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Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown |
This review is of a novel Dan Brown wrote before The DaVinci Code, and one that he basically used as the framework of DaVinci, in that they have virtually identical plots, with only the details and locations changed. Angels and Demons is a far superior book, both since it came first and on its own merits, and DaVinci, while not bad, is selling almost entirely due to the religious discussion and theory in it. More about that in my DaVinci Code review, of course. As the time I wrote the following Angels and Demons review I had not yet read The DaVinci Code, so there are no comparisons between them here.
You can see a rather obviously two-tiered rating here, with the plot and suspense on an extremely high level, while the rest of the book was very mediocre. If the book had gone out with a bang on page 500 I would have awarded three 10s rather than three 9s; tragically, A&D lost points by dragging on for 50 extra pages full of rather ridiculous events. Also, time and contemplation has lowered my overall score, as you'll see when you compare this rating to the original one below. The first one was influenced entirely by the brilliant plot and structure of the novel, while my final rating is a more judicious evaluation, one that takes the slow beginning, ridiculous ending, one-dimensional characters, and overall writing quality into greater consideration. It's still a hell of a story and a fun read, though.
This review contains no spoilers. This is a key point, since the plot of this novel is by far the most interesting I've seen in years; possibly ever. Therefore I'm not going to say anything about the plot past about page 25, which should at least keep this review relatively short. Or at least vague. Quick review:
The story takes a while to get going, with a lot of introduction and history and exposition about science and religion at the start. But once it gets going around page 75, and then really gets going by page 150, it's astonishingly good. Plot wise, at least. So much stuff is happening at once, and so much of it is amazingly involved and cool. I stopped reading to get a drink of water a couple of times, and found myself almost giggling at how good the plot was and how eager I was to read more of it. About the most effective page-turner I've ever read, perhaps the best since some of Stephen King's early stories. There are multiple ritualistic murders, the threatened obliteration of an entire country, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years, new scientific discoveries that will change the world, and much more. By about page 200 there are multiple cult murders taking place, two mysteries to try and unravel, a frantic chase through the churches of an ancient city following secret symbols left behind during the Italian Renaissance, a countdown to the destruction of an entire nation, and much, much more. I was giddy with, "Holy shit!" glee while sitting up past dawn, reading feverishly. I figured out who the bad guy was by about page 300, and stuck with my prediction through all of the late twists and turns and events that seemed designed solely to make it look like my pick was not the bad guy, so I guess I wasn't surprised by the ending, though I could at least appreciate the author's efforts to disguise it. On that front, the plot is the strength of the book, and it's brilliant and amazingly involving... from about page 50-500. Unfortunately the book is 550 pages long, with multiple endings, and it gets rather pot-boilery and melodramatic. Not bad enough to ruin the brilliant middle section, but the ending just tried too hard to be surprising and clever, and as a result wasn't much of either. As for the other elements of the book... they're a mixed bag. The plot is what the book is about, and everything else serves it. Therefore the characters are pretty bland, with just one or two distinguishing features each, since they exist only to do what the plot dictates they do. I didn't really mind, since I didn't care about any of them. There's a rudimentary attempt at a slowly growing love story, but it's entirely irrelevant; just something to give two of the characters more motivation to do what they were probably going to do anyway. The dialogue in the book is very mediocre; no one ever said anything that I found clever enough to consider quoting, and far too much of the dialogue is in lecture mode. Someone explaining something at great length, or giving a speech about this or that. It's not realistic, but again, I didn't really care. I just wanted the plot to advance, and that's what the dialogue does. On the dialogue front, there are three or four spots where a long discussion about the nature of religion and science comes up, and how they need each other, or disprove each other, or negate each other. All of these topics are covered several times, from different points of view, and I found them somewhat interesting, but just in terms of character building. And in each case, the same effect could have been achieved with far fewer words and far less of a speedbump in the plot. YMMV; I can imagine some people finding those sections the most interesting in the entire novel.
And speaking of mileage varying, one of the main things people object to in the reader reviews on Amazon.com didn't bother me at all. It's the same criticism the DaVinci Code gets; and it's factual in basis. Some people, scholars or wanna-be scholars who've read the complaints elsewhere, go on and on about how the book was ruined by them by some factual error. X isn't really in a given painting or statue, or Y isn't true about anti-matter in a vacuum, or Z wasn't really invented by Thomas Jefferson or written by Galileo. These objections may or may not be true; I'm not enough of a scholar about any of the topics to say for sure. But to me, they don't matter. It's not a biography or thesis or a history book. It's fiction, a suspense thriller that's based on reality, one that weaves actual names and events into the story to make it more interesting. Objecting to some minor point about Vatican history or geography, or the date some statue was created, or who actually put something on the US dollar bill seems foolish to me. And I wonder if the people who are doing that, saying the book was ruined for them by this or that nit pick, are really serious, or are just trying to make themselves feel smarter, or make themselves look smarter to everyone else. For example: 1 star I don't know any Italian and don't care about the internal structure of the Vatican guard, therefore I'd never notice or care about this. But for this guy, who does know about that stuff, it ruins the book for him. One man's nit pick is another man's back breaker. I don't know about the stuff that so many picky reviewers say is factually wrong, so I don't care. If the book had major plot points that I knew were bullshit in areas I am expert in, such as computers or literature or sports or whatever, I'd probably be bothered by them. I'd try to get over it to keep on enjoying a good read, and I doubt I'd be moved to go write a 1-star Amazon.com review to try and make myself look smart for knowing more than the author did, but it would definitely make me think less of the work. Even though I'd know it was just a novel, not a text book, and that it was based on reality, not an exact recreation of our world.
On the whole I liked the book a lot and wish I could wipe my memory so I could read it again fresh, since I don't think it's got much for repeated reads. And if you're interested in it, I would strongly suggest that you not read any of the reviews. I tried to give as little plot as I could here; just enough to tease, but if you know what happens in this one, you'll cut your enjoyment at least 50%. Many of the reviewers say The DaVinci Code follows almost the exact same formula as this one, but I liked this one well enough that I'm definitely going to read it. If anyone else has read this book, or both of them, feel free to chime in.
The following little story about how I obtained my copy of Angels and demons is amusing, and it was originally at the start of the review, but since it's irrelevant to the book's quality, I've moved it down here on this review page. I've yet to read the DaVinci Code, and wasn't really considering it, until I read the first chapter in a bookstore a few weeks ago, while Malaya and I were waiting for our pager to go off and call us back to Chili's. And much to my surprise, I found it (the book, not Chili's) very interesting. It opens with a museum curator being murdered by some unknown assassin, who wants him (the curator) to give him some secret info. The curator tells him a carefully rehearsed lie, which the killer listens to and says, "That's what the other three told me as well." This terrifies the curator, who is astonished that anyone knows there are three others in his secret knowledge society, and fears that the truth will die with him, since the story he and the other three died telling is a lie. But a lie about what? We have no idea, except that passing along the truth is so important to the curator that he struggles to his feet and flees the assassin, despite being gut shot and knowing he'll die in agony in about 20 minutes. The curator knows he must leave some clue to pass on the truth he's about to die with, since the other three who knew it are already dead to this assassin. But what is the truth? And how can he leave a clue to it in the short time he has remaining? That's as far as I got before the pager went off, and we left the store to go eat dinner, but it's an interesting enough opening to a book that I want to read more. I don't want more enough to pay $18 or whatever the book costs in hardcover at CostCo, but I would like to read it. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who owns it, though Malaya thinks a friend of hers at work does and she can borrow it. I thought of The DaVinci Code earlier this week, when we stopped by the Lafayette library, and were browsing around idly. The librarian was standing there, looking bored, so I asked her about the book, since I couldn't remember Jon Doe's name. She named him and said that no, they didn't have any copies of the book in stock, and that the last time she'd checked there were like 500 names on the waiting list to check it out. Bleh. However, during our conversation she mentioned that his earlier book, Angels and Demons, was pretty similar to the DaVinci Code, and that she had a copy handy. I wasn't real sold, but I figured what the hell and said okay, and she went back and got a paperback from behind the counter, and said it was mine. Not to check out, since it wasn't a library book. It's just the paperback that someone donated to the library, and they hadn't decided if they were going to put it out with the used books for sale or give it a code and make it check out-able or what. So she just handed it over with a request that I bring it back when I had finished reading it. Pretty nice of her, I thought. Malaya said she did it because she thought I was cute, and that she was annoyed when she saw I was there with my girlfriend (Malaya was back in the stacks when I talked to the librarian in the first place.) but I don't have an opinion on that. I have no ability to tell if a woman likes a guy or not, especially when the guy is me. The librarian was nice, but she looked too old and too school marmish for me to find her attractive, so wouldn't have given a single thought to liking or being liked by her if Malaya hadn't brought it up. I'm pretty oblivious that way, much to Malaya's occasional amusement.
Reader and Blog Comments on Angels and Demons In Saturday's blog, I reviewed and discussed Dan Brown's novel Angels and Devils. My comments generated an email on the subject that brings up a good point, something I wanted to discuss in more detail. Here's what Marty had to say.
I can believe it, and I saw similar comments to this in the various negative A&D reviews on Amazon. People saying it was basically Brown's test run for DaVinci, or that he obviously reused the same formula for his big later success. I'm still interested in reading DaVinci, even though I feel like I'll pretty well know what's going to happen before it does. That might be a problem, since I though the surprising and clever and intricate plot of A&D was what made it work (since the writing and characters are pretty average) and if I don't have the plot pulling me along through DaVinci, and I'm not Christian or a religious scholar so I'm not really fascinated by the "redefining Christianity based on secret early writings" elements what does that leave me? I guess I'll find out when I get my hands on a copy of the book, which should be by next weekend, with any luck. As for formulaic writing by the same author... it's not as if Mr. Brown here is some sort of exception. Plenty of authors have made a career off of writing the same novel over and over again, just changing the character names and locations. Hell, some genres are basically that; see the romance novel, several thousand of which can be found in your local bookstore. There are also requirements for most genres; mysteries all pretty much kick off with a crime, run through the rogue's gallery of suspects, introduce the brilliant but idiosyncratic detective, follow his investigation as he/she works around the bumbling police, and end with his/her brilliant explanation and unveiling of the killer, who is always the last person you would have suspected. Which means that all of the regular readers figured it out by page 200. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; familiar formats in books (not to mention TV shows, movies, blog entries, etc) have evolved over time and are still used since they're good ways to present the material. Some authors break them successfully, others break them and produce a confusing book that feels out of order and scattered. And it's entirely possible to write a story within the usual format of the genre, and still fill it with surprising details, interesting characters, etc. As for authors who reuse the same formula... well, that's nothing new either. Besides the obvious cases like romance writers or detective story writers, how about my recent favorite blog topic, Harry Potter? I'm about 1/3 of the way through book 4 (which feels slow and bloated and overlong already, and I've got 500 pages to go) and so far all 4 books have followed the exact same path. They start off with Harry home with the muggles and bored, throw in a few weird things as he prepares to leave for school, introduce some dangerous threat to him and/or the school, and then follow his school year with occasional flashes back to the dangerous threat while he and his friends are the only ones doing anything about it, and end with a big show down that he triumphs in before going off home for another boring summer. So the Harry Potter books are very predictable in format and style, but this is useful to Rowling since she knows how the material will be presented, and she can just work on adding or altering details in it. More wacky hijinks with the various teachers, more cruelty and bullying from Malfoy, another dangerous animal Hagrid can't see the harm in, etc. The only thing that really changes is the big mystery/danger each time, and that's always a minor element of the book, at least in terms of how many pages are devoted to it before the conclusion. Her familiar format certainly isn't hurting sales, and on the contrary, it's a big selling point of the books. In this world full of chaos and boredom, it's fun to escape into Harry's far more interesting world, and see him return to the wonderfully fun school he attends. I'd certainly have loved reading about his adventures at Hogwarts back when I was bored and fidgety in elementary and middle school. Not so much in high school, since I was too alienated and into weird stuff and needed horror fiction and death metal to get through the day. (Though my problems never drove me to smoke or drink or drugs, so how serious could they really have been?) As an adult I can embrace my childishness enough to enjoy the HP novels without thinking that I'm not cool for enjoying them. Lots of other authors are quite formulaic as well; Dean Koontz certainly, as I discuss on the very outdated and insufficient excuse for a Horror Novelist page.
Another easy example is Anne McCaffrey in her Dragonriders of Pern novels, which I enjoy and read as a teen, and then again more recently, even though I have no real respect for the quality of them. Some of her books are more adult-oriented and varied, but several that have teens at the main character do just the same thing. Kid who feels like an outsider, oppressed by his/her stodgy parents or society until they run away to live on their own, and only then can their true talent blossom as they discover something new and amazing and achieve eventual acceptance and happiness. Just off the top of my head, this is the plot of Dragonsong/Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, The White Dragon, The Masterharper of Pern, The Dolphins of Pern, and it's a featured element in several of her other stories. Why? Because it works well, and readers love the archetype of the young person sticking to their internal convictions and going off on their own to do something important, and proving to the doubters that they were right.
It sounds like Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code do a lot more than share a similar structure and some of the returning characters, but I'll have to wait until I read them to judge if my enjoyment is ruined by the "similar" nature of the books, or if they're just similar in structure, but still individual enough to let me read them without feeling like a big whore. |
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an
Brown, despite having perhaps the most boring name in the history of
publishing, is currently a very hot author. Or he would be, if he had a
name that wasn't so anonymous that it defied all attempts to remember
it. He's the author of the DaVinci Code, which has been the #1
bestseller in the US for more than a year (as of July 2004), and has
more than 7 million copies in print. (Which should give you some idea of
the staggering popularity of the Harry Potter books, since the five of
them have more than 300m copies in print. I.E. each one has, on average,
8.5x more copies out there than the 60+ week #1 best selling DaVinci
Code does.)