Angels and Demons
Dan Brown Copyright ©2000
Pocket Books paperback edition 2001
ISBN: 0-671-02736-0
569 pages
Reviewed by Lee Pletzers ©2006
I have read a lot of bad reviews about this book online, in chat groups and email message groups.
It
leads me to wonder: What the hell are they talking about? The only bad
thing I noticed was the incorrect cover. Our hero, Robert Langdon is
wearing a long trench coat on the cover, but through out the book, he
wears a tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows.
The
story is about Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. He is awoken in the
early morning hours by Max Kohler, a particle physicist of CERN (Consil
Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire). Robert is not impressed at being
called at 5 A.M. and brushes the caller off. Then a fax arrives. The
image faxed to him is a dead man with an unbelievable brand on his
chest. That of the Illuminati mark. An ambigram. The caller who sent
the fax is still on the line waiting for him to pick up the phone. He
does and so starts a chain of events that will have you on the edge of
your seat after the 200 page mark. Near the start we learn that a
physicist was murdered and this physicist was also a fully fledged
priest. He has an adopted daughter, Vittoris Vetra and together they
set out to prove Genesis is true (the part where God created Earth),
the ball of light, the big bang and in doing so, they discovered
antimatter (you know the stuff that fuels the Enterprise).
Dan
Brown knows how to set up a good thriller. He kept the plot advancing
while at the same time dropping in bits and pieces of historical
information. Most of it was unneeded and should have been cut out. It
will still have read well, more faster for sure, as it had zilch to do
with the plot.
The entire story is based on the Illuminati and
their fight with the church. The historical information placed here to
describe their hatred for the church is information I didn’t know. I
had no idea that the church branded scientists and then killed them.
And now, the Illuminati is ready to strike. With the help of Janus, an
assassin is hired. In the old days there were called Hassassin. Dan
Brown’s Hassassin is a warped and evil dude. He was very two
dimensional, even though the author tried to give him a personality.
The same could be said for our Heroine, Vittoria Vetra.
Fifteen
days earlier the Pope died of a heart stroke. And on the eve of
conclave, the process to decide who the new Pope will be, the
favorites, four perferiti suddenly vanish. The camerlengo is the only
person allowed access to the Pope unannounced, he is like a manservant,
and he has to deal will all this stress of the missing perferiti, the
death of the Pope, setting up conclave and then to top it all off, the
Illuminati calls. He is told that the pereriti have been kidnapped and
all four will die. One every hour from 8 P.M. Also, the antimatter is
hidden somewhere in the Vatican City where they will never find it.
The
Illuminati couldn’t advertise their meeting place, but like all
organizations they needed more members to stay alive; so, they made a
map. Not an ordinary map, a special map with riddles in the form of a
poem and famous statues pointing the way. There are four focal points
and they need to find the first one in order to capture the Hassassin
and get the perferiti back and into conclave so someone can be named
Pope.
With the help of a book hidden in the Vatican secret
vaults, Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra set out with the Swiss Guard
(Vatican Security force) to find the first clue in the Illuminati map.
In
this book, Dan Brown shows a slight flair for the horrific. The deaths
are based on the Illuminati’s four elements: Earth, Fire, Air, Water.
The horrific comes with the burning of one of the perferiti (fire), the
drowning (water) of another (this is kind of weird as the drowning
happens in a fountain and Langdon goes deep swimming in it to escape
the killer. It is also a terribly described action scene and an
important part of the book. It just was not C. L. E. A. R. and it went
on for a few pages. In fairness, the rest of the scenes were well
done), another dies due to the element of air, this is explained
wonderfully as Vittoria tries to give CPR (mouth to mouth), and the
first one to die is due to the element Earth.
The main person
in this thriller is the camerlengo. With the Illuminati’s plan falling
into place perfectly and the sudden media attention (someone tipped
them off. I wonder who?) pushes the Vatican into the limelight. But the
Illuminati’s plan backfires as the camerlengo gives a speech on camera
and live. And what a speech! Did Dan Brown write this or did he have
the White House staff writer craft this? Anyway, the speech is a winner
with the crowd, who start singing in St. Peter’s square (after a
miracle happens when the antimatter explodes), something that hasn’t
happened for centuries.
This book is well worth the 7.99
price tag. Dan’s writing is tense and at most times, very clear. The
book is easy to read, which is a bonus, apart from all the Italian
splattered everywhere, and we get a glimpse into Langdon’s past, which
is very nice as if fully fleshes him out.
I have also read The
Da Vinci code, and it was well below par. I bought it based on all the
wonderful reviews for it. I got Angels and Demons based on all the bad
comments about it. And I totally loved it. You need to read this book!
It is great.
Readability: 7/10
Style: 8.5/10
Overall rating: 8/10
