Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons is the first book by Dan Brown depicting the fictional adventures of Robert Langdon, a world-renowned Harvard symbologist who first came to be recognized in the bestselling second book, The Da Vinci Code (see earlier blog post here). As a prequel of sorts, it does not disappoint, and utilizes basically the same formula as The Da Vinci Code in providing thrills to the reader.

As they portray the adventures of a single individual, one cannot help but draw parallelism between the first and second books. In fact, I would surmise that being written and published earlier, Angels & Demons provided the template which was later refined in Dan Brown’s subsequent and more well known religious conspiracy thriller, The Da Vinci Code. The stories, though both highly unique, contained a lot of similarities.

It was in The Da Vinci Code where we were exposed to word puzzles called “anagrams.” In Angels & Demons, “ambigrams” were the brainteasers of choice. In The Da Vinci Code, readers were treated to a crash course on the works of the famed Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci. In Angels & Demons, it was the works of Gianlorenzo Bernini which took center stage. There are so many similarities in fact: both books take place within a single twenty four hour period, they both start with Dr. Langdon being roused from his sleep at some ungodly hour to give some insight regarding a recent murder, and they both involve conflicts between the Catholic church and some secret society allegedly bent on its destruction or discredit.

Character depiction is basically identical as well. In both books there is the beautiful, strong-willed and intelligent love interest, which invariably happens to be the deceased’s daughter, an overbearing and by-the-book law enforcer, an old intellectual to fill in some of the finer points of the plot, a fanatical, and somewhat sexually obsessed assassin, and a high profile religious figure, among others.

After you look beyond the similarities though, Angels & Demons is a very entertaining and fast paced thriller in its own right. Plot progression is markedly different from the The Da Vinci Code. While in the latter the plot is drawn out at length thoughout the course of the book, tantalizing the reader with highly intriguing bits of esoteric information couple with unexpected twists and turns towards a somewhat anticlimactic finish, Angels & Demons takes a softer and perhaps more traditional approach to storytelling, building up slowly in intensity towards the hard hitting climax at the end.

In the end, Angels & Demons is a very good book. Similar yet different in key aspects from The Da Vinci Code. All things considered, The Da Vinci Code may arguably be the better book, but Angels & Demons is definitely a pleasant and thrill packed read that can stand on its own two feet. Read it…:-)