Alright y’all, Dan Brown is back! WOO but as the fifth instalment… it’s quite well… predictable.
The title is self-explanatory – it’s about the ORIGIN OF THE WORLD. If you’ve read his other sequels you will PROBABLY see the pattern in all his stories. Im not going to spoil the exact pattern here for those who haven’t read any of Dan Browns yet 😉 In general, Dan Brown has this ability to throw us a bunch of facts, create a story around it and pick THAT ONE TRENDY MYSTERIOUS QUESTION and put a murder on it.
The story of Origin unfolds this way:
- Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire computer genie was on the verge of revealing to entire world what is the origin of the world when he was shot to death.
- Robert Landon has to find out who killed Edmond (who is also his former student)
- We learn that Edmond’s discovery will shock the world, especially putting religions to shame.. but WHAT IS IT? TUN TUN TUN.
- This is where Dan Brown settle for his theme : Religion vs Science and the rise of computational theories
It’s simply ENJOYABLE. I mean, if you don’t have anything to do and you would like to learn about science, arts, history and religions, this book is a good vulgarization tool to turn to. It’s fun to read. But, I’m putting a huge emphasis on vulgarization. I can’t say for the historical facts or art but some neuroscience facts in there are just erroneously explained. So, be critical guys.
It’s way too predictable. People are saying “That’s Dan Brown’s signature, hater”. Okay but when I can predict EVERYTHING from the plot to the twists, there’s a problem. I’m sure he can think of some way to move things around. For example, why the side character is always a woman? You are reading a book because you want the author to surprise you, right? Imagine reading it knowing you will be entering the same story all over again : oh yes, I’m going to enjoy this redundant plot device yay! Oh, the author, he’s trying so hard to point us in that person but finding out he is not the villain after all? How surprising!!
It lacks that mystery-thriller vibe. In fact, it is soo focused on the debate Science vs religion that I would put it under science-fiction. Da Vinci Code was his best novel in my opinion because it has that mystery vibe. We can feel the suspense, we want to know more about it. In the Origin, the murder is not that important, it’s almost an accessory. It’s all about that science discovery.
There’s an AI virtual assistant, a voiced companion bot. This is the best part of the novel in my opinion. Remember how I said Dan Brown would take the most trendy thing and use it? There it is. AI robots are at the heart of todays media and science discussion. So of course a multi billionaire computer genius would have created one right? 😉
The theory at the end of how he explained the origin of life is indeed a real theory developed by Jeremy England :
«[…]how atoms, driven by external energy (such as that found in primordial soup) and heat (like you’d find in an atmosphere), will gradually restructure themselves to dissipate more and more energy. In other words, under the right conditions, matter naturally acquires the basic physical quality — the tendency to capture energy from the environment and dissipate it as heat — associated with life, based on the law of increasing entropy or the second law of thermodynamics, also called the “arrow of time.» – New Theory for Life Suggests It Was Not an Accident of Biology. It Was Physics.
Of course like so many hypothesis out there, it still remain unclear. It is not confirmed yet that this theory explains how life was created. He did some experiments with his computer models that seem to confirm certain particles’ behaviours but we are far from generalizing it into the whole concept of life.
If you reviewed this book, FEEEL FREE to leave your links below I would love to check them out !
Big thank you to Penguin Random House for sending me a copy in exchange for a review!
Do you want to read this ? Have you read any Dan Brown before ? 😀
My Dark Theories 
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