fiction: the lost symbol by dan brown

I have a weakness for trashy page-turners when I’m not so poor that I’m living on classics, which normally cost $10 or less and save me the hassle of trying to find and join my local library. But every time either of my parents travel they usually come back with a suitable example of airport fiction: the kind of book you can read in a single sitting that has a simple plot you can jump straight back into between travel-related interruptions. These books I shamelessly devour, although there’s perhaps a bit of shame since I would never actually buy them myself and don’t consider them worthy of a place on my extremely crowded bookshelves.

Anyway, I probably lose my arty, indie credibility by admitting to this guilty pleasure, but I’m fairly sure I never had any to begin with so that doesn’t bother me too much.

This was not the first Dan Brown novel I’ve read. Obviously he’s best-known for his bestselling (and copyright-contentious) novel The Da Vinci Code, as well as its prequel Angels and Demons, which no one had really heard of before it was made into a film to follow up The Da Vinci Code‘s success.

Why do I choose to educate you in the back catalogue of Brown’s literary career? Because all of Brown’s novels – The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, the lesser-known Digital Fortress and Deception Point, as well as The Lost Symbol – are all exactly the fucking same.

They all involve the same character – a Harvard University symbologist – and a love interest who changes in each novel while remaining basically the same character. Each novel is a battle against the clock that only a tweed-wearing symbologist can solve, and always features a conspiracy theory against a powerful organisation (most notably, the Catholic church). I promise you could make flashcards of the key elements from each book, shuffle them around so that one villain or scenario is substituted for another, and the new hybrid novel would flow on uninterrupted. Brown has his formula, and obviously sees no reason to deviate from it.

In The Lost Symbol, it’s the Masons who provide the backdrop for the drama, as main character Robert Langdon must fight a battle against the clock to save an old friend’s life and uncover an ancient secret. Set in Washington D.C, the novel allows the author to explore the history and symbology of the capital city through long explanations which somewhat undermine the tight time constraints stressed throughout the novel. Langdon must use his knowledge of symbols to follow an ancient trail and uncover a hidden treasure.

Sound familiar?

I thought so too…

Nicolas Cage in National Treasure

The Lost Symbol is pretty much exactly the same as any other Dan Brown novel you may have read, and is recommended only for conspiracy theorists, for unemployed journalists with nothing better to do, and for airports and planes when the passenger entertainment systems have not been turned on yet.