The Lost Book

For my inaugural review that bashes all, I inflicted a certain book by a certain author upon yours truly. Said book was The Lost Symbol by the lost Dan Brown. I understand completely that he has done lots of research before writing a piece of fiction as fit to hold water as Labsman Filter Paper TM, whose review is under serious consideration and may feature in consequent posts, but frankly, I'd be more delighted reading those research papers as they were, rather than reading it with a bunch of colourless characters appended as footnotes, shamelessly parading themselves openly inviting Mexican-born Hollywood directors to make a flimsier movie out of it. The book pans out to a five hundred odd pages, every chapter ending with cliched cliff-hangers that made no sense, much like the science that backed his research. The plot revolves around the unrealistic Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist who's perfect in everyway, thank you very much. He's a stud, with eidetic memory, a perfect physique, a deep rich voice and is also (Drum roll), a professor(Tada! Applause). Give him a pair of wings and X-Ray vision and voila, Superman's second cousin stepped out of his closet and is out to save the world from evil villains trying to take over the world with the help of a pyramid and objects of similar consequence. The other characters are equally idealised, and I've noticed this with every single book of his, there's always a female, single, eligible and voluptuous, (did I mention superhumanly qualified in their respective fields?) and always around Langdon, dewy and wide-eyed, as he lectures her on abstract symbols and answering questions no one asked. The plot in itself is tiringly predictable, with Langdon and his trusted femme-fatale side-kick running from the security agency of whichever country they step on, an old trusted friend of Langdon thrown in to answer a bunch of more questions and also briefly provide sanctuary for these fugitives even though the charges against them make no sense. The whole running from the government routine, I trust, is a cheap ploy to make the story seem racy and fast-paced. It was interesting in the first book, little so in the second, and downright annoying now. One can't hope to come up with a new novel by just changing the locations and the names of the bad guys. The only change between his previous works involving Langdon and this one is that there's no insane plot twist at the end that would make you go rolling your eyes saying, "Not again". Anyway, Brown delves in the world of the Freemasons, a deeply secretive and childish little club that no one cares about, other than deluded conspiracy theorists who love glorifying small tunneling mammals to mountains. The book also dabbles with Noetic science, as mainstream as alchemy and astrology, among other things. It also talks about providing concrete answers to the most fundamental of questions that have plagued humanity since he started walking upright, ending the book providing vague metaphorical references and rhetoric, something we already know.(Hello? 42 is more definite an answer to life, the universe and everything). I don't blame him for not knowing the ultimate truth, but the least he can do is not jump around claiming to know everything.(By the way, if the secret answer is coded so well that only the best and the brightest can decipher, how did Dan Brown do it?). In the end, The Lost Symbol is just literary evangelism trying earnestly to portray religion as a scientific method, fooling no one whose I.Q is greater than that of a dying jellyfish. On the whole, it's just another hollywood style suspense thriller manufactured by people whose only talent is cheap showmanship aimed at wooing the obese, gullible Joe American.