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38 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but very Staid, 23 Nov 2009
The Lost Symbol takes a long time to get going and although there are some interesting observations around The Masons and Washington's history, the plot really does creek quite badly. It's been a while since I read Dan Brown's other books but I do not remember if the constant use of highlighting people's thoughts throughout the narrative was something he used before but it was very noticeable and irritating here. The 'twist' (without giving it away) was odd as the early part of the book misleads in this regard. The Lost Symbol did keep my interest until the end but left me feeling mainly deflated in terms of expectation.
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127 of 174 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A rollercoaster of a novel...with some issues., 16 Sep 2009
Like many, I reserved my copy of Dan Brown's long awaited sequel to The Da Vinci Code back in March. Yesterday the book fell through my letterbox and I pounced on it and proceeded, I plead guilty, to race my way through it in under 24 hours. The book is fantastic, the plot is well developed in the main and Robert Langdon continues to exude his appeal as the bookish Professor of symbols. My criticism however, lies in the plot and Langdon's interaction with other characters.
The plot is markedly similar in feeling to the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons - I felt that in the demand for a new book, Brown has merely recycled some parts of his previous book and included them in this one. Don't get me wrong, the recycled goods are sparkly and new, but readers who know The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons well will be aware that they'll have the occasional flashback to the older book whilst reading the new one. Brown knows his symbols and uses them to great effect in this novel, but there's just something that doesn't entirely fit. By the end of the book, Washington D.C feels almost like the Vatican. The basic premise, as it was in The Da Vinci Code, was that all is not as it seems. Newton and his band of brothers created symbols implanted everywhere and those with the relevant skill set can treat them and explore the knowledge within. A great plot that leaves the reader exhilarated throughout the book, the first time they read it.
The beauty of The Da Vinci Code was that it was really very plausible. Millions of us flocked to the internet to look up everything in it that caught our interest. The thrill was amplified by the fact that a lot turned out to be true, if Google is accurate. However, the fact that the same situation is true in The Lost Symbol left me feeling as though the situation should have been changed, the book written differently - a case of been there and done that. The book reads, in large sections, like a tourist map of Washington, with Langdon and his friends as the guides. Langdon, with one encouraging word from another character, launches into huge drawn out explanations of know-it-all fact, leading the reader to feel as though they are in the Lecture Theatre being taught. This feeling was minimised in The Da Vinci Code, to the extent that one can read it over and over without feeling as though they're learning. The same cannot be said of The Lost Symbol - it's a very large lecture, an enjoyable one though.
The refreshing mix of fact and fiction left me feeling refreshed and exhilarated for The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, but in The Lost Symbol, I feel that the amount of fact in the novel, and therefore the amount of Langdon's explanations, was too much, and so it blurred the lines between fact and fiction and almost became a sequence of facts, linked together by Langdon's narrative and the situations created in the plot. One wonders if Dan Brown is a fiction writer or someone who has an excellent researcher whom he has relied upon a little heavily in writing this book. Obviously, following the sheer success of the previous book, there must have been a large amount of pressure to make it bigger, better, more complex. He's done this, but sadly, the narrative is strained by all the factual explanations to the point where the reader is aware they're being lectured.
The other criticism I had of the book is Langdon's character, particularly his character's involvement in the plot. I get the feeling that our dear Professor Langdon may fall prey to what I call the Jessica Fletcher Syndrome. Where a character is serialised, it can get to the point where the reader sees the writer struggling to come up with innovative situations to place their character in and so the plots get more and more outlandish until CIA Directors are taking a Symbols expert and sending him into buildings with CIA Agents, whilst naming him "one of the team". The other worrying claim was that Langdon was the "only person in the world" with the expertise to solve the puzzle - what happens if he dies...will the age old Masonic groups crumble, will government cease to work? In Dan Brown's world, it seems they would, which is troublesome. In previous novels, what made Langdon so good was that he felt as though he was out of his depth, relying on his instincts and education. In this book, he's a lot more of a celebrity, complete with being recognised. Much like the famous J.B. Fletcher. The same happened in Murder, She Wrote...wherever Jessica went, murder followed in increasingly bizarre ways. Given Brown's recent statement that he has around 23 more ideas for books involving Langdon, it seem's we may be subjected to the diluting of a great character over the next couple of decades. The great test of a writer, I believe, is that he or she knows when to stop writing a character; knows when all they set out to do has been accomplished and that playing with the character further would result in the degradation of it. I fear that Dan Brown will fall into this trap with Langdon.
Aside from those two issues, I really enjoyed this book. It was fast paced with a great plot, although sometimes overly complex, and a good twist near the end. I read it non-stop and loved each moment of it, despite my misgivings. I would read it again, but ultimately felt that it was a bit forced. When reading The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, it felt natural and that they had been written with absolute devotion. With The Lost Symbol, I felt that it was more of an "I have to write another book" situation, rather than a "I'd really enjoy writing another one". I think long time Dan Brown fans will ultimately prefer the older novels such as Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels & Demons, and of course, the tour de force that is The Da Vinci Code.
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68 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
It should have stayed lost!, 27 Sep 2009
So... What can I say?
I remember reading Angels and Demons and thinking, "This is a fast paced, intelligently researched and well written book!" Then I read The DaVinci Code and thought, "Hmm... Well it's an interesting idea, but ultimately it's just an average "fact" filled adventure book." So now I've read Dan Brown's new one and I think, "Why did I bother?"
We were asked to wait so long between The DV Code and this new one that we were fooled into thinking that it would actually be worth the wait. But trust me, it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, I like the rest of Brown's novels, in so much as you could mostly disengage your brain and let the story carry you along to the end. Brown has the uncanny knack of leaving the ending of every single chapter on a knife edge, meaning you have to read the next chapter to find out what's going to happen. But whereas his other books have made you want to see where he's going to take you next, with The Lost Symbol I honestly found myself not caring less.
The main protagonist (Robert Langdon) has gone from an intellectual Indiana Jones, to a bumbling uncle who's had one too many sherry's and is not quite sure where he is or why he's even there. The reasoning behind the way he acts is so at odds with what real people would do, it leads to him being a totally unreal character who simply does and says the things he does to carry the story to it's next destination. The other characters that are presented are very one dimensional and totally unbelievable. Character study in Brown's novels has never been great but in this he has seriously left the realms of reality.
The story arc follows his previous novels almost to the letter with just a few differences here and there. If you haven't got the money to buy this book, just take a second hand copy of Angels and Demons and every time you come across the word "Rome" cross it out and write "Washington". Do the same for "Freemasons" and "Illuminati" and you'll pretty much have yourself a copy of this book. It's the tired old formula of presenting a question, having the hero figure out the answer just at the right time, before another question pops up that means he has to go somewhere else to figure out another answer. Not exactly original material here. There's not a lot of intrigue, and because of the unbelievable characters you'll find yourself not really caring if the characters solve the clues presented to them or not. Oh, and if the "twist" towards the end of the novel comes as a shock to you, then 1)congratulations for making it that far, and 2) really, you didn't see it coming?
Information wise, it's almost as if Dan Brown has shares in Wikipedia. There is so much information (I would call it fact, but I'm not so sure if a lot of it is) crammed between the covers that every chapter invariably ends up feeling like you're reading a school history text book. In previous books Brown presents mostly smaller snippets of info which makes them easier to digest. Here he writes so much information all clumped together that you'll find yourself reading the first few sentences then simply scanning the rest waiting for the action to start up again.
And as for the ending (or rather the central idea behind the novel), the whole "Hidden Mysteries" reveal at the end, that you'll read over 500 pages to get to, it's such a let down, you have to ask yourself "really, is that it?" You will be disappointed!
As you might have guessed, overall I was sorely disappointed with The Lost Symbol. I expected Brown to present a new take on Robert Langdon after all he experienced in the previous novels he featured in. I expected an interesting new story line that would take the "believable" characters in a new direction on an adventure that didn't follow all the seen before cliches. I expected interesting facts delivered in a way that made me want to learn more about them.
What I got was a main character I now don't care at all about. A totally unoriginal story line filled with cardboard characters doing unrealistic things for the worst possible reasoning. Information crammed down my throat that has already been regurgitated in half a dozen adventure fiction books in the last five years, and a complete pummeling into me that America was founded on "such great ideals" (seriously, this novel couldn't get more stand up red white and blue if it tried).
Unfortunately, this novel will sell by the shed load (hell, I bought one as soon as it was released) due to the fact The DaVinci code was a so so decent read, and Dan Brown will make squillions of Dollars (no doubt he is already scouring Wikipedia for the plot of his next novel).
With so many great action/adventure fiction novels out there (I'm thinking Scott Mariani, Andy McDermott, James Rollins etc), you really have no need to read this unless you are a true die hard Dan Brown fan.
Save yourself some money and watch the (better) movie version, I think it was called "National Treasure".
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