Angels and Demons
- This article is about the book Angels and Demons; for other meanings, please see the articles on angels and demons.
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Angels_n_demons.jpg
Angels_n_demons.jpg
Angels and Demons book cover
Angels and Demons (2000) is a mystery novel by Dan Brown, featuring the character Robert Langdon, who is also the principal character of his subsequent, better-known novel The Da Vinci Code. The story involves a conflict between an ancient group, the Illuminati, and the Catholic Church. It is credited with being the first novel to contain ambigrams.
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Main characters
- Robert Langdon: Protagonist, symbologist, professor
- Vittoria Vetra: CERN physicist
- Leonardo Vetra: Murder victim, CERN physicist, priest
- Maximillian Kohler: Director of CERN
- Commander Olivetti: Head of the Swiss Guard
- Commander Rocher: Member of the Swiss Guard; assistant of Commander Olivetti.
- The Hassassin: Killer hired by the Illuminati
- Carlo Ventresca: Camerlengo (Papal Chamberlain)
- Saverio Cardinal Mortati: Member of the College of Cardinals and participant in the papal election
- Gunther Glick: BBC reporter
- Chinita Macri: Glick's videographer
- Lieutentant Chartrand: Member of the Swiss Guard
Plot
Angels and Demons features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon as he tries to stop the Illuminati, a legendary secret society, from destroying the Vatican City with the newly-discovered power of antimatter.
CERN researcher Leonardo Vetra is found murdered in his secured, private quarters at the research facility. On his chest is branded a symbol — the word "Illuminati". After researching the Internet, Director Maximillian Kohler contacts Professor Langdon, who is an expert on the Illuminati and has written a book on the subject, and requests his assistance in uncovering the murderer.
What Langdon discovers at the murder scene frightens him: the symbol appears to be authentic, and the legendary secret society, long thought to be defunct, seems to have resurfaced. The Illuminati has also appropriated CERN's supply of antimatter, the ultimate weapon, and have their sights on fulfilling a centuries-old dream: to destroy Vatican City.
Time runs short as Langdon and Vetra's adopted daughter, Vittoria, race to stop not only the Vatican's destruction, but to save the life of four cardinals who have been kidnapped by a deadly assassin.
Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is undoubtedly Dan Brown's breakthrough novel. However, upon close examination, there are founded allegations that The Da Vinci Code was largely based on the formula he evolved in Angels and Demons. Similarities between the two books include the following:
- The male protagonist, Robert Langdon, unravels a trail of mystical, ancient clues which leads to his discovering the truth about a legendary, secret society and its relationship to the Vatican.
- A prologue depicts the assassination of a murder victim, which results in Langdon having to be awakened by a telephone call by the relevant authorities, asking him to offer his assistance in symbology.
- Events take place during the course of not much more than one day, where Langdon is teamed with a beautiful, highly intelligent woman who is closely related to the murder victim.
- The prominent assassin of the book (i.e. the Hassassin in Angels and Demons and Silas in The Da Vinci Code) commits the murders under the impression that he is doing so for an organisation which is apparently involved in but actually framed for the murders (i.e. the Illuminati in Angels and Demons and Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code).
- At one point along the way, Langdon makes a mistake whilst following the trail of clues and is directed to the wrong place.
- Maximilian Kohler and Bezu Fache are portrayed in such a way that the reader would suspect them to have masterminded the killings until the revelation takes place.
- There are two prominent cripples in the books: Maximilian Kohler and Sir Leigh Teabing.
- The mastermind behind the killings turns out to be a salient figure for most of the book, and supposedly against the motives behind the murders. The camerlengo, for example, is thought to be against the existence of the Illuminati, while Sir Leigh Teabing's motives appear to be parallel to those of the Priory of Sion.
- Langdon and the female protagonist end the story with the implication of a sexual relationship.
Factual inaccuracies
Given the book's claims to realism, it is relevant to list a number of noticeable inaccuracies in diverse areas, including science and technology, culture, characterisation and the geography of Rome. However, the book is a work of fiction and therefore the so-called 'facts' presented therein should be taken with a grain of salt. Some examples of these inaccuracies include:
- Langdon asserts incorrectly that Michelangelo designed the outfits for the Swiss Guards, though this is a common misconception.
- Langdon states at one point that the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum, found on American currency, translates as "New Secular Order." The correct translation is "New Order of the Ages."
- In a flashback, Langdon recalls a lecture he gave in his Symbology 212 class where he tells his class that "The practice of 'god-eating' — that is, Holy Communion — was borrowed from the Aztecs." It's unclear how this could have occurred, as communion has its roots in the Last Supper (ca. 30 C.E.) and the Aztec civilization did not rise until the 14th century. Even if the Aztecs had been around when the practice of communion began, there is no evidence of contact between Europeans and the inhabitants of Central America at that time. The first clear evidence of European contact with these people occurred after Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492.
- Brown claims that hatha yoga was an ancient Buddhist art. Although influenced by Buddhism, hatha yoga predates Buddhism. It was, and is, a Hindu art.
- Langdon recalls "that much of Galileo's legal trouble had begun when he described planetary motion as elliptical. The Vatican exalted the perfection of the circle and insisted that heavenly motion must be only circular." In reality Galileo famously refused to believe in his friend Kepler’s elliptical orbits and Galileo's clash with the Vatican was a result of his support for Heliocentrism, that is claiming that the Earth orbited the Sun and not vice versa.
- An antimatter containment system used to contain "anti-hydrogen" would also require a refrigeration system to keep the substance from evaporating.
- Antimatter is not an incendiary, nor does it combust.
- The quarter gram of anti-hydrogen would cause an annihilation reaction to be twice the "almost five kilotons" calculated by the head of CERN, because another quarter gram of ordinary matter is also annihilated.
- Having jumped out of a helicopter seconds before a ten kiloton antimatter annihilation, Mr Langdon would most likely have been vaporised. If not, then the explosion would have propelled him at such a speed that there would be absolutely no chance of his slowing enough to land safely.
- In a conventional nuclear explosion, most of the energy originates as kinetic energy of fission fragments and is ultimately carried away by the shock wave and blast radiation. Behavior of an antimatter bomb would be radically different.
- Annihilation of protons and antiprotons would generate energy primarily in the form of 900 MeV gamma rays. These gamma rays would easily penetrate the matter surrounding the bomb and deliver a lethal dose of radiation to any exposed person standing closer than 2-3 km from the point of explosion.
- Rather than being the mature transport system described in the book, the Lockheed Martin X-33 is, in fact, a small unmanned technology-demonstration vehicle. Intercontinental hypersonic spaceplanes are planned, but none exist.
- CERN does not have a private airport, nor does it own an X-33 spaceplane.
- Langdon claims that the Pantheon "got its name from the original religion practiced there, Pantheism — the worship of all gods, specifically the pagan gods of Mother Earth." Pantheism was never practiced by the Romans, and it has nothing to do with pagan gods of Mother Earth.
- The first marker of illumination (EARTH) is supposedly the angel from Habakkuk and the Angel in Cappella Chigi. The angel points southwest and Vittoria claims that there are no churches in that direction of the Piazza del Popolo until they hit St Peters. In actual fact there are many churches southwest of the Piazza but St Peters is not one of them. It lies almost directly west.
- Dan Brown claims that "Bernini's city-wide cross of obelisks marked the fortress in perfect Illuminati fashion; the cross’s central arm passed directly through the center of the castle’s bridge, dividing it into two equal halves." In fact, neither of the two arms of the cross go through the Castel Sant'Angelo.
- The Hashshashin hired by the novel's villains refers to Christians as playing a critical role in the downfall of his sect. This is inaccurate; the Hashshashin were crippled by invading Mongols when their fortress of Alamut in modern-day Iran was destroyed in 1256.
- The process of creating antimatter described in the book is inaccurate. Instead of colliding two particles moving in opposite directions, CERN smashes protons into a stationary block of copper or iridium.
- It is impossible to create and sustain the densities of antimatter described in the book. Similarily, antimatter could never be used as a source of power. Antimatter has to be created since it is found nowhere on Earth naturally. The amount of energy required to operate the particle accelerator would be far greater than (or, ideally, equal to) the energy the antimatter-matter reaction would produce.
- The novel asserts several non-facts about the process of a Papal conclave. It is suggested that only cardinals may be elected in a conclave. This is not true, any male Roman Catholic may be elected. It is further suggested that four candidates are semi-formally chosen, including a head, to become the candidates for papacy, thus making the Conclave obsolete. This is again not true, though there are papabile, they are not practical definites before the beginning of the conclave. Further, ballots are restricted to two in the morning and two in the evening, each group is burned together. Dan Brown indicates they are burned individually and indicates that more than two may occur in a single evening. The ballots are read out by one cardinal, verified by another, and pierced by a third; the book suggests that a single person does all of these. Also, the book states that the "master of ceremonies" of the conclave cannot be elected; in fact, he can, and he actually was in the 2005 conclave. It also should be noted that the Devil's Advocate has nothing to do with the papal election (but with the process of beatification).
- The camerlengo seems to be a junior priest. In reality the camerlango is a cardinal, therefore much senior.
Facts and mythology behind the book
- Illuminati, secret brotherhood at heart of book
- Lockheed Martin X-33
- CERN
- Freemasonry, secret society which Illuminati supposedly merged into
- Henry A. Wallace, U.S. Vice President & alleged Mason who caused Illuminati symbol to be included on U.S. 1 Dollar Bill
External links and references
- Extensive list of factual inaccuracies
- CERN's own page about fact and fiction in the novel
- Ambigram page at johnlangdon.net