I'd probably have to give The Lost Symbol - the biggest book release of the year - 2.5 stars. It wasn't awful, but it's also no match for The Da Vinci Code or my personal favorite, Angels & Demons. Simply put, it just wasn't as enthralling as the other two - there was never a point where I felt absolutely compelled to keep reading.So, The Lost Symbol is the third Robert Langdon novel, with our hero being lured to the Capitol under false pretenses. When he gets there, he finds out he's not there to give a speech; instead, greeted by his friend's severed hand, he learns that he must uncover the Mason's long-buried Lost Word to appease a lone madman. Over the course of the night, Langdon teams up with the victim's sister, Katherine, and runs all over D.C. trying to solve the mystery and avoid the CIA.
Part of the problem, I think, is that The Lost Symbol doesn't stand on its own - its format is VERY similar to The Da Vinci Code and towards the end, there's some thematic overlap with Angels & Demons. It didn't totally feel like its own book, although I think he made a smart choice in this one by not attempting to deliver the secrets of the Masons. In The Da Vinci Code, he comes up with an answer for the modern location of the Holy Grail, which requires a large suspension of disbelief; here, instead, he manages to wrap up the book without having to make something up, to the book's benefit. (It's the same sort of choice that Junot Diaz makes in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, with the Mongoose's secret message.)
I also think, perhaps, that for me, the Freemasons are just not as compelling as the history of Christianity or science versus faith at the Vatican. I don't really know anything about the Masons or the conspiracy theories surrounding them, so I didn't really have any preconceived notions to be stripped of.
In the end, I did learn something about the Masons (and feel like there are some places in D.C. that I'd like to re-see). But more than anything, I learned - or rather, remembered - that wow, it's really easy to manipulate people. Obviously this is a work of fiction but I was struck time and time again by how the villian managed to fairly believable gain entrance to places simply by acting with confidence.
People generally give Dan Brown shit, but I like him. I don't think he's setting out to write great literature - his purpose seems to be to write a good thriller. And I think he accomplishes that for the most part here. It's not The Da Vinci Code, but that's probably an unrealistic standard to hold him too. (And hey, Dan, if you're feeling somewhat down about the mushy reviews, have a listen to Elizabeth Gilbert talk about the expectations that come with blockbuster success.) So I totally have to give Dan Brown props for poking fun of himself:
On page 355, he writes, “In a flash, Langdon understood the meaning of Galloway’s last request. Tell Peter this: The Masonic Pyramid has always kept her secret…sincerely. The words had seemed strange at the time, but now Langdon understood that Dean Galloway was sending Peter a code. Ironically, this same code had been a plot twist in a mediocre thriller Langdon had read years ago.”
The name of that mediocre thriller? Digital Fortress, Dan Brown's first book.
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