According
to the Bidwell Mansion Association's website, "In 1841 at the age of 22,
John Bidwell became one of the first pioneers to cross the Sierra Nevada to
California." Bidwell knew the range because in 1776, the Franciscan
missionary Pedro Font named it on a map. Font was born in Spain which has its
own Sierra Nevada.
That is
where "the former spiritual leader of the Palmarian Catholic Church"
lives, according to El País. This "dubious offshoot" of the Roman
Catholic Church venerates Francisco Franco and considers Adolph Hitler
something of a saint. Wouldn't it be only natural for this ultra-conservative
group to try to stop any science that questions faith?
My lame
attempt at creepy connections is overshadowed by the master connectionist, Dan
Brown. In "Origin" ($29.95 in hardcover from Doubleday; also for
Amazon Kindle), Brown notes that all the facts are real. (After the depiction
of the Palmarian Church, one of the characters says "you could look it
up.") Finding stuff hidden in plain sight is a hallmark of Brown's work.
The
thriller once again stars symbologist Robert Langdon and takes place mostly in
Barcelona. I chose to listen to the seven-hour audio abridgement narrated by
Paul Michael (who also reads the full novel, over eighteen hours' worth), a man
of many voices.
Langdon is
in Spain attending a mysterious presentation by the atheist billionaire and
futurist Edmond Kirsch, his former student, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Kirsch believes his work in computer modeling and Artificial Intelligence has finally
answered the two most important questions: Where did we come from? Where are we
going?
Before the
big reveal Kirsch is assassinated by a Palmarian, and Langdon and the beautiful
museum director, Ambra Vidal, fiancé of the soon-to-be King of Spain, flee for
their lives. The entire book is a setup for the eventual revelation of Kirsch's
recorded message, and the question is whether what he says puts a scientific
arrow through the heart of religion. Spoiler alert: It doesn't; in fact, it's
something like a TED Talk, though philosophically incoherent (as Brown seems to
realize).
In the
end, an interesting casing but not much meat. As for scariness, it's a hollow weenie.
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