Tuesday 22 September 2009

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown


“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”

Who would have thought that such words would be uttered by one of the most brilliant mind in the world? The person who wrote a book so thick and so well defined that few could ever understand it. The person is none other than the creator of E=mc2. The great Albert Einstein himself.

In this latest book by Dan Brown, the plot is again focused on the hero Robert Langdon and his escapades filled with symbols, interpretation and lots of historical facts/fiction (depending on which sides you're taking :-P).

Robert Langdon was tricked into this by the baddie, Mal’akh and thus began his quest of deciphering the symbols strewn along the way. Of course our hero will always be assisted by a genius lady; in this case, the lady is Katherine Solomon. The person in much distress this time is Peter Solomon (notice the similar surname?)

The enigmatic Mason society has been breached at the highest order (Mason's Thirty-Third Degree) by a person who called himself Mal'akh. A person who sets his mind on learning the great secret and Ancient Mysteries held by the Masons by planning his eventual transcendence as THE ULTIMATE EVIL; which involves killing the Solomon family, one-by-one, and those who stood in his evil path.

However, in the end, our anti-hero didn’t manage to achieve his goal as his ultimate victory was spoilt by his father... none other than Peter Solomon himself..!! What a bummer, a dad who doesn’t recognize his own son..!! No wonder the wasted kid turned into Mal’akh after his escape from Turkish prison. Peter Solomon, despite being an overtly rich person, decided to teach his only son; Zachary a lesson or two in being a righteous person by denying the guard some “coffee money” in exchange for the early release of the kid. No wonder Zachary aka Andros aka Mal’akh is pissed.

Robert Langdon fumbled quite a lot in this novel and if not for handy-man or assistance he received along the way, he wouldn’t be able to decipher the multi-layered Masonic symbols and interpretations hidden even among the venerable Thirty-Third Degree Brotherhood.

The ending part of the book explained on the Ancient Mysteries in which the summary would be discouraging literal interpretation of great books such as Bible, Quran, Torah and such. New field such as Noetic Science (try googling this out :-)) is one of the mainstream subjects in this novel. We also found out that the founders of USA did leave a lot of Mason landmarks during the early years of the country’s birth. You’ll have to read thru the book to find out more about that though :-)

In my opinion, this book fell into the same trap as what I pointed out for The Tower by Valerio Massimo Manfredi. It seems to me that Dan wrote this book to be adapted into silver screen and not to be read. To me, the plots are rather weak and the writing style of the novel remains the same as previous 2 books. The ending part of the book is rather confusing because Dan tried to explain and summarize the gist of the novel into the last 3 chapters.

Personal rating: 6 out of 10

Cons:
1) Closure of the novel is rather confusing. I had to read and digest it slowly before I can really grasp the overall idea.
2) Plot of the book is too cheesy. To me, it looks as if the book is written solely for silver screen.
3) Writing style is the same as 2 previous books. No change in the modus operandi.
4) To sum it all up, I am very disappointed with the book despite the initial euphoria.

Pros:
1) Fast moving storyline and ample cliffhangers along the chapters.
2) Interesting little known facts about the Masons and the early founders of USA. I did write down those itsy-bitsy of info and googled it after I’ve finished the book.

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