|
THE DA VINCI CODE Author Roundtable
13.
FaithfulReader.com: Have you read Brown's previous work that also featured protagonist Robert Langdon, ANGELS & DEMONS? If so, what is your opinion of it?
Erwin W. Lutzer: No.
Peter Jones: No! I have resisted becoming an expert in "Brown lore," but I have been studying the rise of neo-paganism for 13 years. They may well be the same thing.
James L. Garlow: I have not read it, but I plan to.
Steve Kellmeyer: Yes, I've read it. He made several errors of fact on his "FACTS" page, and then proceeded to multiply those errors in the first ten pages of the novel. As with THE DA VINCI CODE, the number of errors was dizzying by the time the conclusion arrived. Much of his supporting material in THE DA VINCI CODE was stolen from ANGELS & DEMONS. Really, THE DA VINCI CODE is ANGELS & DEMONS re-written to fit the culture better.
Darrell L. Bock: I have not read it and so have no comment.
Amy Wellborn: No.
Dan Burstein: ANGELS & DEMONS is a very interesting book. In many ways, it reads like a rough draft of THE DA VINCI CODE, although I have met quite a few readers who prefer ANGELS & DEMONS to THE DA VINCI CODE. ANGELS & DEMONS features Robert Langdon and a beautiful, scientific-minded, European woman (Vittoria, not Sophie). In both cases, Langdon must work with this woman to solve the case; in both cases there are faint stirrings of a romantic relationship brewing between the two without hardly any explicit references typical of this genre of literature. In ANGELS & DEMONS, it is Galileo's notebooks that are critical to solving the case, as opposed to Leonardo's coded messages in THE DA VINCI CODE. Like THE DA VINCI CODE, ANGELS & DEMONS packs all of its action into 24 hours. Like THE DA VINCI CODE, it involves mysteries and religious controversies from hundreds of years ago. Like THE DA VINCI CODE, it has a lot of focus on little-known secret societies (the Illuminati instead of the Priory). In one story there is a grandfather-granddaughter relationship that is crucial; in another case it is father-daughter, but in both cases the parent figure has actually adopted the child. There are four brutal murders at the center of the plot of both books.
As your question notes, the Robert Langdon character is consistent across both books as a Harvard "symbologist" (there is no such thing at Harvard, although I am predicting there may be a chair in symbology in due course, thanks to Dan Brown's influence on our culture). I think the idea of the Langdon character as a symbologist, who decodes the meaning of ancient symbols, mysteries and images to solve contemporary murder mysteries, is a brilliant literary conceit. Indeed, as we have watched the ritual desecration of American contractors in Iraq and learned about the abuses carried out by Americans against Iraqi captives in the prisons, I have thought we could use Robert Langdon to explain to us what all these despicable acts of ritual murder and sexual humiliation mean in cultural terms and why these visual symbols are so potent politically.
Sandra Miesel: I haven't read ANGELS & DEMONS but my neighbor's reaction was to say, "I realized I'd read this book before. It was called THE DA VINCI CODE."
Richard Abanes: No.
Carl E. Olson: I read parts of it. It's the same plot, in essence, and it is full of anti-Catholic nonsense, just like THE DA VINCI CODE. However, it is better written than THE DA VINCI CODE.
© Copyright 2008, FaithfulReader.com. All rights reserved.
|
