Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

When a world renowned scientist is found brutally murdered, a Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, is summoned to identify the mysterious symbol seared onto the dead man’s chest. His conclusion: it is the work of the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred years - now reborn to continue their bitter vendetta against their sworn enemy, the Catholic church.

In Rome, the college of cardinals assembles to elect a new pope. Yet somewhere within the walls of the Vatican, an unstoppable bomb of terrifying power relentlessly counts down to oblivion. While the minutes tick away, Langdon joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to decipher the labyrinthine trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome to the long-forgotten Illuminati lair – a secret refuge wherein lies the only hope for the Vatican.

But, with each revelation comes another twist, another turn in the plot, which leaves Langdon and Vetra reeling and at the mercy of a seemingly invincible enemy…

I'd managed to avoid, like the plague, both reading and watching The Da Vinci Code. Firstly because I'm not a fan of mystery/detective novels and secondly, the choice of Tom Hanks as lead in the movie adaptation did nothing to make me rush out and go buy it. But, when you have nothing to read and someone hands you a Dan Brown novel, you do what you have to do. You read it.

And perhaps, like me, you'll be severely surprised. The prologue starts out incredibly dramatically with the words 'Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own'. Immediately, as Dan Brown intended, I was hooked. I had to find out why his flesh was burning, who was burning it and why. And more importantly, who Phsyicist Leonardo Vetra was.

I'm not going to give the plot away any more than the blurb does - but the only role Vetra plays is the dead guy that sets the whole chain of events in motion, with his eyeball. [I'll say no more.]

Reasons why I enjoyed this book:

I love Art History. I love conspiracies. Combine the two, and you've got me hooked. The book fictionalizes a story about the Altars of Science in Rome consisting of four locations, each representing the four elements - air, earth, wind and fire—which are believed to be "the Path of Illumination", a trail to the meeting place of the Illuminati in Rome.
According to the book, the "altars" were hidden as religious artwork in order to avoid the wrath of the Vatican and secure the secrecy of the Illuminati. The artworks that make up the Four Altars were all sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. An artist I well remembered from Art Theory in high school. So the new spin on an old story, for me, was worthwhile.

I've always been fascinated by the Illuminati and the Free Masons. Although there wasn't much detail on them, nothing the reader shouldn't already know about the Illuminati, there was some interesting conjecture about who belonged to the Illuminati, some figures, who in fact, predate the organisation's existence.

It was an exciting, easy read. The age-old story of the war between science and religion, but viewed through the prism of historical art. The plot reminded me very much of something I heard somewhere recently, I think it might have been in the film Ultraviolet (then again, it might not have been. There's every chance I heard it in some documentary, but that's besides the point) that 'science has long looked for ways for man to live better and kill quicker'. In this book it is suggested that scientists, through discovering antimatter, have done both. It's a practically limitless energy source, but also a potentially lethal weapon. In fact the most dangerous of all.

Reasons why I wasn't so thrilled with this book:

Dan Brown uses various fictional experts as tools to expound on the factual issues he creates in the story. This is intended to suggest that what these characters relate to the reader is fact, not fiction. However, he gets a lot of things wrong. I'll leave that to you to discover for yourself when you read this novel. But suffice it to say that he was acknowledged as a poor researcher after a court case relating to The Da Vinci Code. In relation to Vatican procedure, which is of disputed accuracy, he claims "Occasionally, research is simply a matter of finding the proper printed resource." and explains he used a single book as his source.

I found the characters hard to believe, and thus hard to relate to. The main character, Robert Langdon, was too much of a know-it-all. His encyclopediac knowledge of art history and the Illuminati just happens to include the artist Bernini and some of his severely obscure works. And luckily, just luckily, the art works that make up the so-called 'Path of Illumination' are in all existence some couple hundred years later.

Lastly, the ending was a bit too 'romantic drama' for me. The genre is supposed to be 'adventure/thriller' and there's nothing adventurous or thrilling for me having to read about the nerdy Harvard professor and the sexy Italian scientist hooking up and getting it on. If I ruined the story for you, I apologise and agree. This ruined it for me too.

All in all, Dan Brown has some interesting theories and does put a modern spin on the age-old science/religion debate by suggesting that science can prove that God created the Earth from nothing. In terms of judging a book by it's cover - this is one cool cover. One of the central motifs of this book is the use of ambigrams, so making the cover page into an ambigram was pretty inventive. And is definitely a good selling point.

I was forced, by unfortunate circumstances, to read a Dan Brown novel. Although Angels and Demons wasn't a complete waste of my time, I shall, in future, return to avoiding his works like the plague.

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The Last Legion by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

A brilliant new historical epic from the best-selling author of The Alexander Trilogy. As the Western Roman Empire begins to collapses in 470AD, a small band of British Roman soldiers, make a long and arduous journey to Rome. They arrive to find the city on the edge of chaos, over-run with rebellion, not far from destruction. Despite the tumultuous events around them, they resolve to continue their mission: to keep the spirit of Empire alive by rescuing the young son of the last Emperor, Romulus Augustus. A daring rescue ensures and, hearing rumours of an entire Legion of the Roman Army that has remained loyal to Rome, they begin a trek across Northern Europe to find them. By finding the Legion, and establishing the boy as the legitimate Emperor, the Romans believe an uprising can be launched and the Empire revived. But the journey is futile, the Legion is nowhere to be found and they find themselves quickly losing heart. Deciding to turn back to Britain, they cross the channel in defeat, little knowing the mysterious revelations and magical destinies that await them on their return.

The Last Legion is an historical novel with a healthy dose of fantasy thrown in for good measure, as the author's inventive plot describes the events leading up to the end of the Roman Empire as being the root of the Arthurian legend. I didn't hate reading the book, but I found it quite simplistic, both in terms of plot and characters. Sometimes simplicity is best; in this case, I think he could have done so much more with the idea, not to mention the characters - but perhaps that was not the novel Manfredi set out to write. I have a deep affection for historical novels, and I have read many that have enthralled and inspired me. Unfortunately, although it was a pleasant read, this was not one of them; and really, to call a book pleasant is not much of a compliment at all. Read only if you have nothing else on your bookshelf. I hear they've recently made a move based on the novel - I will probably be giving that a skip too.

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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

In 1971, as Mao's Cultural Revolution swept over China, shutting down universities and banishing "reactionary intellectuals" to the countryside, two teenage boys are sent to live on the remote and unforgiving mountain known as Phoenix in the Sky. Even though the knowledge the narrator and his best friend Luo had acquired in middle school was "precisely nil," they are nevertheless considered dangerous intellectuals and forced to spend their days carrying buckets of excrement up and down the mountain to fertilize the fields. But when they bargain their way into obtaining a forbidden Balzac novel from their friend Four Eyes, a new and dizzyingly vast world opens up to them. Through Balzac, the narrator discovers "awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, all the subjects that had, until then, been hidden" [p. 57]. And when Luo falls in love with the beautiful Little Seamstress, life and literature come together in a passionate romance. Luo and the narrator plot to steal Four Eyes' suitcase full of books both for their own pleasure and to transform the seamstress from a simple peasant into a sophisticated woman. Their success in doing so, and the unexpected consequences that follow, drive the novel to its stunning, heart-wrenching conclusion. Part historical novel, part fable, part love story, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a moving testament to the transformative power of literature.

While trying to find the picture, I found that they made a movie out of this book. I'd love to see it. The book is set in post-Cultural Revolution China. The children with high school education or more of the people classed as "enemies of the state" are sent into the rural areas to be re-educated by the peasants. This book follows the story of two young boys, one of which is 'writing' in the first person and his name is never mentioned. The life of re-education is harsh, often brutal and almost utterly without reward. Until, that is, the two boys meet the Little Seamstress and a talent for storytelling no the part of the one gets them out of some of the work. The story is intense and strangely gripping. I say strangely because at first glance this is a simple story about two boys who fall in love with a girl, watch some movies and read some [forbidden] books. It is, however, engaging and so well-written that you can almost smell the sweat and the excrement as they toil up to the fields. You can feel their joy and their pain - and more importantly their confusion in a world they've barely lived in that has branded them dangerous outcasts.

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A Booke of Days by Steven J. Rivelle

A fascinating account of the Crusades. Yes it's fiction dressed up as 'look what I found in the archives', but if you read the fine print, you'll see that it is indeed a novel. On the other hand, you could also argue that it's the story of a man's journey towards enlightenment dressed up as a book about a bunch of prejudiced religious fanatics going around killing people who don't agree with them. And if you were to suggest that I am prejudiced against the latter category, you would be right.

Essentially the book follows the author's 'ancestor' as he journeys from France to the Near East. The book focusses on his relationship with the people around him, the people he left behind and the people he meets on the way. It's written as a diary covering the activities, the people and his thoughts - specifically his doubts, which increase exponentially as they get closer and closer to the Holy Land. It's a fascinating, often crude, insight into what life might have been like in those times. Even if you don't like historical fiction, I'd suggest you read this simply to see the way blind faith can impact people's lives.

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Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

To rescue her family from poverty and avoid marrying her slope-shouldered cousin, seventeen-year-old Orchid competes to be one of the Emperor’s wives. When she is chosen as a lower-ranking concubine she enters the erotically charged and ritualised Forbidden City. But beneath its immaculate façade lie whispers of murders and ghosts, and the thousands of concubines will stoop to any lengths to bear the Emperor’s son.

Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch, drawing the attention of dangerous foes. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and that she will be its last Empress.

Now I absolutely loved this book, Anchee Min is one of those rare and amazing writers who can literally transport you into the book and the characters become so real that I found myself thinking about what was going on in the Forbidden City whilst I wasn't even reading. The aspect that I really enjoyed with this book is that it is a fictional story with fictional characters which are based around historic happens of China at that time period. In fact that actual story of China's last Empress is true and Min has given her life once again. The real Empress was called Empress Dowager Tsu His and she ruled from 1856 to 1908 - she apparently is one of those historical figures that people love to be nasty about. After her death people were already portraying her as a psychopathic nymphomaniac and ever since many western biographers have gleefully wallowed in allegations of her badness: her extravagance, her conservatism and her ruthless disposal of inconvenient political opponents. This version of events in Min's story gives readers an insight into a woman's life in the forbidden city and her struggle to not only stay alive, but with her son as regent, to lead an empire already on its final legs. Min's amazing and detailed research into accounts and stories from the lives of eunuchs, maids, palace tutors, Imperial warlords, and generals gives the reader not only a wonderful story but also an insight into exactly how difficult it was must have been for Tsu His and how her actions led to her being known as the woman who led China to it's downfall.

"Anchee Min's exquisite new novel unfolds like a ribbon of gleaming, luminous silk — soothing in its beauty, mesmerizing in its variations, startling, delightful and ultimately transformative in a way that only the best works of art can aspire to be . . . an astonishing journey into China's recent past." — Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A magnificent book: consequential; significant; beautiful. The book has everything in its favor. The story is gripping. The style is simple and graceful. The themes — love, war, conquest, domination, violence, feminism, communism, individualism and power — are sweeping . . . The true heroine is writer Anchee Min." — San Diego Union-Tribune

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