For my summer reading novel, I read the book Angels and Demons written by Dan Brown. I read this book because I had already read the second one in the trilogy (The Da Vinci Code) and was amazed at how well this author wrote. Angels and Demons was an awesome book filled with historical facts and satanic cults. It shows that Brown had researched a lot of history prior to the writing of the novel.
Symbolism
the book had a lot of symbolism. Almost all of the Vatican City objects had a spiritual meaning.
The first example that I found was Leonardo Vetra's eye. It was found in the floor of a CERN laboratory after he was found dead in his room. The eye represents Vittoria Vetra's childhood and her fallen father who was killed by the Illuminati. It represents Leonardo's kindness and big heart. It was a very impressive part of the story because it was a really strange scenario. It was the first time I heard about a murder in which the killer takes an eye out of the victim.
Another symbolism example in the book was the antimatter canister. Just to make things clear, I will explain the plot of the book. Vittoria and her father were scientists at CERN. They discovered antimatter. Antimatter is highly reactive with anything- even air. A quarter of a gram contains as much energy as the bomb dropped in Hiroshima.
Well the problem in the story was that an Illuminati soldier killed Leonardo and stole a canister which had a quarter gram of antimatter. The canister had a battery that lasted only 24 hours and then it would explode. It made symbolism to the ancient war between religion and science. Since the beginnings of science, religion has done its best to slow it down and delete it. After Galileo's murder by the church, the Illuminati have promised revenge with the Vatican. Now, the Vatican is sitting in a time bomb.
Flashback
this book had some flashbacks which were used to enrich the story and explain a few details. I will give you two examples.
The first one was given when the main character, Robert Langdon, was trapped inside a coffin in a burning church. He suffers from claustrophobia and he was remembering the story that made him claustrophobic.
When he was young, he went camping with his parents to a meadow. While they were pitching camp, he went exploring and he saw a lady slipper flower. He went to grab it and he fell down an abandoned well. He recalls that he thought the walls would close down on him. The light felt like miles away. It took five hours to reach him. The next day in the newspaper, there was an article that was titled "The Little Swimmer That Could"
The second flashback that I remember is one of Vittoria Vetra. It was the first day she saw her father. She was in a convent but she had a great curiosity. One day, the head monk told her to come inside to eat because she will catch a cold in the rain. Vittoria ignored her. Then this new priest came out to get her, but to her surprise he sat down beside her in the mud. They started talking and she found out that he was a scientist. He knew a lot and could feed her curiosity by answering her questions. They were inseperable and then after a few years he adopted her and they moved to CERN. He was Leonardo.
Foreshadow
I only noticed a few times foreshadowing. It wasn't very common in the book. Here is one example.
Before the fire branding of the second prefiriti, you could kind of sense that something bad was going to happen. For one thing, there were two monks coming outside the closed church. They said that an arab man entered the church and forced everyone out. The church door was closed with chains. And, last but not least, there was smoke coming out of the church windows.
This was the clearest foreshadow that I sensed in the book.
Atmosphere
Whenever an important place is presented you can feel the atmosphere. The use of descriptive language used by Dan Brown is very good. I will give two examples of atmosphere in the book.
The first one was in the Chigi Chapel demon's hole. The description of the damp air and the smell of rotting flesh makes a disgusting atmosphere. It described the skull-filled niches in the wall so well, that you could visualize them perfectly. The damp and dirty floor in the 20 feet in diameter circle was described incredibly. The whole atmosphere was disgusting.
The second one was in the Vatican Archives with Vittoria Vetra and Robert Langdon. When they entered the vaults that had little amount of oxygen, you can feel the pressure in the air. Also, it was a delicate space for there were all of the Vatican treasures in those vaults.
Plot Twist
In the book, a major plot Twist appears at the beginning when the laboratory door opens and there is a vacant space where the full canister must have been. The clues coming before it were the missing eye in the corpse of Leonardo, the bloodstains in the first laboratory, and the eyeball in the second laboratory.
Digressive Time
In the book there were lots of flashbacks and foreshadows like "The Little Swimmer That Could".
Progressive Time
The whole book was in a day and the events moved chronologically. It was a fast story that had many different scenarios in Rome and the Vatican.
Suspense
Probably the most suspense full novel I have read so far. It was filled with adrenaline. The moment with the most suspense was when they were in the Necropolis with the camerlengo searching for the canister in St Peter's tomb. Nevertheless, the story was filled with suspense in all the preferiti killings and the part when they killed the Hassassin (the bad arab guy).
