A scientist in the CERN discovers the antimatter — a substance with destructive potential comparable to a nuclear weapon. But an Illuminati member kills the scientist, steals the container with the antimatter and hides it in Vatican in order to destroy the capital of the Catholic world as a revenge for persecutions in the Middle Ages. The director of the CERN asks the main character Robert Langdon to help him and the murdered scientist’s daughter to find the container.
In this novel science opposes religion, religion itself opposes true faith, the antimatter opposes the matter. Generally, the good opposes the evil, and that is why I think the novel is called Angels and Demons expressing a kind of religious but yet one of the most obvious contrast. Moreover, the main character is Robert Langdon, a professor of religious iconology and the fictional field of symbology at Harvard University. It means that he explains religions scientifically, combining these two opposites. The murdered scientist was a priest at once. The main antagonist is considered a positive character in the beginning but turns out to be the villain in the very end. All the main characters own antithetical features, which are like angels and demons.
The novel is written in the third person semi-omniscient narration. The narrator is reliable. In my opinion, this limited yet reliable narration makes a reader more interested in what will happen next. Dan Brown put the text in small chapters and roughly shifts from the protagonist’s and antagonist’s stories, and that causes double-plotting. For example, first 4 chapters follow Langdon’s story, and the 5th chapter starts with “On a busy European street, the killer serpentined through a crowd. He was a powerful man. Dark and potent. Deceptively agile. His muscles still felt hard from the thrill of his meeting.” introducing the villain to us.
The setting is a constant Dan Brown’s distinctive feature. All stories about Robert Langdon happens in 24 hours or so, and Angles and Demons” is not an exception. However, during this short period the main character to travel from his home in Massachusetts to the CERN in Switzerland and then to Vatican, where the most part of the story takes place. The author thoroughly describes the masterpieces, which the characters run into in Vatican and Rome. The details in Angels and Demons are relevant because they lead the characters and thereby the readers to the conflict’s solution. For instance, Robert Langdon and his companions look for the statues of angels in various Romanian cathedrals and churches that would direct them to the place where the antimatter was hidden.
The protagonist of the story Robert Langdon is round and opaque. The author shows him well as a real person, with his own problems and preferences. The readers know that Robert suffers from claustrophobia, and they are told the story behind that, which is a flashback, actually. The character is described as looking like "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed". Robert Langdon is definitely an active character as well as the most characters in the novel. He is rather static than dynamic. Even though he goes through many obstacles during this religiously mysterious adventure, the protagonist mentions to the Camerlengo that faith is a gift he has yet to receive. And he becomes a religious person neither in the end of Angels and Demons nor in the following books.
In Angels and Demons Dan Brown uses many allusions to the ancient authors and Renaissance artists, the Holy Bible and Masonic culture (“Check your history books,” Langdon said with a smile. “Franklin D. Roosevelt was a well-known Mason.”), and also, the scientific allusions as a half of the characters are scientists (“My father could argue two sides of a Mobius strip”). But they do not use professional jargon much. The author’s tone is mostly serious, but the characters do not miss an opportunity to joke from time to time.
The novel is full of symbols as long as it is about the religion symbols that can be found in famous pieces of art. First of all, Vatican is a symbol of the whole Catholic world. Destroying this city, the antagonist wants to destroy the whole religion. The murderer kidnapped four cardinals to kill as symbols of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water.
There is a tragic irony in Angels and Demons: the Camerlengo is thought to be a positive character, but in the end, he is the one who organized the antimatter’s theft and the cardinals’ kidnapping. By the way, his codename for dealing with the assassin is "Janus", which alludes to the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and ends.
Concluding, I find Angels and Demons a very interesting and decent modern mystery novel considering both the plot and the style. Even though there is a series about Robert Langdon, Angels and Demons is a complete novel full of symbols and allusions, unexpected plot twists and unordinary solutions.
