The Lost Symbol

The Author: Dan Brown

Publisher: Doubleday 2009

Length: 509

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Review: If you didn't already know this - "The Lost Symbol" is the long awaited sequel to "The DaVinci Code" which was itself a sequel to "Angels & Demons." If you didn't know this - then you have likely been living in a cave. On Mars. With your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears.

Okay — I suppose the media push was not that pervasive. Nevertheless, Dan Brown and the publishers spared no expense to alert the media and the readers that this book was finally, finally, ready to be released.

To that end - my review of this book can be summed up as thus: if you've read Angels & Demons or The Davinci Code (and especially if you've read both of them), you'll say, "Haven't I already read this book? Twice in fact?"

The story opens with the protaganist, Robert Langdon, in Washington D.C. to deliver a lecture on the Masons. Instead, he becomes embroiled in a race against time to save the life of an old friend whose hand has been severed and tattooed as the first of many clues to uncovering and revealing ancient and long-kept secrets of Freemasonry.

Brown does a nice job of shifting the setting of the story away from Europe this time and using the vast history of the nation's capitol to tell the story. Nevertheless, the story is formulaic and borders on predictability. The cast of characters includes a female counterpart to Langdon, Katherine Solomon, who has spent her life studying the field on Noetic science and has evidence that "thoughts have mass" and can physically affect the world around us. However, she seems a bit too much of an obligatory Sophie/Vittoria clone. The main antagonist is "the tattooed man" - who is very much of a Hassasin/Albino Monk clone. Indeed, this book feels so much like the first two it seems as though Brown simply went to his computer, brought up the text of his last two novels, pressed "Save As..." and changed the names, places, and organizations - but left everything else in place.

Additionally, the book feels although every last fact and tidbit of research that Dan Brown unearthed during his research on the book was shoehorned into the book - whether it fit or not. The dialog that Brown creates to allow for this is stilted and forced and written in such a way that the readers most likely reaction is "Come on...no one talks like that."

Throughout the novel, characters could be in throws of mortal danger - yet attempting wry, but droll humor. They delivery homilies and screeds aplenty about the history of a particular artifact - but at the most inopportune times and locations. Moreover, none of the characters ever slowly figure things out. It comes to them each and every time in flashes of lighting and bolts of insight and they are amazed each time at what they've discovered. Each. And. Every. Time.

However, my biggest critcism of the book is in what Brown sets up as the secret that is hidden and why it is hidden. In the DaVinci Code - you could understand why the church might want to keep "that" secret under wraps (read the book if you don't know the hook). However, despite all the forebodings and dire predictions about the "secret" of the Freemasons - it simply isn't remotely plausible for anything close to the consequences that are warned. About half-way through the book I realized that it was playing out like a novelization of the tv show "24." Only, on the show - there is usually a payoff at the end and believable ramifications.

Now - the book isn't a total train wreck. As always, Dan Brown does a phenomenal job of doing his homework and laying out Washington D.C.'s rich history and subtext. There are lots of "Wow, I didn't know that moments in the book" and the expected treat of crytic messages and puzzles do not disappoint.

Yet, despite all this, Brown does a tremendous disservice to the reader by (for the first time) engaging in a little literary dishonesty. While I don't want to reveal a major plot point if you haven't read the book and still plan to - I'll leave it say that once you throw your hat over the wall on a plot point - it's no fair going back and changing the story later. 'Nuff said...

All in all - the book was interesting enough to keep me going. However, at the end, I felt like I had just eaten a whole plate of brownies that weren't all that good in the first place. It wasn't really worth it and it wasn't all that good anyhow.

I suppose there will be another incantation of Robert in a few years and more symbols to interpret, secret organizations to be explained, and relics to be chased after. My greatest hope is that any new characters will not be one-dimensional caricatures and that Brown might actually expand on Robert Langdon and let us know something new about his psyche other than the trite Mickey Mouse watch and claustraphobia attacks. Time will tell.

Amazon page: The Lost Symbol