Snookered by Dan Brown Again - The Lost Symbol - an uninspiring read at best

[ubique]

Just finished “The Lost Symbol” and have been snookered by Dan Brown once again. I loved “The DaVinci Code”, was reasonably amused by “Angels and Demons”, but The Lost Symbol (another of his Professor Robert Langdon, Symbologist at large novels) has shown that Brown has flogged this horse too many times. Its official – the horse is on its back, hooves are flailing in the air and the tongue is hanging out.

The Location: Washington DC

The Subject: Free Masons (like that’s never been done before as a conspiracy novel)

The Quest: Mulling through the world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, yadda, yadda, yadda in 24 hours to prevent a kidnapped friend from being killed.

The Protagonists: Langdon and a shapely and a curvaceous Smithsonian scientist involved in ground breaking, yet highly esoteric, research. (Wow! What a change in storyline from The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons)

The Antagonists: Purely evil and using Langdon’s talents to uncover mysteries to assist them in dominating mankind (wow – again, what a shock)

The Science and History: The codes and enigmatic symbols are rather two dimensional and about as complex as a Sudoku puzzle. The stated Masonic history is specious at best.

The Ending: The biggest surprise about the climax and culmination of the novel is that you’ve just wasted $20.

The only saving grace is, like all Dan Brown novels, that you can finish it in a few hours.

Save your money and your brain cells.

Ouch

cheers - Mike

[lady of shallot]

Well I loathed and despised The Da Vinci Code so would never give Dan Brown a read again.

[Ms Stackpole]

I gave up on the da vinci code ..too many exclamation marks; he must write for a tabloid newspaper. I saw a man on the train burst out laughing while reading it so I think he had the same opinion of it as me - I was tempted to ask him.

[Suzanne]

I am in complete agreement with all the above posts. I don't understand the allure of Dan Brown. When I put myself on the waiting list for "Divinci Code", (years ago) I inquired about "Angels and Demons" thinking that this was a series of books. The librarian told me that "Angels and Demons" was scheduled to go out of print a month after DC was published. Because of the interest in DV, "Angels and Demons" survived. This suggests to me, that no one had any interest in "Angels and Demons" for quite some time, why is this book so popular now? Have our standards in literature gone down over the years? It is comforting to know that readers here on BT have high standards and expect more from the books they read.

[Ms Stackpole]

I think standards are very low, the top ten bestseller list makes me want to weep .. usually trashy novels "written" by Jordan, dreadful formulaic romances or those appalling stories of abuse filled childhoods. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't be so judgemental and it should be heartening to see people actually reading per se ... but the majority of the time I despair.

[stahrwe]

I thought the movie version of the Da Vinci Code was a comedy.

Suzanne, nice to meet outside of the arcade.

[Suzanne]

Indeed!

I thought the movie version of the Da Vinci Code was a comedy.

The book was pretty laughable as well.

[outofmyarse]

I read this book a while back...I thought it just was just too long, got bored in the end

[2006S197]

I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one disappointed with The Lost Symbol. Several times during the book I thought of giving it up, but kept going for some reason.

[Arrem]

I too find the enthusiasm for Dan Browne's novel an embarrassment. It seeems to me that the only Good Thing to have resulted from the popularity of The Da Vinci Code is increased interest in Rosslyn Chapel:
http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/history.php