Dan Brown: Angels and Demons
Sep. 2nd, 2012 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackHm. 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 10:43 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 01:04 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 01:25 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 02:43 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 02:55 pm (UTC)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".
no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 09:07 am (UTC)