Book Review: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown


Six years after The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown has done it again. He has created a story shrouded in religious and artistic mystery that is, well, strangely (nay eerily) familiar. Here, Brown falls back on the same basic formula that garnered him success with The DaVinci Code (and Angels & Demons). In fact, it could basically, be the same book - change the setting from Europe to Washington DC, replace Leonardo da Vinci with Albrecht Durer, Isaac Newton with, um, Isaac Newton, and Opus Dei with new, crazy, misinformed bad guy. 


It would be entertaining, except there is nothing new here. Brown leans a little too heavily on his magic formula, relying on some of those implausible action scenarios that showed up in Digital Fortress and Angels & Demons. (I don't care who you are, you're not going to survive a 1,000 foot jump from an exploding helicopter with no parachute - and should you survive, you're certainly not going to do so without a single broken bone in your body). Kudos to the editor of The DaVinci Code, who I am assuming didn't let Brown get away with that. But where, exactly were they for this book, I wonder? 


Also unfortunate is Brown's choice to dumb down the Robert Langdon character. More often than not, we find Langdon debating points of history with just about everyone. This became trivial and annoying and seemed more of an outlet for the author to show off his research rather than a tool to advance the story (boring). 


In the end, it appears that Brown's take away message is that the conspiracy is 'there is no conspiracy' - that spirituality above religion is key & that divinity is everywhere, even in science (We get it Dan). All said, it's still an entertaining read if you keep your expectations well on the superficial side and do some skimming here and there.


And to Dan Brown I say, move on to something new, give Robert Langdon a break, the poor man's GOT to be tired by now. 



Amazon readers gave it 3 out of 5 stars
Goodreads folks gave it 3.34 out of 5 stars
I give it 2 stars out of 5.

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