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