Angels & Demons Interesting Information

This is an on-going post with cool information I have came across throughout Angels & Demons.

1) This is an experimental plane called the X-33. It is the future of commercial flight, with the capability to travel from New York to Switzerland in an hour! Robert flies in this plane twice in the book, once from from New York to Switzerland and from Switzerland to Italy.

   

2) Ambigrams are found throughout Angels & Demons, and are used by the Illuminati to brand Vittoria's dad and the 4 cardinals. There is a total of 5 ambigrams and they are:

                         

3) The Vatican City is, in my opinion, the biggest part of the setting because its where the climax and also most of the action occur. There is lots of subtle facts about the Vatican City throughout Angels & Demons. For example Robert and Vittoria get the pleasure of going inside the Vatican's Archives. Some documents are thousands of years old in there!

4) The Secret Vatican Archives are a restricted section inside the Vatican where important documents owned by the Vatican are stored. There is an estimated 84 km of shelving, with around 35,000 volumes in the catalogue alone. The oldest surviving document in the archives dates back to the 8th century; according to the official Vatican website.

Article Analysis #1

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=3&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Dan+Brown&TI=Angels+And+Demons&finalAuth=true

My first secondary source article I used is titled "The Formula: The Novels of Dan Brown". It was a lengthy article that covered an array of literary techniques used by Dan Brown. Also it compares the similarities and differences between four of Brown's novels. The essay was written before The Lost Symbol was published. The main techniques I found are the formula, characters and time-scheme.

The Formula: The formula for Brown's novels, in the eye's of Doris L. Eder (article author), it begins with a corpse being found in an extraordinary position. In Angels and Demons, the novel starts with the body of Vittoria's dad found in his lab with an ancient ambigram branded onto his chest. An example of the formula in another work by Brown can be found in Deception Point. A geologist is hurled from a helicopter to his death in the opening pages of the novel. Moreover Brown ends all of his novels with a romantic engagement to help bring the plot in full circle. My article spoiled it for me, but apparently Robert and Vittoria are together in the end of Angels and Demons. In Digital Fortress it concludes with a romantic encounter between David Becker and Susan Fletcher, the novels to main characters.

Characters: Next are the consistent use of dark, eerie antagonists in all of his novels. Angels and Demons has the Arab Hassasin, who has the tendency to creep around dark areas and sometimes drops off the body of a dead cardinal in a church. Comparatively, in The Da Vinci Code the antagonist is a self-mortifying albino monk named Silas. On the other hand, the lead characters are always a male and female protagonist. There are Robert and Vittoria (Angels and Demons), Susan and David (The Digital Fortress) Rachel and Micheal (Deception Point) and Robert and Sophie (The Da Vinci Code). Every female protagonist in Brown's stories also share similar personality traits, such as: beautiful, brainy, quick-witted, resourceful, courageous and vulnerable.

Time-Scheme: Lastly, all of Brown's novels take place over a very short period of time. Angels & Demons starts with a call from Switzerland at 5:18am and the antimatter is set to blow up at midnight the same day. In the course of a single day, Robert travels from New York to Geneva, Switzerland to the Vatican City and all around Italy. Brown's other work Digital Fortress takes place over a Saturday and a Sunday and The Da Vinci Code takes place over two days. He even offers advice to other authors struggling to be published to write their story lines with a time deadline. Hes been quoted saying "nothing intensifies dramatic tension like time pressure".

Article Analysis #2

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U14066943&n=10&docNum=H1000152387&ST=dan+brown&bConts=6319&finalAuth=true 


The second article I have chosen is titled Dan Brown. It is a very detailed biography of Dan Brown's life. It includes lists and brief descriptions of his works, his scholarly childhood and awards for his literature.


This article is key for my blog because it is full of background information on my author and my novel. It also gives me an advantage on inferencing my novel. An example of this is while reading, a special bond is building between the two main characters Vittoria and Robert. "Langdon [Robert] gave Vittoria an impressed nod. She smiled back, and for an instant Langdon felt an unexpected connection... a thread of magnetism between them." (pg 288)
My article talks about Brown's style, and all four of his other novels end with romance between the two main characters. Therefore I have inferenced that there is a very high possibility that Robert and Vittoria will be romantically engaged by the end of the story.

Survey of Author and Secondary Sources

Angels and Demons' author Dan Brown has intrigued me since I first encountered his work, The Da Vinci Code. Even though the movie I started to watch was already half over, I immediately became hooked. I love the fast pace plot of his stories, intertwined with subtle history references, codes and puzzles. He has the ability to pack 700 pages of action into a twenty four hour story line (a true gift). His other novels are:

• Digital Fortress (1998) St. Martin's Press
• Deception Point (2001) St. Martin's Press
• The Da Vinci Code (2003) Random House*
• The Lost Symbol (2009) Random House*

* Other installments of the Robert Langdon series

From research, I have deduced that his intellectual style of writing spawned from attending one of the top high schools in the USA, Philips Exeter Academy. Also I believe he would have been strongly influenced to lead a educational lifestyle from his father Richard G. Brown. He was a professor of mathematics at Exeter and wrote textbooks for 30 years. 

Lastly, Brad Meltzer is another author who I have found to have a similar style of writing. Meltzer focuses on conspiracies as well, but tends to keep his stories domestic to the United States. I plan to read one of Meltzer's works after I finish Angels and Demons to understand their different writing styles. 


Secondary Sources:


1) http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U14066943&n=10&docNum=H1000152387&ST=dan+brown&bConts=6319&finalAuth=true 


MLA:

"Dan Brown ." Gale Literature Resource Center 10/15/2009. n. pag. Contemporary Authors Online. Web. 12 Oct 2011. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U14066943&n=10&docNum=H1000152387&ST=dan brown&bConts=6319&finalAuth=true.

2) http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=3&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Dan+Brown&TI=Angels+And+Demons&finalAuth=true

MLA:

Doris L. Eder, "The Formula: The Novels of Dan Brown." Contemporary Literary Criticism 209, edited by Jeffrey W. Hunter. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2005.  http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=3&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Dan+Brown&TI=Angels+And+Demons&finalAuth=true