The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Oh Dan Brown what have you done? What oh what have you done? You were in the groove, Angels and Demons was new and unique, The Da Vinci Code then solidified your reputation, but you let the money and fame go to your head. I, by no means, disliked his new book The Lost Symbol, but it was horribly flawed, and honestly the worst of his books. Now if you're one of those people that has been living under a rock and don't know who Dan Brown is, well, get out of your rock and look around!

Dan Brown started out back in the '90s as a failed singer/songwriter. This in and of itself isn't too special, many, many people try and fail in the music world, what's important here is that he released a CD called "Angels and Demons" and used John Langdons ambigram:

John Langdon is, of course, the inspiration for the now world famous Robert Langdon in Browns books. After his stint in music, which he still dallies in now and then, he began writing Digital Fortress--which also happens to be my favorite of his books--followed by Deception Point (bleh), then Angels and Demons and then in 2003 The Da Vinci Code. From there it's history, with over 81 million copies sold, it's considered "one of the most popular books of all time". I am a firm believer that of the books Robert Langdon appears in--Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol--Angels is by far the best. This is all water under the bridge of course, but I figured I should mention it before talking about The Lost Symbol. A mere three years after the release of Da Vinci, it was turned into a blockbuster movie, one that was decent, I guess, but didn't do the book justice. After that, Angels and Demons got eaten up and released in May and was, thankfully, much better, still no match for the book, but not as sickening as the first. Tom Hanks does a fantastic job in both movies, the problem was the complexity of the books, which make it hard to transfer into a movie. The movies, I believe, are Dan Browns downfall.

Unfortunately, they were great hits in the theaters, made him lots and lots of money, and as such... blew his head up. When The Lost Symbol was announced earlier this year I was more than skeptical, but vowed to read it when it came out. Sure enough the day comes, I'm stuck doing a midnight release "party" at my work (only two people showed up) and I begin reading. The first thing that struck me was how amazingly short the chapters were! I thought that maybe he was just dipping into a few places, getting the setting set up and such, but then it quickly dawned on me that he was, in fact, completely serious about writing half page chapters! Two pages, a page, sure, some authors can pull it off, but NOTHING useful can be said in half a page! Why is this? I thought, Ohhh he's making it easy to turn into a screen play! Wow Mr. Brown, wow. Not even Michael Crichton or Stephen King, both of whom have a pretty good track record of getting their books raped into movies, wrote in a screenplay-esque style. Not only were his chapters short, but more often than not he ended them in a mini cliffhanger, which sometimes developed the plot, but mostly made it impossible to find a stopping place. This, of course, is brilliant. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they read his book within a day and late night, you get lots and lots and lots of people reading your book really, really, really fast and you've done something that most books lack: made it so people can talk about it. Most people when they read, it takes them a couple weeks or a month or two to finish a book, but by writing The Lost Symbol in such a way as to not let people stop without severe anxiety makes it almost like a movie. It's true too, that was one book I had a hell of a time putting down! The other thing missing from his book was previous characters or any sort of mention of Langdons previous adventures. What happened with the Grail? With the Vatican? The women?!

The next thing I noticed which made me kind of sad was the blatant product placement. Every other chapter featured the "amazing, advanced, super useful iPhone" or someone is whipping out their blackberry. This isn't too terrible when kept to a minimum, it is nice to know little details such as the brand of soda the character is drinking or the laptop he or she may be using, but to blatantly us iphone and blackberry over and over, was horribly distracting. After the first couple chapters you know the character is using an iphone or blackberry, so then why must Brown feel the need to tell us again the phone they're using and how amazing it is? It calls into question as to whether or not Brown got a little under the table money for his book, naturally there's no word of such a thing, but when the movie comes out I won't be too surprised if iphone sales go up. Then again with Brown putting both the iphone and the blackberry into his book perhaps he was trying to play fair and mention the competitor. We will never know, but it is one of the things that distracted me from the overall smoothness--as smooth as short, choppy chapters can be--of the plot. As for product placement in general, I'm not a believer in its usefulness, especially not in books. Already as a nation we're bombarded with hours upon hours of commercials, I don't see how seeing a product on a television show will up my interest that much. With all the advertising done already, I doubt things can enter my awareness that much more, and no, just because I see House drinking a coke I won't drop everything to find one. When it comes to games, well, in some cases I think it might be okay, if the product is common enough and it fits the setting it's not a big deal, but when I'm playing a game set in the year 2500 and I see the aliens reaching for a coke.. well.. that's just a dumb distraction. And books, well like I said, if it's just mentioned to give us a better overall picture in our head then whatever, but anything more than just a mere mention is too much. I fear that Brown may have opened pandoras box and set loose agonizing distractions and placements for your favorite books. Imagine, sitting down to read your favorite novel, and low and behold the main character pulls out a Kay Jewelers box, the girl swoons, and written in black and white is "every kiss begins with Kay." Or an the characters running from zombies stop, pull out a couple bucks and buy a coke saying "you can't survive without a refreshing coke!". Shoot me now.*

For those of you that read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code you'll remember how blatant Brown was in his bashing of the church and religion in general. Sadly it seems he may have been spooked by all those protesters because this book seems to put major value in religion. I won't go into the details of just how this is done (Lagndon does put his snarky opinion out there), but by the end of the book I was questioning just how Brown had gone from strongly opposing the Church to almost respecting it and its ideals. Along the same lines is the "science" of Noetics which one of the main characters researches. In fact, I really don't know what to think of the whole thing! I looked up the book she referenced and found it to be a metaphysical philosophy book along in the same section as L. Ron Hubbard. I haven't bothered to do any research of my own to see where or how he got his ideas, whether he believes in them or not, or if there is indeed true science behind it, that's a different topic for a another time. In regards to The Lost Symbol, though, it played a roll far larger than I believe it should have, it was interesting, sure, but in the novel--which is set roughly in our time--it was a bit beyond the scope of what he was trying to say. And the Masons, oh dear god the Masons! I know this is something I should have some sort of opinion about, I do, but honestly after reading a bit about it, watching one or two discovery, history channel, or national geographic specials, I really don't care. At all. Sure they influenced our founding fathers, sure they have a symbol on our dollar bill, and are horribly powerful people, I think people just enjoy conspiracies. More to the point, I think that because the Masons are a secretive group that no one truly understands they automatically put a negative/evil opinion on them. They may have some secrets, but so does the FED, CIA, FBI, and practically any government agency in the world. Do I think they hold the key to our "rebirth" or death? Nope.

I've mainly mentioned the negative aspects of Browns novel, but really it's not all bad. I thoroughly enjoyed it; the good, the bad, and the iphone. If one honest thing can be said about Dan Brown, it's this: he is a master of suspense. Sometimes he fumbles the delivery on a plot twist, but a page later you're sitting there amazed at the turn of events. Some of his twists are a bit predictable, but I don't care how many people out there say just how much they saw them coming, he would not be a bestselling author if he didn't surprise his readers. That's what mystery/thriller is! Props to Brown on his ability to throw spins and twists in there to make people shake their head, it's a difficult task, one which I doubt I will ever be able to do, and one that very few authors can do multiple times in a book. Not only that, but his overall style is enjoyable. I, at least, haven't read many authors who can accomplish what Brown does in a 24 hour time line, the emotion, the suspense, the action, some authors can't even manage those things in a setting that lasts a year! All and all, I honestly believe that if you can entertain your audience, make them squirm in anticipation, make them stay up late into the night just to find out what happens next, that you've written a good book. All those negatives aside, that's what every author should aim to do! Sure he may have distracted with the product placement, made the experience choppy with his short chapters, and almost completely reverse his view on religion, but overall he wrote a damn entertaining book! One that with its flaws, still manages to surprise and awe the reader!

Oh and if you're wondering if this is the last we hear from Langdon don't count on it! Just listen to this:

----"Do you have a lot of ideas for future books?
There is no shortage of secrets and adventures for Robert Langdon to take. I have ideas for about 12 books. I know I won't have time in my life to write them all. For a symbology professor, someone who understands iconography, ancient mysteries, there is no shortage of material for this character." ~ Entertainment Weekly 2003

I dunno how I feel about 12 books, but this is surely not the last!


**I've heard a god awful rumor that Amazon is considering putting ads into the ebooks they sell at some point in the near future! Not just little products authors put in, but visual ads IN the books as you're reading! You turn a page, and just like on the radio, an ad will come up for this product or that product before you can move on. Talk about horrible! I hope to god that that is only a rumor, but until confirmed or denied I'm gonna have to say the Kindle has dropped another spot on m list!