Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Reference:
Brown, Dan. 2009. The Lost Symbol. Doubleday Books.

Rating:
5/10

Review:
I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a fan of Dan Brown’s novels, but I have read the two previous novels in the Robert Langdon series and enjoyed them sufficiently to be interested in the latest book. Events conspired to bring the book into my home (my Mom brought it when coming to visit) just as I was getting ready to take a flight across the U.S. for an academic conference in Denver. Facing the prospects of a 4 hour flight (both ways) and having to choose between reading a book for work or a Dan Brown novel, I chose The Lost Symbol. I’m not sure I made the right choice…

As with The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons, Robert Langdon, the world’s foremost symbologist (whatever that is) is minding his own business when he receives a call and ends up sucked into a plot to reveal the hidden mysteries of, this time, Freemasonry. Freemasonry does, of course, have a close connection to the U.S. and was likely influential in some of the early architecture of Washington D.C. Thus, The Lost Symbol becomes a romp through Washington D.C. as building after building and symbol after symbol are loosely connected to Freemasonry, often through strange machinations that are likely untrue.

The romp through D.C. interweaves with a strange subplot involving Noetic “science”, a field of inquiry solidly falling into the realm of quack-pottery and pseudoscience (see this Wikipedia entry: Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research). One of the main characters, Katherine Solomon, claims to have uncovered the remarkable ability of human thought to alter the physical world just by thinking about altering it, which she, of course, fails to use throughout the book (if it actually worked, it would have saved everyone involved in the story quite a bit of trouble).

As is the case with most stories, there is some pivotal element of conflict that drives the action. The Lost Symbol includes such an element, but it is such a remarkable disappointment that it quite literally deflates the entire book once you find out what it is. Basically (spoiler alert), the antagonist in the book, Mal’akh, joined the Freemasons under false pretenses and filmed all of their initiation rights secretly. He has now edited the rites in such a fashion that they portray Masonry negatively and the film includes footage of a lot of notable Washington D.C. politicians. He sends the video to the CIA and says he’s going to release it to the public unless Robert Langdon translates a map to the “Hidden Mysteries” of Freemasonry for him by midnight. This leads Inoue Sato, the head of the CIA Office of Security, to enter the fray, first helping Robert Langdon find the mysterious pyramid with the map, then chasing him down once he flees. That Mal’akh has threatened to release his edited film of Freemasonry initiation rights isn’t revealed until almost the end of the book, but Inoue Sato shows the video to a number of people to get them to help her track down Langdon and the map, claiming this is an issue of “national security.”

When I finally learned what the “national security” issue was, I literally laughed out loud. This “national security” issue allows the CIA to fly blackhawk helicopters all over D.C. in the middle of the night and no one seems to mind. It also allows heavily armed, nightt-vision wearing CIA agents to traipse through buildings, parks, and subways without anyone so much as raising an eyebrow. All of this happens before the reader is told what the national security threat is, probably because you would find the response so over-the-top you’d stop reading if you learned about it later.

If people in the U.S. don’t know about Freemasonry now, telling them about it isn’t going to change anything. Perhaps my view of Americans is a bit cynical, but I think Americans are too jaded to care that many of the top politicians are involved in rituals that involve dressing up in funny robes and pretending to kill each other. If Freemasons want to spend their time doing that, I don’t think anyone but the most ardent conspiracy theorists will care.

Oh, and Brown also reveals what the “Hidden Mysteries” are in the end – The Bible. Wow! The only way the story could be a bigger disappointment is if the Hidden Mysteries turned out to be something even more unintelligible, like, say, the writings of Franz Kafka or Cleon Skousen.

So, why five stars if the book is so bad? Well, Brown is a good writer. He makes you want to know how the book is going to end. As a result, you are entertained, even if it is just entertaining disappointment after entertaining disappointment. If you want to read a novel you know will disappoint, but may entertain you in the process, The Lost Symbol is a book to consider.