The Lost Symbol
Dan Brown
Rating 2 stars
Robert Langdon is asked to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building by his old mentor, Peter Solomon. However, as he arrives in the Capitol Building to find there is no lecture planned, a disturbing object is found by a child. The object is coded with five symbols. Recognising that the object is an ancient invitation Langdon embarks upon a race to decipher the code meant to show how to gain entry to Ancient Mysteries.
Peter Solomon, a prominent Mason and philanthropist, has been kidnapped and mutilated. Robert Langdon does all he can to save his friend. Throughout the story Langdon is forced to deal with the kidnapper, various Masons and the CIA, helped part of the way by Katherine, Peter’s sister. Robert has to contend with Masonic secrets, hidden history, and new locations.
I found The Lost Symbol slow to start with however about 100 pages into the book it managed to up the pace and sort of keep my interest.
I didn’t really enjoy this book. I usually pick up a book and read it till finished. I didn’t with The Lost Symbol. I kept putting it down and finding other things to do. That’s almost unheard of for me
I did look forward to buying it, hoping that I would enjoy it as much as the Da Vinci Code but it didn’t live up to the hype. I didn’t ever start feeling that I’m so caught up in the book that I can’t put it down.
The worst thing for me as a reader to happen in a book is to be jarred out of it because something seems wrong and has to be checked. I was doing that continually with The Lost Symbol.
Langdon bumbles his way through the whole book, managing to solve riddles in minutes, work out the clues so quickly, jump from location to location, avoid being captured with miraculous regularity, and just keeps going and going to arrive triumphant at the end. Suspend your disbelief if you even want to enjoy reading this book however I couldn’t.
The villain of the book was so over the top that he was a caricature of a villain. Massive wealth, able to change his appearance at the drop of a hat (or wig in his case), able to take on multiple persona’s, ability to fool everyone who never ever suspected him – yes, I kept waiting for him to turn invisible or fly or reveal some other superhuman ability.
The Masonic secrets revealed are readily available on the net so there was no great revelation and Langdon constantly throughout the book states that the Masons are misunderstood.
The CIA being involved made no sense and seemed wrong, after finishing the book I have no idea why they were involved in the first place. People seemed to be able to get into all sorts of secure buildings with hardly any effort and considering all the money the United States spends on Homeland Security that’s worrying. I didn’t see the relevance of the Noetic sciences mentioned throughout the book and I didn’t get the philosophical musings on religion. Even the the ending seemed a waste of chapters.
I kept drawing comparisons with National Treasure whilst reading this and I must say I enjoyed National Treasure more. I appreciate the amount of work Dan Brown has put into his book and the ‘secrets’ that are revealed but not enough to even want to read it again, which again is a rarity for me.
If you are a Dan Brown fan – buy it but be prepared to be disappointed, if you are expecting some great conspiracy revealed – then don’t, it’s not in this book.
