Dan Brown: Angels and Demons

[jack]

Hm. As a plot, Angels and Demons is fairly good. Particle accelerator scientists at CERN discover a new source of energy. Scientists with religious backgrounds read theological implications into apparently "free" energy. Illuminati-infatuated terrorists steal a test device and secrete it in the Vatican on the eve of a Papal election. Academic historian with expertise on the Illuminati is called in to predict the movements of the terrorists. A small romance subplot. Lots of science vs theology discussion.

In general, it's all stuff I really like. It portrays both science and religion sympathetically (although it does keep having Catholics as antagonists).

He avoids the mistake of Da Vinci Code in publicly claiming that all the conspiracy theory crap he made up or stole from somewhere was actually true.

However, I still find it difficult to read, because about three times a page, there's a Big Revelation where he spells out something many ten year olds would find obvious. Which is very unfair of me, because if you're NOT very academic, you may well NOT know all of this (I don't know any of the Vatican history stuff, for instance). But it does make it hard for me to read.

I don't have time to list ALL of the things I found annoying. But a random selection of the first few dozen:

* Don't start by telling us that all the lady professors think your protagonist is super-sexy, even though they all know he doesn't think of himself like that
* If someone has hidden a nuclear bomb in the Vatican, EVACUATE IT. Don't spend a day delaying and putting everyone in danger. Seriously, God's will can be quite ineffable, but I thought "don't sit on your thumb on top of a nuclear bomb while not really doing anything about it" was fairly clearly forbidden.
* CERN does not have orbital shuttles it uses as taxis
* Particle accelerators producing "free" antimatter out of nowhere is really, really unlikely
* But even if they did, it's really crappy proof of the existence of God
* If the terrorists are only aping Illuminati, they've no particular reason to go to the real Illuminati sites, the press splash would be equally good somewhere Dr Symbologist couldn't track them.
* If all of the actual plot twists are physically and logically implausible, it makes it impossible to catch the "clues"
* Are there thirty-year-old well-educated adults who've really not even heard of antimatter? Not even "like a nuclear bomb, but worse"?
* There's not a binary choice between the Illuminati "existing" and "not existing". In fact, I'd be surprised if no-one claimed to be part of an Illuminati conspiracy, it's not evidence that there's a "the" Illuminati.
* There are ways other than "I enjoy rape" to characterize your assassin as "evil"
* I think assassins-for-hire who are able to follow convoluted agendas, and willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, are probably non-existent.
* The idea of a secret mark which only the Illuminati knew how to construct, but anyone could recognise, is a very good idea. But writing a word so it looks the same upsidedown is not good evidence of that. You readers have literal real-world proof in front of them that some random novelist guy can do that, so the idea that it needs a secret renaissance society of Illuminati is implausible.

Comments

[fluffymormegil]

Indeed, "kills people for money" is a pretty good way to characterize someone as "evil" all by itself :)

[lavendersparkle]

I'm not so sure.

[jack]

Ooh, I hadn't expected a moral debate on "is killing people for money bad".

I think part of the problem is that the idea of a non-affiliated professional assassin is common in fiction but rather unrealistic in real life.

In real life, I imagine the closest you usually get are mob hitmen and army/spy operatives, who (I imagine) are comparatively normal people with the right skills who kill people for "good enough" reasons.

Those people are probably less dangerous than those with an ideological justification for killing someone, because even if the ideological justification is often right (eg. self defence), it's possible for ideological justifications to spiral out of control and justify Really Bad Things (TM).

But fictional "professional assassins" seem to do it just for the money, and it's not clear if they're supposed to be like hitmen, who are basically normal but in a situation where killing-for-hire makes sense, or supposed to be sociopaths or sadists who don't see anything wrong with killing people for a reason they don't agree with, or positively enjoy it.

[simont]

I don't know that we're necessarily arguing about whether professional assassins are morally bad, only about whether one can be depicted in fiction as a more-or-less sympathetic character rather than the obvious villain of the piece. It's certainly not the same question – no end of fictional heroes or supporting characters could easily be argued to be morally pretty unpleasant in a wide variety of ways, but that doesn't stop it being clear that they're not the Bad Guys within the context of the story.

[jack]

Good point. Yeah, I didn't quite see it like that, but that is more relevant.

It's like in Westerns where the Good Guy stops someone beating his horse, and the Bad Guy shoots a priest in front of his family, it establishes a clear protagonist/antagonist.

So yes, the rape minor subplot is more of a "lets show this guy is clearly bad".

Assassins for hire can be (and often are) depicted sympathetically, although generally only if they don't actually kill people or are being redeemed. Eg. Pratchett has the assassins guild, but all the assassins actually shown seem to be (a) sympathetic characters who never actually kill anyone who doesn't obviously deserve it (b) morally ambiguous characters who die at the end (c) guild leaders who later turn out to be kinda slimeballs (d) faceless "assassins" who don't have any character but just exist to drive the plot.

[simont]

I don't know, actually. What about that assassin who tried to inhume Sam Vimes and he outwitted them and left them dangling over a dragon pen? I don't think that one really falls into any of your categories.

I suppose technically they might count under (a) since they didn't actually succeed in killing Vimes, but for moral purposes it's surely enough that they tried. And they're certainly not faceless, since Pratchett gives us a sense of their personality and does a rather good job of making us feel for their plight in much the way one might feel for any hapless low-level employee whose need to make a living has landed them in a difficult position – in spite of the fact that we just watched them attempt to premeditatedly murder the hero.

[jack]

Hm. I think I was counting that as (d), on the grounds that "not wanting to be eaten by a dragon" wasn't really specific enough to count as characterisation. And I think, even if he's equally morally culpable, books are often more sympathetic to characters who bumble a big crime than ones who succeed at it.

But I'm happy to count this as one of the exceptions where a straight-up assassin is somewhat sympathetic -- there definitely are examples of that, I just think they're rarer than characters which sort of fit the mold, but don't do "sympathetic" and "killing for money" at the same time.

[simont]

And I think, even if he's equally morally culpable, books are often more sympathetic to characters who bumble a big crime than ones who succeed at it

That's probably true, although of course it confuses the issue somewhat that you say "crime" rather than "moral wrong" – don't forget that in Ankh-Morpork, assassination isn't a crime! In fact, perhaps that's another factor in this case: the assassin isn't doing anything wrong according to the prevailing norms of their own society, even if those norms don't match those of the reader.

And to some extent we do take that into account when making our hero/villain judgments: in fiction set in ancient Rome, for example, we're prepared to see it as a sign that someone's the good guy when he sets one of his slaves free as a reward for exceptional service and doesn't beat any of the others, in spite of the fact that contemporary moral standards would strongly suggest a course of action more along the lines of "don't buy any slaves in the first place and vigorously campaign for abolition".

[lavendersparkle]

I wasn't trying to start a debate on 'is killing people for money bad'; I just wanted to post a silly Discworld quote.

[jack]

Oh sorry, I just thought that was interesting, I didn't mean to put you on the spot :)

[simont]

Are there thirty-year-old well-educated adults who've really not even heard of antimatter?

Assuming you're avoiding the True Scotsman fallacy, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were. Perhaps not too many, since you'd have to have not only not encountered a lot of SF but actively avoided as much of it as possible, but I bet there's someone somewhere who's had an excellent but entirely arts-side education and has no truck with any of that sort of nonsense.

[jack]

True. The people I know definitely bias my expectations, I expect many people don't know.

Maybe there was something about the way it was described that made it ring false to me.

Langdon had heard of it in a vague "StarTrek"y sort of way, which makes sense. I can't quite put my finger on what was wrong. Possibly the way the CERN scientists played up the "ooh, antimatter" aspect while ignoring the "we created energy out of nothing" angle just didn't ring true for the way they explained it.

The Vatican head of security seemed annoyingly dense. His reaction was "that much explosive contained in less than a gram of material? No, that's impossible! I know all about munitions and nothing is close to that explosive, I shall ignore you as cranks." OK, they probably get a LOT of cranks, but seriously, if someone tells you a bomb threat, you're just going to IGNORE it? Even if it's only a conventional explosive, that could still kill all of the cardinals at the election, that would be almost as bad.

I guess perhaps "not having heard of antimatter" isn't the problem, but something seemed off. Possibly the way the characters played up the "we Know About Antimatter and no-one believes us!" trope?

[simont]

I confess I haven't actually read the book[1], so I'm only working from the contents of this post. If the person in the book who hasn't heard of antimatter is not someone who'd match my perhaps-plausible characterisation, then fair enough :-)

[1] you know, there aren't all that many circumstances under which I'd have to shamefacedly admit to not having read a Dan Brown novel.

[jack]

you know, there aren't all that many circumstances under which I'd have to shamefacedly admit to not having read a Dan Brown novel.

I was going to say, you confess? I think not reading a book you're pretty sure you won't enjoy is a good thing :)

If the person in the book who hasn't heard of antimatter is not someone who'd match my perhaps-plausible characterisation

Well, I think they DO, it's just that is STILL rings false to me but I'm not sure exactly why.

[simont]

I think not reading a book you're pretty sure you won't enjoy is a good thing :)

I agree, of course, which was more or less the point of my footnote :-) The reason I wrote "I confess" was not because I thought it was shameful per se for me not to have read the book; it was because I recognised that one might consider it a bit shameful for me to quibble at length with your criticisms without having read it, since that constitutes arguing without a good grasp of the facts.

(Perhaps odder still is that my original quibble puts me in the position of – at least slightly – defending Dan Brown against accusations of poor writing!)

[jack]

it was because I recognised that one might consider it a bit shameful for me to quibble at length with your criticisms without having read it,

Oh, sure. But don't worry, I think this is a case where you probably can make sensible speculation based on my description.

defending Dan Brown against accusations of poor writing!)

Well, defending him against accusations of poor research; his writing still seems bad in that respect :)

Although, in fact, I do feel compelled to defend him: a lot of the details are bad, but I don't think he's uniquely horrible, just happened to write an enjoyable book with bad details that got really popular.

[khoth.livejournal.com]

Maybe this one is better, but the only Dan Brown book I've actually read is Digital Fortress, where he manages to be hilariously wrong about the details, the big picture and everything else.

[jack]

I've not read that one, but I sort of suspect it's similar.

"Hilariously wrong" definitely described a lot, but I'm trying hard to be fair; I may not have got the right balance.