Book Review: The Lost Symbol

It's been a week since the release of the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown so I guess that it is safe for a book review, without spoiling it for people who don't need spoiling.

The Lost Symbol (left: US cover, right: UK cover)

The storyline is reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code in the lines of having a crazy villain on the loose, a female counterpart on the run with the protagonist, Robert Langdon, a disabled person with partial answers, secret keys to unlock (this time it's a pyramid), references to famous buildings and monuments, flashbacks to lectures and a very long epilogue afterwards.

What's new in this book (I've read all of Dan Brown's books) is an attempt (albeit a weak one), to try a Jeffrey Archer immediately before the climax. For this one, Jeffrey Archer had spoilt it for me, but it's no big loss anyways. There's also references to Noetic Sciences. What it is, I'm still not sure even though I've finished the book; I'm sure Brown's knowledge about this is nowhere deeper than the rest of us, based on the single physical example he used in the book. Otherwise, his every point is heavily substantiated with numerous examples, like in a PhD thesis.

It's a good read, although some of the chapters are quite repetitive. I'm not an editor of a novel publishing house but I read plenty of novels written by British and American writers... and the Lost Symbol was frankly, quite tedious reading. I had to put the book down a few times out of annoyance. But I kept on.. as I never read a book and leave it unfinished.

Ironically, the factual parts i.e. Robert Langdon's lectures, were more pleasurable to read than the story itself. The book is more than 500-pages thick but a good quarter of it could have been edited away as they were merely page fillers.

The solution to the whole puzzle was not as explosive as the Da Vinci Code (cause how can you top that one?) although the word 'enlightenment' pops up a lot in this book. I did learn much about magic squares and would be googling more about it in this coming few days.

There is also the deal about clues hidden in the cover... which I'm going to go 'play' with now. I need to get back my money's due.