Tag: Dan Brown

The page turner escapes

Books are my bestfriends. I go “meeting” them every time I have an issue in my life. When I’m tired, stressed, or sad. When I need to relax and take some breaks. In short way, it’s my escape routes. My short getaway. Books help me to move my mind entirely to another life. To put myself in some characters’ shoes or to imagine merging into some historical events. Books are like a rest area in my daily life. Places where we can finally pull the hand break, take a deep breath and have a short walks enjoying the views.

I like a lot of books though I don’t read every kind of books. I mostly read novel, historical fiction, historical events, travel/journey stories and sometimes some autobiographies or books written by famous public figure.

Talking about novels, I read some of the pop culture novels such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, LOTR & The Hobbit, GOT (haven’t finished the entire series) and Robert Langdon’s series. I also have a thing with dystopian novels. Some of my fav authors, the one whose books I ran into when I just need a short get away, are Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Andrea Hirata, J.K Rowling (also her being Robert Galbraith), Dan Brown, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Haruki Murakami and John Green. Their books rarely disappoint me because I just surrender myself and emerge to their fantasy. Most of their books are the real “rest area” that I mentioned above.

I also read some historical stuff. Fiction or non-fiction. The latest historical fiction I love is The Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I got emotionally attached with the main character. My standard of a gentleman is changing way much after knowing Count Rostov. You can read my review of the book in this blog here. Meanwhile, historical events book that I recently love is The Choice by Edith Eger. This book is full of emotions and feelings that lets you swept away in it. It combines 2 of my fav things, history and psychology. Not only Edith told us about what happened during her being a prisoner war, but also how she struggle to thrive and heal from the her trauma. It gave me chills and inspired me at the same time.

I rarely read non-fiction books. Non-fiction books I read mostly is the one written by some public figures or their autobiography. I fell in love with Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, after reading his book Ride of a Lifetime. It taught me well that being success means being persistent and have faith. You don’t need to be that genius such as Mark, Steve, Elon, Bill or Jack. You may start your career from below. From an employee of a company. As long as you have faith on yourself, there’s always a way for success.

That’s what I like about books. Not only it feeds my imagination, but it’s also strengthened me. It opens my mind and gives me a different perspective. The more different perspectives and an open mind I have, the more calm, wise and humble I become. Some books like Buddha by Karen Armstrong and Filosofi Teras by Henry Manampiring really taught me how to sweep away my negative feelings, so I can think more clearly to face this busy and fast pace world. Exactly the strength I need.

Origin By Dan Brown

Where do we come from?

Where are we going ?

Those 2 questions are the main topic for this Dan Brown’s latest Robert Langdon’s series. Sudah cukup lama saya ingin membaca buku ini. Bahkan bukunya sendiri sudah tersedia di rak buku saya sejak beberapa tahun lalu. Akhirnya, setelah beberes buku minggu lalu, saya memutuskan untuk membaca buku ini, dengan asumsi ini akan menjadi bacaan ringan. Well, what to expect from some pop culture novel, right ?

Novel ini mengambil setting di Spanyol. Dimulai saat Langdon diundang oleh seorang tech-savvy, well-known, super rich and also atheist, bernama Edmond Kirsch. Edmond berencana untuk membeberkan penemuan dia mengenai 2 pertanyaan fundamental tersebut; “Where do we come from? where are we going?”. Namun, seperti novel-novel Dan Brown lainnya, something (really) bad happened, and our beloved symbol professor from Harvard has to race with time to finish what Edmond planned to do.

Yaa, kalau sering baca buku-bukunya Dan Brown, especially Robert Langdon series, pasti akan sangat terbiasa dengan patternnya. Langdon diundang atau ketemu dengan orang penting. Orang pentingnya mati. Ada rahasia yang harus diungkap. Ada cewek pinter dan cantik nemenin Langdon memecahkan teka-teki yang harus diungkap. Ada orang jahat mengejar yang mau bunuh mereka, dan biasanya orang jahat ini di-backup oleh orang penting lainnya. Rahasia terungkap. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Nah Origin persis seperti ini. Ditambah banyak tempat-tempat yang sangat mainstream seperti Casa Mila, (ngelewatin) Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, bahkan sedikit menyebutkan stadion FC Barcelona. Dan Brown juga memasukkan beberapa quote yang cukup mainstream dari Winston Churchill, seperti:

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

“The price of greatness…is responsibility”

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

Ceritanya memang agak dragging to long. Beberapa karakter kurang terdevelop dengan baik. Dan ada beberapa bagian yang rasanya tidak perlu diceritakan. Walaupun bagian-bagian tersebut tampaknya memang sebagai pengalihan issue/perhatian untuk twisted ending-nya. In fact, one of the good reason i like this book is the twisted fact at the end of the book. [SPOILER ALERT!] About the one who’s instructed the killer to kill Edmond Kirsch.

Another thing that made me stick to the book is the topic itself. To be honest, those 2 fundamental questions are lingering in my thought these days. So, i just wanna know other author’s thought about it. Well, the answer for the first question is quite appalling. I just heard about it when i read it. But the answer for the 2nd answer is similar with what Yuval Noah Harari try to explain in Homo Deus.

Also, there are some good words for deeper thinking in this books. Here are some of my fav :

“…human, despite being God’s sublime creation, were just being animals at the core, their behavior driven to a great by a quest for creature comforts. We comfort our physical bodies in hopes our souls will follow.”

“Nietzsche: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

“…it is in hearing the voice of the devil that we can better appreciate the voice of god.”

“Memento mori,” the monarch whispered. “Remember death. Even for those who wield great power, life is brief. There is only one way to triumph over death, and that is by making our lives masterpieces.”

“Love is a private thing. The world does not need to know.”

So, here’s my verdict :

  1. Story line : 2.0/5.0
  2. Main topic : 3.5/5.0
  3. Inspiring words : 3.0/5.0
  4. Character development : 2.5/5.0

Average total score : 2.75/5.0