Angels and Demons, Dan Brown

Let’s say, just for the hell of it, you were a good student and actually listened to your creative writing instructor.

Instead of your usual tripe, you ‘up’ the narrative ante in your latest work of genius, and hide a nuclear bomb in downtown Los Angeles, or maybe the vatican city.  And, perhaps, instead of your tortured Raskolnikov, you give your audience a good guy to cheer for.  And then, maybe you go the whole way and arbitrarily give the good guy 24 hours to get the bad guys before the bomb goes boom.

Perhaps throw in some religious zealots, incomprehensible clues, and an attractive (smart) woman.  Then you send it off to Fox, or maybe Doubleday.  It hurts to do, but the bank is calling and your wife is pissed off … so you do.

Next, the phone rings, you sign on the dotted line, and 1 year later you’ve done it … you’ve cracked the formula … yahoo … a best-seller, rave reviews, and you’re getting laid regularly … adulation of the masses … 10 million books sold … it has to be GOOD.

Um … alright, that sounds cynical.  And unfair. And like a set-up.  Right … how’s this?

Is Dan Brown’s, Angels and Demons Good, or is it A Good Rendition of a Good Formula?

The ticking clock has for time immemorial made our hearts pound. Here’s how it goes: threaten a someone or a whole bunch of someones; make us care about the someone; start the clock ticking; throw up a whole ton of obstacles; throw in a loved-one, a demagogue, religion poilitics, sex and perhaps some special effects.  Skin it with either an original or tired and true setting and off you go … hearts a pounding.

The fact that authors are still writing books and scripts that have us on the edge of our seats is only surpising in that not more works of fiction do.  The formula is simple, and when applied rigourously, it works.  Angels and Demons works.  Dan Brown has figured it out.  But just because it works, doesn’t make it a good beyond being good at making our hearts pound. Or does it

Angels and Demons, Judging the Formula

Granted, Angels and Demons is as formula driven as the driven snow. That’s neither good nor bad. What makes a book transcend the formula is if we forget the formula itself.  On this point Dan Brown succeeds.  Perhaps too well … as a writer I marvelled throughout at how well he was applying the standard.  It was so well applied that instead of wishing he would cover it with at least a modicum of care, I applauded each step along the way as he broke into smaller and smaller bits; racing for instance to rescue the ’soon to be slaughtered,’ not just once but once every 6 hours. And the audacity of not just blowing up a bus (as in the movie Speed), or city (Kiefer’s, 24), but a whole religion … !  And then, the whole fallen angel thing at the end, not to mention the return of christ or was it the anti-christ.  Jeezus … it was/is brazen and I AM looking forward to Ron Howard’s screen version of Angels and Demons.

Does Brown transcend the genre?  Nope. He embraces like it’s never been embraced and for that reason, on this point, the first judgement goes thumbs up.

Angels and Demons, Judging the Skin

Thematically, Dan Brown treads well trodden ground.  Umberto Eco introduced us to the Illuminati years prior in Foucault’s Pendulum, a more dense and textured book. Angels and Demons presents the same stew of secret societys, underground cabals, and religious zeolots all wrapped up in a semi-accurate history affected envelope. It is engaging in the way that all conspiracy theories are engaging, but really not as interesting or nearly as sustaining as Eco. 

As been argued everywhere else, the book is filled with falsehoods, quasi science, suspect religious and historical fact and a whole mess of fictional goop … which is fine for fiction.  It IS in fact what fiction is.  Except Dan Brown begins Angels and Demons by telling us that the whole skin in which the story sits is, in fact, fact.

As for the spirituality some claim is in the book …. umm … wow.  Zen in the Art of Archery is rife with spirituality.  Harrers, Seven Years in Tibet is rife with spirituality.  Pullman’s, The Golden Compass is rife with spirituality.  Angels and Demons is not. 

Angels and Demons, Judging the Prose

Alright, this is unfair.  Dan Brown is not a stylist. But this book moves so fast it doesn’t matter.  Regardless, witness the clumsy opening:

High atop the steps of the Great Pyramid of Giza a young woman laughed and called down to him.  “Robert, hurry up! I knew I should have married a younger man!” Her smile was magic.

Not … “it was the best of times, the worst of times … ;”  more in fact an opening of the torrid, Harlequin type.  But then Harlequins sell, yes?

This prose sucks. Yup.

 

Publisher’s Marketing

As summarized by the marketing department:

An ancient secret brotherhood.
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
An unthinkable target.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization — the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on earth…the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.

Angels and Demons, The Verdict

Buy it. Read it. Forget it.

 

, , ,

About The Open Critic

The Open Critic aims to be a forum for the literate discussion of popular literary culture.

All comments are welcome, but not all comments are posted. Submissions are encouraged.
Add Comment
Submit a Review
Home
You are currently reading “Angels and Demons, Dan Brown,” an entry on The Open Critic
Published:
01.15.07 / 1pm