Book Review: The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown

You can tell this is a fantasy, because the Redskins are in the playoffs.

I've read all of Dan Brown's books so far, and if you liked his others, you will probably like The Lost Symbol. I don't think it is as good as the earlier books, for several reasons, but it still is entertaining and pulls the reader along on its rapid roller coaster of action and puzzle solving.

The Lost Symbol takes place over only eight hours or so, though there are numerous flashbacks giving some of the characters' background to set the story. All of Brown's books take place over a short time, with the main characters rushing from one crisis to another, usually with something important on the line should they fail to solve the current puzzle presented by Brown's antagonist. I think the Lost Symbol takes place over the shortest time yet. The puzzles are interesting enough, and are presented along with an interesting take on the history and relationship of Washington, DC and the Freemasons.

Brown claims that everything he presents here, historically and scientifically, is true. I think he classifies something as true if he can find any reference on the internet to someone who once claimed it as true. There is a touch of hyperbole. I know computer stuff pretty well (it's my day job) and Brown is laughably ignorant on most computer issues. This is hardly a fault restricted to Dan Brown, as most books and especially movies get computer stuff wrong. Actually, I understand why. Real life computer are boring! And there doesn't seem to be any Lost Symbol.

The biggest problem with this book, though, is that it fails to convince us that the crisis his characters are involved in is in fact a crisis. We are repeatedly told that some information, hidden from the reader, is a matter of national security. One character, shown a screen image of this information, immediately changes his entire motivation. Yet when we are shown the basis for the national security crisis, it seems boring and mundane. The villain has a secret video of prominent politicians and celebrities participating in secret mason rituals! Oooh! That is to say, so what! Politicians and celebrities are seemingly daily shown to be doing much worse.

Interestingly, my audiobook version had an added feature: a sneak preview of Dan Brown's next blockbuster, The Mother of God! Here is what I can remember.


The Mother of God, by Dan Brown.

"Listen!" said the eerily close, disembodied voice. Robert Langdon recognized the voice as that of the tall, tattooed, muscular, hairless albino who had earlier chased him through the tunnels beneath old New York.

"Like a Virgin. Touched for the very first time!" played from some unfathomable source.

"I don't understand! It's a Madonna song," cried Langdon.

"Exactly," whispered the whispery voice. "Pay closer attention, Mr. Langdon."

"Robert, I know you can figure this out!" Margarita Villaneuva said to Langdon with fatigued lovingness. "You are the most brilliant symbologist I have ever met!" Margarita admired Langdon's muscular swimmers body, smelled his seldom washed tweed jacket. In all of her twenty four years, she had never met a man like Robert Langdon, not even while getting her doctorate in mystical string theory from MIT.

Langdon tried to focus. He had hurt his shoulder hanging from the Empire State Building, and twisted his ankle when the hang glider landed from the Statue of Liberty. The last thirty seven minutes had been pure hell! Still, he knew the answer was just beyond his grasp.

"Madonna," Langdon thought aloud. "Most people associate the word Madonna with the Virgin Mary, but it literally means 'My lady.' But there is another, older meaning. Mad Onna means Mad Japanese woman."

"Robert, maybe he's not referring to the singer! Maybe he wants us to examine the lyrics!"

"Margarita, you're even more brilliant than you are beautiful! 'Like a virgin' must be referring to extra virgin olive oil! And it's not 'touched', it's touche-d, from the old French word tuchier. And the root of tuchier is..."

"Tuch!. Robert, do you mean..."

"Yes, it's so obvious now!"