Angels and Demons
In my childhood, I had watched A&D dubbed in Tamil. I was very much eager to read about Robert Langdon in a book because I could remember liking his demeanor at the time of watching the films. Even as a misogynistic child, I liked to see my heroes who would fight like badass and do action packed stuff. But I liked the way Robert Langdon thinks and saves the day. So, it was time for me to read him through the eyes of his own creator.
This book had a map of Vatican City and the Rome in the initial pages of it. I thought that it was printed just for the sake of understanding the places where Robert and Vittoria would travel. But later in the novel, just before the final reveal, there was a mini reveal about the Illuminati at the end. That reveal was directly connected to the Illuminati and the map which TBH was a mind fucking one.
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| Vatican Map in A&D |
This was a perfect book from the start till the end because it made my inner Atheist happy to the core. After completing the Robert Langdon series and as well as watching the movies, I always found it hard to believe why Da Vinci code got more hatred than A&D. Because A&D has a lot of elements of Atheism. From its introduction of Antimatter to the history of Illuminati. All were against the Christianity. But when I think about it, A&D deals more with the godman (the church priests; in this case the vatican city pope and co) and their constant agitation against the scientific community.
It had many fascinating historical tit bits. I used to know a story about a person who claimed that the earth was spherical and not a flat surface plane. People never believed him and killed him by throwing stones at them. But when I read this book, it was apparently Galileo, a famous scientist and a mathematician from century. As per Dan Brown, he was the reason Illuminati got created it seems.
Likewise, it had lot of these historical tit bits and all these had one thing in common. People who worshipped god despised people who learned science. Although the book’s main antagonist is a guy from a scientific community (yes! Illuminati was basically a scientific community as per Dan Brown), the irony lies in the final reveal of the book.
But it was so soon to judge Dan Brown. He never intended to portray the Religion as a bad thing. Later, I found that he was trying to point out the misconceptions of religion. He even went on to say that he wanted religion and science to work together. Even in A&D, I could feel what he tries to convey but, I thought of it as sarcasm.
To put this book in a single line, it was the opposite of the Tamil movie Anniyan.
I took a lot of time reading this book and when I ended it, I was heavily satisfied.
SPOILERS OF ANGELS AND DEMONS
Angels and Demons
Chapter 19 was way too technical. But from what I get, anti matter can be created by high energy collisions.
Positrons are commonly produced by radioactivity – they're a byproduct of β+ decay, in which a proton in the atomic nucleus transmutes into a neutron. Other antiparticles result from high-energy collisions, in which the excess energy produces pairs of particles and their antimatter counterparts.
[21:54 01-08-2020]
100 Pages into A&D
Felt like reading sujatha's Sci-Fi novel. Till now, there were one huge mystery and two budding mystery.
1.1, Connection between Janus and the Hassassin. - Members of Iluminati is what have been established.
1.2, Motive behind killing Leonardo Vetra (Although it was revealed to some extent that the killing was done because Illuminati despised Catholics and Leonardo Vetra was a Catholic and it also has something to do with antimatter)
1.3, Anti-Matter mystery - Vittoria was a badass explaining this mystery.
2, The misplacement of camera #86 found out by the guard (I guess it was something of a bomb) - It was an antimatter bomb alright
3, The tunnel where Hassassin is travelling mystery.
So, the Annilation of Antimatter releases Photons.
Started at 5:36 AM -> 1 PM -> 6PM -> 7 PM (inside the library) - 7:30 PM (finding the first altar)
Robert Langdon has Claustrophobia ( Afraid of confined spaces)
He is afraid of Helicopters.
Has a Mickey Mouse wristwatch (Apparantly as a sentiment - A gift from his parents)
[16:12 02-08-2020]
Finishing the 205th page of A&D
The last 100 pages dealt more with the Illuminati and the Vatican City. Also almost all the mysteries were revealed paving way to new mysteries.
1, The tunnel where Hassassin is travelling mystery. - This one was still a mystery (or may not have more significance) - Actually, this was revealed in Chapter 53. The tunnel is were the 4 Preferiti have been prisoned.
2, Murder plan of the four preferiti. (Mystery about 5 folkloric symbols that belongs to Iluminati where one was already used on Leonardo Verta's body) - Robert Langdon was silent and his significance was not shown in these last 100 pages until the last chapter.
Also these last 100 pages shedded some of the controversies (such as la purga) about christianity.
Overall a mundane 100-page-read.
Langdon was searching for the Segno (Sign) and the sign was a repeative occurence of a number - 503
Galileo was the Guy who told that Sun is the center of universe and wanted to merge science and religion.
503 is actually roman number for DIII - > this is the third book written by Galileo in D series named Diagrammo. In search of a mathemetical term (which Robert Langdon doubts maths would be the Lingua Pura - Universal Lannguage), Vittoria found a page that has number 5 in it which has a POEM (of 4 lines, each line on 4 margins of the page).
5 is a favourite number for Illuminaties.
The first clue (Earth): The poem has a famous painter's name (Raphal Santi) and his tomb. His tomb is at this place called Pantheon and pantheon represents Gaea (The mother of Earth)
The Twist: It was not the tomb of Raphal but one of his paintings that illustrated the tomb (Chigi Chapel). Entering the demon hole was not exciting as I expected tho.
[23:05 02-08-2020]
Finished the 310th page and 67th chapter of A&D
It was a very slow read and a thrilling one. It was packed with a lot of Robert Langdon moments.
The piece by piece unvieling of the Earth Mystery was awesome from the start to the last twist. Though a tragedy, I liked how it was disclosed in small amounts. No new mysteries added except the anticipation of the next murder ,The Air Mystery
[20:39 03-08-2020]
450 Pages int A&D
All the element murder mysteries were revealed in the last 150 pages.
The unfortunate thing and also the letting down thing is, no cardinals were saved despite finding all the chapels (churches)
The Air mystery (severing the lung) was the one where the media finds out the news and they started telecasting the Iluminati and their murders. The blowing air sculture (actually, its a relief its seems) reveal was awesome and this clue is by for my favourite clue.
The Fire mystery(Burning alive using Inferno) - I didnt like this one because I hoped they'd save the cardinal but instead the Hassassin kicked Langdon's ass and kidnapped Vittoria. Although this developement was needed for a good thriller, Langdon getting his ass kicked was not nice to read. It started to get frustrating. The saint therasa sculture was funny.
The main thing that has been on and on mentioned here was the name Bernini. He was a great artist and a mason of sorts (persons creating sculptures) and hes responsible for the 5 symmetric of Iluminati and all the sculptures that points to the Iluminati Lair (Chamber of Ilumination)
The Water Mystery - At this point, I just wanted to finish the novel and skimmed it for the most part. It had a fight scene between the Hassashin and Langdon. The final Cardinal Baggia also died and Langdon found out the Iluminati lair by a dove on top of the obelisk in the fountain. (That was not at all exciting)
Proving Conspiracy theories is nice to read but unless Langdon proves it, its nothing but a shit.
Coming to the mysteries, a mystery I never that would be a mystery has now popped.
1, Alexander Vetra mystery - Apparently, Mr. Vetra had told the secret of Anitimatter other than this daughter, Vittoria. - He had told this to two more people. One was the pope and the camerlango (his assistant)
2, Janus mystery - whos he??! - This is the greatest mystery of all.
Finished the book and I am starting to like Dan Brown more.
The fasicinating thing about this book was, even till the last 5 chapters, there were twists. Just when I thought the novel ends and Dan throws another twist (which was the most shocking twist of all. Ahhh!!)
That twist made me to give 5 stars. I dont like conspiracy theories that much but I bought all of the fictionalised lies in this book. Compared to Deception point, this book was a bit complex in its historical portion. Maye be I'll change my rating for this book after I read Dan's other works.
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