Scientia Cum Religione: Angels and Demons Book Report

With the movie coming out and all, I thought it would be, er, socially relevant to post this review. So that people who've never read the book can see what it's about... And hopefully watch the movie.
I first read the book in early 2004, and I wrote this report in 2005/06 for an English class, so forgive me if I sound like too much of a fan (which I was). Also with a few omissions to make it shorter.
Since it's only proper to read the book before watching the movie, I urge you all to read it. It's on sale in bargain bookstores at 175 php, or there's probably someone you know you can borrow from.
This contains mucho, mucho spoilers. And is rather long.
Here goes.

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"From Santi's Earthly tomb with demon's hole,
'Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.
The path of light is laid, the sacred test,
Let angels guide you on your lofty quest."

Title: Angels and DemonsAuthor: Dan Brown (Copyright 2000)

Setting: Citta de Dio or The City of God: Rome

Theme: The theme of the story is the passion for art, iconology, codes, secret societies and the gray area between good and evil.

Characters:

Robert Langdon
Professor Robert Langdon works as a teacher of Religious Iconology at the Harvard University. Langdon is the main protagonist in the story, who Dan Brown describes as "although not overly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-year old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an erudite appeal-- wisps of gray hair in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school in college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool." At forty years old, Robert Langdon is unmarried. He does not regret this because it has enabled him to travel the world, sleep as late as he wanted and enjoy quiet nights at home with a brandy and a good book. His colleagues often joked that his house looks more like a museum than a house because it was packed with religious artifacts from around the world. He was a tough teacher and a disciplinarian although he relished recreation with an infectious fanaticism that earned him fraternal popularity with his students.

Leonardo Vetra
Leonardo Vetra is actually a supplementary character who dies a gruesome and rather morbid death at the start of the story. He is a controversial figure because though he was a particle physicist, he was a Catholic priest. He was starting to fuse science and religion through his more-than-complicated research when he was killed-- right after he finished making a full tenth of a gram of antimatter. In a way, Leonardo Vetra is where this story starts-- and the chilling ramifications of his work continue until the end of this heart-stopping novel.

Vittoria Vetra
A beautiful and mysterious Bio Entanglement physicist of CERN and the adopted daughter of Leonardo Vetra. She helped her adoptive father create the antimatter and she proves to be a great help in the troubles that came their way when they were in the biggest adventure of their lives.

Maximilian Kohler
Maximilian Kohler is the director of the world's largest scientific facility: Switzerland's CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire).His peers know him as King Kohler, mostly out of fear than admiration. This man is far from ordinary-- he has a custom-made movable command post (his wheelchair!) which was equipped with a bank of electronics such as a small computer, a multiline phone, a paging system and a small detachable camera. CERN employs over three-thousand physicists and more than half of the world's particle physicists comprising of sixty nationalities. With that many of the world's most brilliant minds in his command, what has that wheelchair-wheeling crippled genius been up to? Making scientific miracles, of course. In Kohler's own words: "Our scientists produce miracles almost daily". Kohler plays a very important role in the complicated plot of angels and demons as this almost-mad scientist tries and succeeds to help the real protagonists to save the day.

The Nameless Hassasin
The nameless hassasin is the killer in this story and though the novel provides a few insights into his (sick) thoughts, the killer remains anonymous. It was through him that the secret Illuminati master carried out the gruesome plans of killing the four cardinals most likely to become pope one-by-one using the four ancient elements of science (earth, air, fire, water) at the four altars of science. The Four Cardinals:

Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt
Cardinal Ebner was killed in the first altar of science, The "Chigi Chapel". In its earlier days, it was called "Capella dela Terra" which literally translates into chapel of the earth. This is strangely befitting because this cardinal was buried halfway through the earth with a fistful of soil shoved up his mouth and was branded with the ambigramatic symbol of earth.
Cardinal Lamasse of Paris
Cardinal Lamasse was killed in the second altar of science, The West Ponente in the famed St. Peter's Square. He was killed by "air", which here means his lungs were punctured and his chest was seared with the ambigramatic symbol of air.
Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona
In my opinion, Cardinal Guidera died the most painful death. He died by fire in the chapel of Sta. Maria dela Vittoria, which actually means that he was suspended by cable wires over a flaming altar with the ambigram "fire" stamped across his chest.
Cardinal Aldo Baggia of Italy
He would have been pope, had he not been drowned by that reckless hassasin into the fountain at Piazza Navona. He was the last cardinal to die, and it was almost painless; he simply accepted his death in the name of God.
Cardinal Saverio Mortati
Mortati was the Grand Elector in the conclave and he was the Devil's Advocate during the late pope's reign.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca Ventresca was the late pope's chamberlain who played a very important part in the course of events in the story. Let's just say that he was the glue that held it all together.
The Swiss Guards
* Lieutenant Chartrand
* Captain Elias Rocher
* Commander Olivetti

Sylvie Baudeloque
Sylvie was Maximilian Kohler’s secretary at CERN. She was a very religious woman who strongly believed in God and her Catholic faith. She was one of the people who were astounded by what happened in Vatican City.

Gunther Glick
A frustrated BBC reporter with a red beard. For some reason, the hassassin contacted this story-starved struggling reporter to broadcast the cardinal’s murders, making him famous. But his fame was short lived... Since he accused CERN to be the hideout of the Illuminati and George Bush to be a financier. Of course, none of those two were very pleased...

Chinita Macri
Gunther Glick’s camerawoman who prefers to be called a videographer.

Summary:

Exposition: The exposition in the story is when Robert Langdon gets a call in the dead of the night from mysterious Maximilian Kohler, the director of the world's largest scientific facility. At first Langdon regards the caller as a hoax, a practical joke by one of his students from the university. There is absolutely no way that a thousand year old satanic cult could leave its legendary mark on a particle physicist in a tightly secured research facility, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. That's what Langdon finds out when he flies across six time zones to get to Switzerland, the home of CERN. When the altitude-sick Langdon descends on the massive buildings comprising CERN, he didn't know that he was going to face his biggest challenge yet—survival.

Complication: From there, the mysteries get laid down as one of CERN's pioneer scientists, Leonardo Vetra, was killed and branded with an ambigramatic symbol of "Illuminati." Furthermore, his research, the world's first particles of antimatter (see definition of terms). was stolen by an unknown adversary. When the antimatter was stolen, it was removed from the power source that kept it from getting contact with matter. A backup battery was running to keep the antimatter from annihilating but there's a catch: after 24 hours, the battery will run out. After 24 hours, everything within a half-mile radius will be liquidated-- literally. Now Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra, the murdered scientist/priest's adopted daughter must try to find the antimatter before it annihilates. They also need to find out who stole the antimatter, since NOBODY was supposed to know about the antimatter except Vittoria and her adoptive father. Then they get a call from the Swiss Guard, it seems that the stolen antimatter is on a live video feed from the Vatican City. According to the time on the video feed, the antimatter will detonate at exactly 12 midnight. With a shrewd but not useless idea of where the antimatter was and with no time to spare, the two sped off to Vatican City for a day in Rome neither of them will ever forget. At the Vatican, while talking to the Camerlengo (chamberlain), they receive a call from the hassassin himself. They were told that the four cardinals were going to be killed one by one, starting at 8:00 at the four altars of science. Then, at 12 midnight, the antimatter will annihilate...

Climax: The climax in the story begins when Langdon and Vittoria explored the “Archiviano Vaticano” or the Vatican Secret Archives and found a hundred-year old poem in Galileo Galilei’s Diagramma. The poem was written by John Milton and seemed to be the clue to find the altars of science. At first they didn’t know what the altars were, but then the clue they had was that they were used to honor the four ancient elements of science: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The poem was written in perfect iambic pentameter and pointed them to “Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole.” Who was Santi? Who else but the great Raphael, the renaissance painter. After a grave mistake, they do find the correct location which is at the Santa Maria del Popolo chapel, specifically the Capella dela Terra (Chapel of the Earth). They arrive late and find Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt— mouth stuffed with soil and dead. Following the poem’s last line, “Let angels guide you on your lofty quest”, they followed the angel’s hand in the sculpture Habakkuk and the Angel and were led to St. Peter’s Square, where the “West Ponente” or the West Wind was... Air if you want to get technical. Cardinal Lamasse of Paris was found there—lungs punctured and very much dead. Following the West Ponente’s breeze, they proceeded to the chapel of Sta. Maria de la Vittoria where they found Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona—no, not dead yet, just suspended by cables over a flaming altar and being burned alive. It was at this point that Vittoria was kidnapped by the hassassin and was carried off to the Illuminati lair. He didn’t realize that this was his biggest mistake so far because Langdon will stop at nothing to save her. But before saving Vittoria, he followed the sculpture of the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” to the Fountain of Four Rivers at Piazza Navona. He fought briefly with the hassassin but lost, and had to fake drowning to escape. Cardinal Baggia drowned there... and then Langdon realized he had another task ahead, finding Vittoria at the Illuminati Lair. He eventually found the lair, which turned out to be the Castel Sant’ Angelo or the Castle of the Angel and found Vittoria. After a rendezvous with the devilish hassassin, Langdon and Vittoria managed to push the hassassin to his death—an open balcony. They may have won the battle but the war wasn’t over yet, they still had to find the antimatter.

Denouement: Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca did it. He tricked the hassassin into thinking that the Illuminati still existed and made him kidnap and kill the cardinals. And yes, he also stole the antimatter. Plus, he killed the pope. His motives? Simple, brilliant and utterly twisted. “For centuries,” the Camerlengo said, “the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination—a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science’s ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God is the day people stop needing faith! Science, by definition, is soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers? No. But more and more people believe in science. Religion needed a miracle. Something to awaken a sleeping world and bring them back to righteousness. I needed to restore faith... even if by using evil to do God’s will.” The Camerlengo killed the pope because of what he thought was righteous anger. The pope, his mentor, confessed to him that he had a child. Ventresca didn’t stop to listen to his holiness’ explanations and immediately concluded that he had broken his vow of chastity and fooled the world. So he poisoned the pope with a drug called Heparin.

Resolution: Cardinal Mortati decided to tell the truth. When the pope confessed that he had a child, Ventresca didn’t hear his next words. He was the son. And technically, the pope didn’t break any rules because it was made possible by artificial insemination which meant he didn’t break his vow. Carlo Ventresca was shocked beyond belief and ran down, down, down to the Niche of the Palliums. Once there, he anointed his whole body with butane (smells like heaven but burns like hell!) and literally set himself on fire using a golden lighter.

Conclusion: Just when the Camerlengo thought everything went the way he planned, the truth came out. A lot of lives were wasted in the story, but a lot more were saved. Robert Langdon fell in love with Vittoria and she with him. Cardinal Saverio Mortati was elected Pope and he asked Langdon and Vittoria to let their hearts guide them as to the matter of discretion about the events of the past 24 hours. But the new pope didn’t need to ask them to remain discreet, as they already decided to when they survived the events that gave both of them a new meaning for the words love and life.

Reactions, Comments:
Dan Brown wrote such a believable book that expertly fused fact and fiction to successfully narrate one of the most astonishing adventures of unlikely heroes. This is quite an educational book with facts revealed about the origins of the Catholic Religion and its ties to other religions everywhere around the world. The novel really comes to life with Brown’s accurate, inventive and precise descriptions of the various locations, architectural feats and other icons involved in the story. It created just the right blend of likable and despicable characters embedded in the intricate plot topped with a phenomenal ending guaranteed to shock even the most experienced reader. One of my few comments regarding the story is that the scientifically-oriented jargon may be difficult for some readers to understand. But even if that may be a down-side, this book enhanced my vocabulary by 50 percent and even inspired me to write a few stories of my own. Dan Brown did make a few mistakes though... (they are mentioned in the book “Unlocking Angels and Demons ”). One of these is the collective term used to refer to the four cardinals eligible to become pope which the book says is “Preferiti.” In real life, the correct term is “Papabili.” Point two, in a real Rome City map, the four churches (Capella dela Terra, St. Peter’s square, Sta. Maria dela Vittoria and Piazza Navona) do NOT form a cross, as the book says. And Castel Sant’ Angelo’s bridge does not pass exactly through one of the lines that make the cross. Point three, “La Purga” never occured, though every author is entitled to invent circumstances to make their plot more believable.

Social Relevance: The novel "Angels and Demons's" social relevance lies in the antediluvian topic of Science against Religion. In the story, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca resurrects the ancient brotherhood of "Illuminati" to reinstate fear into the hearts of Catholics and bring them back to God. The man firmly believed that the Catholic Religion's strength is in its tradition, not its transience. In our world, I do not think that this is possible. The only permanent thing is change, and, as all things adapt to alterations, so must every religion. Life cannot depend on its past simply for the sake of upholding tradition for transience is inevitable and ineludible. Change in the Catholic religion must not be feared nor despised, because as change happens, faith evolves too. Sometimes, transience leads to an even deeper understanding of the benevolent and the omnipotent. Benevolent means to be marked by the purpose of doing good and omnipotent means to have virtually unlimited influence or authority. Dan Brown's novel points out that God is both omnipotent and benevolent because even though he has complete control over our lives, he lets us learn by giving us our freedom and lets us learn by our mistakes for our own good. People all over the world have been fighting over science and religion for the longest time, and this novel presents quite a different idea to the public. It suggests that science and religion are allies, not enemies. They work hand in hand to create miracles everyday. If science and all its laws is one big magic trick, there must be a great magician behind it all. That magician is God. If people accepted this idea, then the great war between religion and science will be over and both of the sides will be well accounted for. None of them will lose but neither will triumph over the other. Both of them will simply merge to form one concrete and profound definition that will be composed of both their beliefs. If the two would just compromise and try to listen, understand and accept ideas far from their own, they would open their minds to new ideas and broaden their horizons to new heights. If you ask me, these two immortal enemies would achieve more if they work together and cooperate rather than working apart while detesting each other. If you think about it, science and religion are actually focused upon a common goal which is to achieve the higher understanding of life... In religion this is called “achieving eternal life”, while in science this is “determining the singularity.” In our wildly strange world, a strong fusion of fact and faith, the intangible and the tangible, the abstract and corporeal and the theoretical and the physical may be just what we need to understand what life is ultimately all about.

Definition of Terms:

1. CERN- Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire is the world's largest scientific facility located in Switzerland.
2. Ambigram- an ambigram is a symbol that looks the same even if you look at it right side up or upside down. Examples of these are the Christian Cross and the Hindu's Swastika.
3. Hassasin- The word hassasin came from the potent intoxicant "hashish", which was the drug that a certain group of people used when they celebrated. These people were notoriously skilled executioners who were renowned for their brutal killings. They were known by a single word-- "hassasin"-- which literally means "followers of hashish." Hassasin is still used nowadays except it is now pronounced as "asssasin."
4. Antimatter- "Antimatter is identical to physical matter except that it is composed of particles whose electric charges are opposite to those found in normal matter. It is the most powerful energy source known to man. It releases energy with 100 percent efficiency (nuclear fission is 1.5 percent efficient). Antimatter creates no pollution or radiation, and a droplet could power New York City for a full day. There is however, one catch: Antimatter is highly unstable. It ignites when it comes in contact with absolutely anything... even air. A single gram of antimatter contains the energy of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb-- the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Until recently, antimatter has only been created in very small amounts (a few atoms at a time). But CERN has now broken ground on its new Antiproton Decelerator-- an advanced antimatter production facility that promises to create antimatter in much larger quantities."1
__________________ 1 Brown, Dan. Angels and Demons. 1230 Avenue of the Americas; N.Y.: Simon & Chuster Inc., 2000, p. IX
5. Singularity- a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole.- a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists.
6. Obelisk- Etymology: Middle French obelisque, from Latin obeliscus, from Greek obeliskos, from diminutive of obelos.Date: 1569- An obelisk is an upright 4-sided usually monolithic pillar that gradually tapers as it rises and terminates in a pyramid
7. Annihilation- To annihilate is to vanish or cease to exist by coming together and changing into other forms of energy (as radiation or particles).
8. Conclave- a private meeting or secret assembly; especially : a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope.
9. Swiss Guards- Italian Guardia Svizzera corps of Swiss-born soldiers responsible for the safety of the pope. They serve as personal escorts to the pontiff and as watchmen for Vatican City and the pontifical villa of Castel-Gandolfo.-The guards, who are independent of the Swiss armed forces, are employed by the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the pope, to whom they swear fealty in a ceremony at Belvedere Court. New recruits must prove that they are of Swiss origin, born in wedlock, Roman Catholic, unmarried, less than 25 years old, and healthy and free of physical deformities.
10. Necropolis- plural Necropolises, Necropoles, Necropoleis, or Necropoli (from Greek nekropolis, “city of the dead”), in archaeology, an extensive and elaborate burial place of an ancient city. In the Mediterranean world, they were customarily outside the city proper and often consisted of a number of cemeteries used at different times over a period of several centuries. The locations of these cemeteries were varied. In Egypt many, such as western Thebes, were situated across the Nile River opposite the cities, but in Greece and Rome a necropolis often lined the roads leading out of town. One of the most famous necropolises was discovered in the 1940s under the central nave of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

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In retrospect, there are a few other things I should have pointed out. The pope had a child, which is probably enough to make the Vatican ban the filmmakers from shooting inside Citta de Dio itself. Oh, wait, they did. A speaker for the Vatican said they didn't even need to read the script: It had "Dan Brown" on it. But as director Ron Howard said in an interview... "Officially, we weren't allowed to shoot inside Vatican, but cameras can be made really small."
But I swear to (G/g)od/s [(G/g)oddess/es] this is not like the lame conspiracy theory presented in The Da Vinci Code. When I read that, it just left me with a rather unpleasant after-taste. The story could have been good, (the development was superb) had he not tried so hard to make it a "huge huge huge" issue. Which it became. But it wasn't, really. And made it a hype book. (See Mico Subosa's entry on hype books.) I guess that works for him though. And follow-up question: Would it really matter that much if Jesus had a child? I actually think that would be pretty great, since that would show that he really went through the things that normal people on earth go through. He was also "only human," right? Which meant he was a carbon-based sentient life form descended from early primates like the rest of us. I'm going to stop before start rambling about DVC.
Another point: the unification of science and religion. Hmm. I think we all know what happens when you suggest that.
All in all, it was a great read. REALLY. I'm not just saying that because I'm an agnostic who happens to like conspiracy theories. In fact, you'd appreciate it more if you were Catholic. Which you... probably are, since this is the Philippines. Excellent symbolism, a blend of fact and fiction, nerve-racking suspense, twists and turns, extremely cool ambigrams, and a mystery to end all mysteries. I've also been addicted to science fiction ever since. I will forever be thankful to this book for opening my eyes to the diversity of ideas in the world. (I was twelve when I read it.)
Don't get me wrong here, Brown is not the best writer out there. His prose borders on dreadful, and you often get the made-for-Hollywood-movie feel. He's commercial. I'm not saying "read this for literary appreciation" I'm saying "read this for entertainment." It's enjoyable, it's not a drag, and you can get a lot of useful facts along the way.
And regarding Brown's other books... Deception Point is also good. Another conspiracy theory, with Rachel Sexton and Michael Toland as lead characters. And it's not about religion, don't ring the Vatican. It's about a meteor that crashed on earth a few billion years ago, and may or may not give proof to the existence of life forms on other planets. Set in the Milne Ice Shelf. Also suspense-filled and very entertaining. Another "this-was-meant-to-be-a-movie-script-but-I-turned-it-into-a-novel" book. Digital Fortress, on the other hand, was like a watered-down and less engaging version of 24: I don't recommend it. I can't even remember what happened in that, except for a few scenes in a South American country that involved a jacket.
Out of his four novels (so far), Angels and Demons really stands out as the best one. I hear he has one about Freemasons coming out soon.
See the movie May 15, 2009.