As usual, Langdon is more or less a vehicle to tell Brown's story and obliquely deal with a larger point of social morality. This time over-population is on docket - don't worry, Malthus gets his fair share of air time. Brown appears to be a close scholar of art (from my own grossly under-informed perspective). The same cannot be said for his treatment of the population conundrum. Admittedly we get a one-sided perspective of the issue from the deranged antagonist, but within this world of circulating elites, doctors, and professors, we cannot help but wish for at least one slightly more nuanced conversation about such a complex, and charged issue. Brown is, once again, asking us to reflect on our daily exercise of unexamined moral issues. However, in this case, overpopulation reads as too much of a rhetorical crutch. This, along with Brown's other normal hooks, do not quite come together. The reader is left waiting for the big unifying moment. Left waiting.
By the end Langdon's adventures truly are a sideshow to Brown's fetish for a type of illusive truth which our modern world misses. At heart his stories are broadly declensionist treatments of the modern situation and how voices from the past would or can speak to them. Brown's juxtaposition of modern technologies against classic works of art and poetry suggest a critique of the contemporary state of grand human endeavors. Once again technology is the weapon and the creations of yesteryear provide the map to our hoped-for safety. The popularity of his stories might suggest something profound, and perhaps profoundly troubling, concerning our modern condition.
