatsoever. When the shocking “twist” finally rolled around, I wouldn’t have cared if it was revealed that Barney the dinosaur was the true villain. I just wanted it to be over. Brown could have mercifully ended the torture at 400 pages, instead he decided to play the role of one of his malevolent characters and prolong the agony to an excruciating 569 pages.

The characters have nothing at all to endear themselves to the reader. The love story between Vittoria and Robert wasn’t even an afterthought, it was simply nonexistent until the last two or three pages. The fight scenes were dull and uninspired. Robert Langdon is simply not a likable character. Maybe that all changed for The Da Vinci Code, but here he was unbearable. “Neutrinos have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic!” Oh Robert Langdon, you’re such a card!

At first glance someone might say that Dan Brown’s weaving of fact and fiction was masterful. Then they would actually read the book and realize that it just wasn’t worth the effort to read. If I could use only one word to describe this book that word would be apathy.



Jun Bakon
junbakon@yahoo.com

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