The intricately detailed plot relies on a whirlwind mixture of historical facts and footnotes, both based in recorded texts and Consta’s own world-building. Slice-of-life snapshots of notable figures throughout history offers a tantalizing glimpse into what life may have been like, and Consta follows ideas from one era to another through devices like the diary of Apollodorus, a point-of-view character, later being read by Attila the Hun, who gets depicted converting to “the monotheistic God that unifies all humans on Earth.” While his passion for his subject is clear, Consta’s prose often edges toward the academic, offering recitations of details rather than a fully realized narrative, with side trips that rampage through various religious traditions.
More engaged with ideas than storytelling, the novel suffers from a lack of internal consistency and is crafted on a foundation of heavy chunks of information with little in the way of character development or realistic reactions to situations. The subtleties of politics are ignored in favor of literary expedience, and historical inaccuracies will pull readers out of the story. Readers of a technical bent with an eye for history and alternative theories regarding human origins may find this a fascinating, if dense, read.
Takeaway: This novel’s dense alternate take on human origins and spirituality favors fantastic history over storytelling.
Great for fans of: Barbara Frale’s The Templars: The Secret History Revealed, Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: B
Editing: C
Marketing copy: A
A literary masterpiece from a very learned author.
Very well researched. and written in a lucid and simple language. Though fiction, it makes you feel like real history . I thoroughly enjoyed reading . This is probably the first book that puts Damascus and Syria in the front during biblical period
Three dimensional and carefully knitted story
This is my second book from the same author. It is a pleasure to allow his narrative style to guide you through time and space, characters and storyline. He is invisible as a storyteller, yet present through his unmistakable style. The intricacies he weaves through the book can get complex if you do not have a passion for history and mystery, but for me, those were juicy bones I was going back to every evening. If you liked reading The DaVinci Code, and other thriller, adventure, mystery, and conspiracy titles, you will certainly enjoy CODEX: The Origin of thought by Amerigo Consta. Highly recommended.
"An innovative but uneven spiritual tale." —Kirkus Reviews
In this debut novel, an emperor establishes a clandestine order to protect and disseminate spiritual secrets that predate the birth of Jesus.Aram is a nomadic trader traveling through ancient Syria. Isha, his caravan’s leader, encourages him to seek out the spiritual counsel of Murduk, a “silent observer of the universe,” who paradoxically turns out to be uncommonly garrulous and eager to impart his wisdom. Murduk shares with Aram a combination of cosmological and moral teachings, the former vaguely reminiscent of Christian eschatology. Apparently, the “ancient engineers of our species” have left instructions for their return, “when time and space interact in such a way as to open the stargate again.” In addition, there will a decisive battle between the forces of good and evil, which will “drive the planet into an obscure tunnel of death and devastation.” Aram is shown how to interpret the signs—the novel is filled with diagrams that illustrate the messages—and is given an amulet that contains a hexagram within a circle apparently encrypted with spiritual knowledge. The bulk of this tale is devoted to the aftermath of Aram’s spiritual enlightenment—he becomes a great prophet, and his legacy is continued by powerful men like Roman Emperor Traianus. Emperor Constantine eventually founds the Constantine Order devoted to the perpetuation of Aram’s work, and its illustrious membership includes Attila the Hun and Leonardo da Vinci. Consta makes this order the prime mover of world history—the Crusades, the Egyptian pyramids, and King Solomon’s Temple can all be linked to the group.The tantalizingly inventive aspect of the author’s tale is the possibility of an “inner core” of “prophetic symbols received by the prophet Aram” thousands of years before the births of Jesus and Allah. But the ambitious expanse of history covered here has a price—Consta doesn’t create authentic characters. This isn’t really a novel in the usual sense of the term but an intricate history—it reads much more like an attempt to compose scripture than a literary production. This gives the entire work a ponderous feel, and the prose only reinforces that effect. The author’s writing is often densely packed and bewilderingly vague. The passages meant to elucidate the nature of the prophetic teachings are the most turgid: “Supreme Master, created from the same blood of Aram and the eternal perseverance and persistence of the crossed axis of the celestial globe and the sacred, unified will and wisdom of God, which humbly point us to the sacred points of the lights designated from our creators, ascend to the top of this temple and point us with the sacred sword to the right Blazing Star.”While Consta’s work is reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, it fails to fully develop the intriguing novelistic elements of the story.
