The More You Wish You Didn't Know: How to Become a God

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Professor Robert Langdon is submerged in water and total darkness for some time in a sensory deprivation chamber.  The baddy bad guy, Mal'akh, says "The secret is how to die," and seems to imply that Langdon will find some sort of enlightenment through the experience, the same way Mal'akh himself did. 

This reminded me of the Maya myth of Xbalanque and Hunahpu.  Known as the Hero Twins, these two get into many adventures in the Popol Vuh, the Maya version of Genesis.  In one story, the Twins descend into the underworld, Xibalba, to challenge the Xibalban lords to a ball game.  Through trickery and the help of animals, the Twins defeat the Xibalban lords and are resurrected back to earth--this time as gods.

Why did being submerged underwater remind me of that?  Hang on for a bit, this is going to be a long walk.... 

For the Maya, the Underworld wasn't just a mythical location; it was a literal one.  The Yucatan Peninsula where the Maya lived consists mainly of limestone.  Because the stone is so porous, rivers drill through the surface of the stone and run underground instead of above.  Sinkholes called cenotes allow acess not only to this water, but also to Xibalba. 



Every cenote is different--some are crystal-clear, some go down so far no one has ever found the bottom, and some are filled with plants and animals—waterlilies floating on the surface, trees that reach down with their roots, tiny fish that nibble on human flesh, and alligators lying in wait for thirsty prey.  But only one is as green as the forest, as green at the scales of a snake—the Cenote of Sacrifice at Chichén Itzá.

According to Spanish accounts written by Bishop Diego de Landa in the sixteenth century, the Cenote Sagrado was "the Jerusalem of the Maya," and used for human sacrifice, divination, offerings, and rituals for both Maya and Mexican peoples.  There were other cenotes that were used for these tasks, but the one at Chichén Itzá was the cenote with, apparently, the closest route to Xibalba.

Anyway, de Landa wrote that living people were thrown into the Cenote of Sacrifice, in the belief that they would come out again after three days (although, according to Landa, they never did).  In fact, it is theoretically possible for a person to travel through the networks of cenotes to another cenote, or even to the ocean, without modern diving apparatuses, as the underground passages can collect pockets of air.  Of course, such an endeavor would be incredibly dangerous and nearly impossible because

1. The entire tunnel system is completely dark and you wouldn't be able to see where you were going.
2. There would be no way of knowing where the air pockets were.
3. Even if you somehow managed not to swim in circles, could hold your breath for an incredibly long time, and found air pockets, how would you find your way out of the labyrinth of tunnels and caves?  Even modern divers consider cenote diving dangerous.
   

So, it would be incredible if it was ever done, and of course there is no way of knowing if anyone ever did.  Hypothetically, however, if a person succeeded at diving through the cenotes and came out alive, he or she would become hero-gods in the styling of Xbalanque and Hunahpu after they defeated the lords of Xibalba.

So, that's why Langdon's extended underwater stay in the darkness of a sensory deprivation chamber reminded me of the myth of Xbalanque and Hunahpu.  And now you're probably wondering, does that mean Langdon is a god now?  Well, he wouldn't be the first professor to be convinced of his own omnipotence... but, not likely. (~_^)



Stay tuned for the next TMYWYDK!

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The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

In what I'm assuming is the last book in the Robert Langdon: Symbologist! series, Brown moves the reader from Europe to the US and takes us on a tour of the hidden world of Washington, DC.  Except the hidden world doesn't seem so hidden, and the secrets aren't very difficult to unravel.  Overall, the novel is just okay, and a far cry from The Da Vinci Code or Angels & Demons as far as story-telling is concerned.

I should probably preface this review by saying that I actually do think Dan Brown is a good writer (but then I read romance novels, so I'm sure the people who would say he's not a good writer would question my literary judgement anyway).  He tells a good story and he researches the hell out of his books, which is something I always appreciate.  I don't normally go for books like The Da Vinci Code or Angels & Demons, but I enjoyed them anyway for those two reasons.  And also cuz of the art history shout-outs.

In The Lost Symbol, Robert Langdon, professor of a fictional discipline at Harvard, receives a phone call early one morning from his insanely wealthy, smart, and influential friend--the best kind of friend to have!--Peter Solomon.  Pete wants Rob to hop on down to DC to give a lecture on symbols.  Well, of course Langdon agrees, except he never speaks to Peter himself, and the next thing he knows, he's staring at Peter's severed hand in the capitol building. 

You see, a man with many tattoos has decided he wants Langdon to uncover the Masonic pyramid that, legend has it, is hidden below DC and has bunches of secret knowledgy stuff.  If Langdon refuses to help, the bad guy will kill Peter.  Oh noes!  Langdon keeps insisting the pyramid is just a metaphor (rather comical coming from him, considering the last two books), but this isn't very helpful.  Meeeeeanwhile, people can affect the world around them with their thoughts.  So, all that negative stuff you keep thinking about?  STOP IT!!

Much of this book feels like a retread.  Newton plays a big role, again, and Langdon solves puzzles in much the same ways he did before, becoming embroiled in a "secret" organization and alternately chased/helped by law enforcement.  This wouldn't have bothered me too much--I'm not philosophically opposed to formulas--but the puzzles aren't puzzling, the hidden places are boring, and the twist was so obvious, when I got to that part I was like, "Oh, was that supposed to be the surprise twist?"

For example, one of my favorite parts of Angels & Demons is where Langdon goes into the secret Vatican archives.  How awesome is that! *geeking out*  In The Lost Symbol, Langdon goes into the Library of Congress... when it's closed... and rides the conveyor belt across the street.  With his eyes closed.  Woo freaking doo!  I did like some of the locations--the National Cathedral and the storage building for the Smithsonian, for instance--but it didn't feel like the locations were utilized to the best of their ability.  Same thing with the science of Noetics, which is where people can affect the physical world with their thoughts--that's kind of cool (and freaky), but at no point in the book did anyone try to utilize this science.  And I certainly didn't feel as if I was being shown a "hidden" Washington, DC.  Anthony Bourdain had a DC episode that was more illuminating than this book.

Another thing that was really lame in The Lost Symbol was the villain.  I apparently have a thing for Dan Brown villains--I wanted to cuddle Silas (and Paul Bettany was kick-ass when he played him in the movie), and I loved the yummy Camerlengo. *lick*  But the baddy in this book was just pathetic, from his motivation to his final goal.  Plus, the names he chose were insanely obvious--Dr. Abaddon, really?  If I know that's the name of a demon, it's got to be general knowledge.

By the time the conclusion of the book came around, I couldn't care less about whatever secret there was and blah blah blah.  I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you what the "lost symbol" is--it was probably revealed during the part I skimmed.  But I don't think it even matters anyway, so it's a moot point.

The reason why The Da Vinci Code was such a success was that it took real-life facts, places, people, and events, and fused them together in a very creative, imaginative way.  Even if I thought it was ridiculous, I was completely willing to let Dan Brown take me through the journey of the story.  But with The Lost Symbol, I don't feel like Brown took me anywhere.  It's like Dan Brown lite--lite on the research, plotting, creativity, and surprises.  And I can't help thinking it's because Brown really pulled his punches in this one.  The Masons are depicted as all-around good guys; Noetic science (am I the only one who thinks that's kind of creepy?) is given a thumbs-up; and even the CIA, which spends the majority of the novel completely trampling on the Bill of Rights, is shown to be justified in the end.  Personally, I was like, WTF?  None of this is good.  At the very least it's sketchy.  The Solomons use the quote by Newton--"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants"--as a positive to show that humankind is evolving and becoming better in that evolution, because we can learn from those who have come before us.  But all I could think of when I read that was Malcolm from Jurassic Park berating the scientists by paraphrasing the same quote,

But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline....  And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don’t even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it.  And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn’t even conceive that any discipline might be necessary. 

Through the course of The Lost Symbol, Langdon does exactly this: attains the super-secretest Masonic knowledge without the discipline and training of a Mason, and he unleashes both that and dangerous Noetic science onto the world.  And the last word in the book is hope? It should be, Save yourselves while you still can!

Anywho... although the beginning was promising, by the end the novel felt mediocre and difficult to buy into.


Other reviews:
Devourer of Books
S. Krishna's Books
My Two Blessings
MariReads
BiblioHistoria
Book Nook Club

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: Ciphers and Codes

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Robert Langdon compares the Masonic Cipher to "the Phaistos Disk, the Dorabella Cipher, the mysterious Voynich Manuscript."  What are these three things?  Obviously, they involve difficult (some say impossible) to decipher codes.

Side B of the Phaistos Disk

The Phaistos Disk is an artifact that was found in a Minoan palace near Heraklion, Crete (Minoans again!).  It contains a series of symbols stamped onto both sides of the clay surface in a spiral pattern.  No one knows what these symbols mean--or if they mean anything at all.  Some people think this disk even represents the first example of movable type, 3000 years before Gutenberg was born.



The Dorabella Cipher was written in 1897 by composer Edward Elgar.  In addition to being a musician, Elgar was also a cryptologist; and this short note to his childhood friend, Dora Penny (whom Elgar called Dorabella), has been completely undecipherable to anyone but the writer and the recipient.  The strange thing is, there is actually a key to this cipher, but using it produces absolute nonesense.  Elgar and Penny were probably communicating in some sort of code known only to them, meaning this note will likely never be deciphered.



The Voynich Manuscript is a manuscript that is mostly famous for being unbreakable by famous WWII cryptographers.  The script looks vaguely Latin, but other things suggest its origin isn't European.  Is it a hoax?  An alchemical manuscript with a clever code?  No one knows.  The website for it from the Yale University Library is kick-ass, though.



Stay tuned for the next TMYWYDK post!

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: Savonarola Chairs

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the bad guy, Mal'akh, lives in a house with "a Piranesi etching, a Savonarola chair, a silver Bugarini oil lamp."

What the heck is a Savonarola chair???

Savonarola: Crazy priest who lived in 15th-century Florence, known for burning "immoral" books, dresses, and paintings.  That is, at least until the Florentines got tired of him and executed him.

A chair: Something you sit in.

How do these two things go together?  Well, it turns out they actually don't; the Savonarola chair is a fold-up wooden chair that dates back to Roman times and has been popular throughout Europe at various times.  But it was especially popular in Italy during the Renaissance, so it somehow acquired the "Savonarola" moniker.  They're also called Dante chairs or X-chairs.

As for the other items--Piranesi is a 19th-century artist famous for etching imagined prisons, or carceri, scenes; and Bugarini was a famous Italian silver smith who made neo-classical oil lamps, also during the 19th century.  So I guess the point of that sentence is... this guy is moneyed.  And also enjoys all things Italian.



Next time... curious codes!

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The More You Wish You Didn't Know: The Tomb of King Mausolus

Artist's rendering of the Tomb of Mausolus, c. 1500

In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, the Masons gather in The House of the Temple near the White House, a building that is a replica of "the temple of King Mausolus, the original mausoleum."  Where was this ancient temple, and why was it so important and famous that it eventually became synonymous with tombs?

The tomb of Mausolus was built by his sister/widow, Artemesia, in the fourth century B.C.  It resided in Helicarnassus (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World until it was destroyed through a series of earthquakes and ransacking by pirates in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

Modern-day scale model of the tomb.

Artemesia spared no expense in building the tomb for her brother, hiring four of the best Greek sculptors of the day to design it.  Like all Greek temples, it was surrounded by columns, much like the Parthenon, but set on a raised platform.  Steps guarded by lions led up to the top, where there were statues of Greek gods and goddesses.  The roof had bas-reliefs showing the battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, and the Greeks battling the Amazons, a favorite subject for Greek temples.  And at the very top of the building, Mausolus and Artemesia occupied a bronze carriage pulled by four gigantic bronze horses.

Now, you may think this your typical Greek building; but in fact, at the time it was actually very, very STRANGE.  First of all, despite the fact that Mausolus' tomb was designed by Greeks and in the style of a Greek temple, Mausolus wasn't Greek.  He was an invader and conquerer of a few Greek Islands, and he admired Greek culture very much, but he wasn't Greek.  From the Greek perspective, he was an uncivilized, uncultured, barely human animal to be feared and loathed--exactly the type of person the Greeks liked to represent as Centaurs and Amazons, which makes the bas-reliefs on Mausoleus' tomb more than a bit ironic.

You can tell Mausoleus and Artemesia weren't Greek because the way they designed the tomb makes little sense, at least from a Greek perspective.  Greeks didn't bury their dead in or around temples; they marked their graves with Greek vases (and in fact, both Mausoleus and Artemesia were cremated, their ashes placed in Greek vases that were set inside this tomb--not that that makes much sense to the Greek mind, either).  The statues in the mausoleum ran the gamut of Greek deities; the Ancient Greeks would only honor one god or goddess within a temple.  And they certainly wouldn't have put a statue of a mortal man or woman (especially not a woman) at the very top of their temple.  Furthermore, the raised platform that lifts the temple and the pointed roof on top is reminiscent of Ancient Near Eastern temples (like the Tower of Babel), not Greek ones.

So what makes the Mausoleum of Mausolus truly significant is not the fact that it's "the first mausoleum," but rather that it's one of the first examples of the dissemination of Greek (and Near Eastern) culture into the rest of Europe.  The look of Greek temples was adopted for another type of building altogether; the stories of the Greeks were exhibited without knowledge (or at the very least, context) of some of their more subtle implications; and the style of Greek art was used to depict non-Greek people.  Mausoleus' tomb is the beginning of the story of how Greek art and architecture survived centuries, including the destruction of its original civilization, to be adopted by cultures as far afield as India and for uses as diverse as banking, religion, scholasticism, and government, just to name a few.

In fact, the House of the Temple, modeled after Mausoleus' hodgepodge of borrowed Greek culture, is probably the most appropriate building I can think of to grace Washington, D.C.--a city built on a hodgepodge of neo-classical ideas if there ever was one.



Check back next time to learn more than you ever wanted to know about ancient goddess cults and their connection to YA book covers!

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