Dan Brown's 'Origin' 2017

 

Corgi paperback edition - 2018

It's been quite a while since I read one of Dan Brown's 'International Best sellers'. I have one or two on my bookshelves:

First published in 2000          First published in 2003

I recall the excitement in 2003 (is it really 20 years ago?) when The Da Vinci Code was published. I hadn't realised he had already written Digital Fortress (1998) and Angels & Demons (2000). The former - about covert intelligence agencies, clandestine organisations and code breaking - was apparently written as a result of the author's interest being sparked by US Secret Service agents visiting his college to interview a student who had joked in an email about killing the President. The second novel introduced Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of symbology, who races to protect the Vatican from the Illuminati, a secret society established during the Renaissance which had opposed the Roman Catholic Church. Another novel followed - Deception Point (2001). It was only when Brown returned to Langdon that he made his breakthrough - with The Da Vinci Code (2003). This centred on Christianity's origins and art history. Commencing with a murder in the Louvre, the fast-paced thriller involving mysterious organisations such as The Priory of Sion and Opus Dei was a huge success, selling more than 80 million copies by 2009. It also sparked interest in the earlier novels. In 2004 all four of his works appeared in The New York Times best-seller lists. These spawned other Code-related books, film adaptations of The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Angels & Demons (2009) with Tom Hanks as Langdon - I have both on DVD.

I also have two large paperbacks purporting to explain the Secrets of two of the books:

2005 paperback edition      2004 paperback edition  

In other words, Dan Brown has raked in a fortune since 2003. Langdon subsequently appeared in The Lost Symbol (2009):

Bantam Press first edition - 2009

and Inferno in 2013. The former concentrated on the Freemasons and the latter dealt with efforts to stop the release of a plague. Inferno was also made into a movie in 2016, with Tom Hanks again cast as Robert Langdon. 

I have just finished the 2018 Corgi paperback edition of Origin, published a year earlier. It had the same elements of the earlier works - codes, a general dislike of religion (especially the Roman Catholic Church) and a key aspect of thrillers, ever since John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) - the Chase. Did I enjoy it? The prose was occasionally clunky, the computer-jargon and symbolism often above my head and much of it preposterous! 

The Prologue sees billionaire American (well, his mother was Spanish) Edmond Kirsch giving three religious leaders - Bishop Antonio Valdespino a conservative Roman Catholic, Rabbi Yehuda Kȍves and the respected allamah, Syed al-Fadl - of an illustrated talk he is to give at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It is no ordinary lecture, but one which will shake to the core not only the three religious leaders but the world. Kirsch will answer the questions human beings have asked from the beginning - How did it all begin? Where do we come from? and Where are we going? To forgo any spoiler alerts, I will simply say there is an assassin, Admiral Luis Avila, determined to stop Kirsch from giving his earth-shattering news; there is the strikingly beautiful Ambra Vidal, director of the Museum and betrothed to the Prince Juliάn, heir to the Spanish throne; there is Prince Juliάn himself; and, above all, there is Winston, the computerized British docent, who enables both Langdon and the author to get out of impossible situations.

There are some, usually successful, red herrings; some well described architecture - particularly of the famous Barcelonan Gaudí's La Sagrada Família (The Basilica of the Holy Family); some hair-raising scenes; and much Dan Brown 'chatter' using computer-speak etc. I quite enjoyed it all, but had to suspend my disbelief on several occasions.

*********************************************************

It has inspired (if that's the right word) a rewatching of The Da Vinci Code on DVD. I was not impressed - it was not only slow, it 'sagged'. I didn't think much of the acting - by Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Alfred Molina, Paul Bettany and over-the-top Ian McKellen (shades of Peter O'Toole?). I think Angels & Demons probably shaded it.