Review | Dan Brown’s latest a fun-filled adventure, despite author’s Trump-like bluster

Origin
by Dan Brown
Doubleday

Two thirds of the way through Origin, Dan Brown’s seventh novel, the reader comes upon a joke. Robert Langdon, the now-familiar professor of symbology who works (as Brown’s narrator often reminds us) at Harvard University, has just done what he does best: cracked a code that may change the course of human history. Having entered the 47-digit password into a supercomputer, Langdon hits enter. And … nothing.

Our hero is shocked. We are shocked. Codes, even 47-digit ones, don’t normal­ly resist Robert Langdon of Harvard University. He turns to his companion, Ambra Vidal (a stunningly beautiful wo­man – as so often in Langdon’s adven­tures – with whom he shares all the sexual chemistry of a used tea­bag) and is surprised to find her smiling. “Professor,” she says. “Your caps lock is on.”

It’s a good gag – one that dispels the portentousness of the moment and pokes gentle fun at both Langdon and Brown him­self. All the Harvard brilliance in the world cannot prevent the basic error that all humans are prone to when logging into email. I hope Langdon’s next mystery will be solved by turn­ing a computer off and on again.

As the title proclaims, Brown’s seventh outing is concerned with nothing less than the beginnings of the universe and life itself. The vehicle is Edmond Kirsch. Though he sounds like an aperi­tif, he is actually the sort of brilliant polymath who inhabits Brown novels: two parts Steve Jobs, one part each Malcolm Gladwell and Richard Dawkins, and a dash of anyone who has ever given a TED talk. It goes without saying that he is also a former student of Langdon (at Harvard, in case you had forgotten). Vehemently opposed to all religion, Kirsch has made a discovery that will blow every single church out of the holy water.