Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons

As you read this popular Dan Brown novel, be cognizant of the vivid descriptions of contemporary Rome and Vatican City. Note the places that you will likely see on the Prominence of Place travel tour. (If you are not going on the tour, take a moment to peruse the information and visuals at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome, noting particularly the information about Vatican City.) Note the information at http://www.danbrown.com/. Click on “The Novels” and “Angels and Demons”; take a look at the interview with Brown there. Also peruse some of the pictures and bazaar information under the “Secrets” link. Though this novel is doubtless pulp fiction, one must remember, so too were Dickens’ and Trollop’s novels, and equally popular with the public as Brown’s. Note how Brown’s suspense-filled novel also develops some intriguing ideas. Argue whether this is principally a novel of ideas or a novel of suspense.

Explain the nature of the conflict that Brown articulates over the centuries between science and faith; what has been the role of the Catholic Church in this conflict? All of Brown’s books toy with the neglected principle in Western culture of female power and potency. It is obvious in The DaVinci Code how this idea works, but how does it unfold in Angels and Demons?

The nature and fear of terrorism is a major focus of this novel. How does Brown use this idea to tie into his theme of religion and science in the book? What part does the media play in the psychology and power of terrorism? What is the idea of religious transmutation and how does it play into the major themes of the book? The theme of deception is a major part of the narrative. Characters that appear good are evil, and many unappealing characters are good. Note the characters that surprise you as you read.

Camerlengo Ventresco arranges a “miracle,” as he “saves” the Vatican from the antimatter canister; what is the real miracle after he leaves Robert Langdon in the helicopter climbing heavenward with its fearful cargo? How does Brown explain this seeming dues ex machine (plot manipulation)?

The title of the book is Angels and Demons; how does this apt title figure into Brown’s idea of “the horror and the hope.” How does Camerlengo Carlo Ventresco articulate this theme, and what paradoxes are associated with him? The narrative of the book focuses principally on the Path of Illumination that Robert Langdon attempts to discover in order to save the four Preferiti and find the antimatter canister before the Vatican is destroyed. Who are the Illuminati? What part does the art world play in the search for the Path, and who are the principle artists involved in the search?

Explication: An action charged suspense novel, Angels and Demons possesses many flaws of any pulp fiction novel but it does grapple with some fascinating questions about the conflicts and fusion of science and religion and, most important, about the paradox of the fear of evil which unifies and sustains. The book is also a marvelous travelogue of Rome and Vatican City (see frontice map); students will want to note in their journals how many of the sites portrayed in the novel they find as they explore the city on the travel tour. Robert Langdon, a Harvard faculty member and expert in religious symbology, is contacted in the middle of the night by CERN (Council Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire, see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/plane.html and http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/arrival.html) authorities who require his help in a mysterious death of one of their scientists, physicist and priest Leonardo Vetre, whose death smacks of the secret religious organization called Illuminati. Langdon is flown first to Switzerland, where he meets Maximilian Kohler, CERN head who enlists his help in the plot. The daughter of the dead scientist, Vittoria Vetre, who worked with her father on a project that would prove the existence of God through science—a discovery of anti-matter—joins Langdon anxious to find the murderer of her father. Vetre’s goal had been to fuse science with God, an idea Kohler and many of his scientists scorn but which was Vetre’s raison d’etre (503). Langdon reluctantly agrees to help and is flown (supersonic) to Rome where he and Vittoria try to convince the head of Swiss Guard security, Olivetti who is suspect of both Langdon and Vittoria’s short shorts!

At last they reach Camerlengo Carlo Ventresco, who is “acting pope” as the College of Cardinals begins its sequestered choosing of a new pope (the Conclave), a man who had been the camerlengo’s father figure (see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/basilica.html). Their adversary is the mysterious Janus, head of the Illuminati, and his deadly servant the Hassassin. They have somehow stolen the antimatter, which has potential for good but also for evil. In the process, they have branded Vetre and taken his eye—the eye and pyramid an illuminati symbol (http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/symbols.html). The vision of Illuminati expressed on page 178. Langdon and Vittoria take on the challenge of discerning the Path to Illumination, which holds the key to stopping further death and destruction, which includes destroying St. Peters with the stolen canister of antimatter and the kidnapping of the four Preferiti, Cardinals who are likely to be chosen pope. The plot captures the interest of Gunther Glick, who is BBC reporter that is only a step behind Langdon and Vittoria all the way through the search. Over the 24 hour period that they frantically try to find the canister and the cardinals, Robert is always just a moment behind the fearful Hassassin. The Path points to four places in Rome that are sacred to the Illuminati, a group of thinkers and scientists that go back to Galileo and include free masons and enlightened individuals through Churchill and George Bush (http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/galileo.html). The search takes Langdon first to the Pantheon, which he thinks is the first point on the Path (Sante’s, Raphael’s, tomb, 252) and follows the four elements translated into art by Bernini (Earth, Air, Fire, Water). The puzzle actually starts, however, at the Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo (286, see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/earth.html), where Langdon finds the first cardinal suffocated Perferiti with earth stuffed in his mouth. Next on the Path is Air, where Langdon follows Bernini’s art to theVatican and Castel Sant Angelo (see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/air.html). Here Langdon arrives after the second cardinal is murdered and again branded. Langdon searches in the Vatican archives for clues to where the Path will lead—he is left in the airless vault and thinks that he is next on the murder list (while Vittoria investigates on her own whether the Pope was murdered—no autopsies allowed on Popes so the task is not easy). As they frantically search, the countdown draws closer on the antimatter canister. Meanwhile, the camerlengo gives a moving sermon televised for all the world to see (media is the friend of terrorists, 336,345, theme); the sermon is brilliant as it “concedes” to the terrorists. Here the very important theme of terrorism and the threat of terror binds and unifies people becomes clear in the novel (419). Langdon follows the Path to Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (376) located at Piazza Barberini (see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/fire.html). There Langdon arrives just before the third cardinal is burned alive dangling over a fire in the middle of the church. Here Vittoria is taken by the Hassassin and Olivetti is killed. Robert is almost killed, as he is entombed by the Hassassin and saved only by his Mickey Mouse watch going off as police arrive. Now he has a “burning” desire to find the Hassassin and the fourth place on the Path, which is Piazza Navona and Bernini’s Fountain of Four Rivers (444, see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/water.html ). Here he finds the fourth Preferiti chained and thrown into the water. He fights with the Hassassin who escapes in a van back to the Illuminati Lair at the Castel Sant Angelo, the final destination on the search and right in the heart of the Vatican, which is a clue to the finale of the novel (http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/lair.html). Robert saves Vittoria (or she saves him) and they learn that a Sanitarian (Kohler) is on is way to kill the camerlengo. Now Robert suspects Olivetti’s successor in the Swiss Guard (see http://www.danbrown.com/secrets/angels_demons/guards.html) is part of the plot, as is Kohler. He rushes to save the camerlengo, but too late hearing a scream as the final brand (EarthAirFireWater) is etched on his check, discerned by the diamond symbol of the illuminati and the location of the four points in the Path. Kohler is shot by Chartrand, also the head of the Guard, and Camerlengo Carlo Ventresco lives. He says he knows where the canister is and only minutes before the explosion, rushes to St. Peters Tomb to take it into a helicopter to fly it high in the sky. Robert jumps on board to help, and there Ventresco reveals something amiss, as he dons a parachute, seals the canister, aims the helicopter in its ascent, and jumps—the Cardinals and Rome seeing the figure of the camerlengo descending illuminated and thinking this a miracle. Robert leaps too with a canvass make-do parachute his only protection. He is an excellent diver, so he lands in the Tiber (what else!!!). Miraculously (and this is the true miracle), he survives, and with him a tape that Kohler gave him before he died. The tape reveals the true colors of Ventresco, who has killed the Pope and is himself Janus.

Ventresco is made Pope by the miracle that the cardinals proclaim, though he is not one of them. As Robert appears, the ruse is uncovered (deception theme, 497). It is learned that Ventresco came up with the Illuminati plot to reinvigorate the Church and unify the people through the fear of terrorism (336, 345); the denouement reveals Ventresco the son of the pope, whom he has killed for his liberalism and support of Vetre’s research (Carlo’s birth a miracle of science through artificial insemination). In the end, Robert and Vittoria decline to foil the Church’s new prominence, as Cardinal Mortati is selected Pope (616).

The end of the book is filled with wonderful and perplexing questions, dealing with the paradox of science and faith, hope and horror (Ventresco, the evil pope for 17 minutes, thinks himself the “hope” of the Church but is actually the”horror” . . . on the other hand, he is, at the same time, the Church’s hope in that he appears to have actually reinvigorated the Church. The nature of God (the fearful symmetry) and the dim lines between Angels and Demons, between saints and villains, between good and evil are reinforced as the novel closes. Finally, Brown’s theme of the integrated nature of the physical and spiritual is suggested in Vittoria’s final quip at the end of the book—the yoga expert who saved Robert from the Hassassin by her yoga ability!